Healthcare comprises almost 20% of the United States gross national product. In our effort to keep our readers informed about the topics that most impact on their lives we presented a writing last week by Dr. Robert Pearl entitled, “ In healthcare’s game of Monopoly, one player will control the board, ” in which Dr. Robert Pearl presented a private solutions to inefficiencies and problems that exist in America’s health care industry. Today we present a video from IssueOne examining the healthcare industry. Right now, healthcare lobbyists are legally allowed to buy our elected officials’ votes. As long as that’s the case, our representatives will continue to choose campaign donations over Americans’ lives. The healthcare industry spends more than anyone else lobbying politicians to rig the system on their behalf. That should be illegal, but it’s not.
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A forest fire glowing with bright orange flames and smoke at night
Photo by Egor Vikhrev on Unsplash
Humans May Start Wildfires. Climate Change Makes Them Catastrophic.
Oct 16, 2026
The summer of 2026 once again saw wildfire smoke from the West Coast and Midwest blanketing East Coast skies. Smoke-filled summer skies now seem to be the norm across America, and wildfire season isn’t even close to over.
The public response is also becoming normal. When investigators determine that a person started a wildfire, online chatter usually centers on the idea that humans are the cause and that climate change could not have played a role. That argument confuses the ignition source with the complex conditions that contribute to wildfire. A spark may explain where a wildfire began. It cannot, on its own, explain why flames spread so far and devastate entire communities.
As a professor and through my work studying fire and helping launch the Eastern Fire Network, I have seen how wildfire emerges from an interaction among three basic ingredients: an ignition source, flammable vegetation, and climate conditions that dry fuels and let flames spread.
And it’s true, humans often supply the spark that starts wildfires.
Researchers examining more than 1.5 million wildfire records from 1992 to 2012 found that humans caused 84 percent of U.S. wildfires. Human ignitions also made the fire season three times longer than the lightning-caused fire season and added an average of roughly 40,000 fires per year. Human-started fires expanded especially in the eastern United States.
At the same time, climate change is increasingly creating conditions that make these incidents worse.
A warmer planet increases evapotranspiration, making it harder for vegetation to cool down. As vegetation dries, it becomes more flammable, allowing fires to ignite more easily, spread faster, and burn more intensely. One study found that human-caused climate change accounted for approximately 55 percent of the observed increase in fuel aridity in western U.S. forests from 1979 to 2015.
A hundred years ago, a discarded cigarette in the woods or an improperly extinguished campfire could have produced a manageable fire. Under today’s climate conditions, that fire could be far more dangerous when it sparks amid parched vegetation after weeks of abnormally high heat and little rain.
Meanwhile, across forests in the East, decades of fire suppression and changing land use have increased woody cover by about 37 percent from 1990 to 2020, with Pennsylvania’s Appalachian and Allegheny landscapes seeing some of the largest increases. This has resulted in more fuels in areas where more people live.
That is why identifying a wildfire's source is only part of the equation. We must consider climate change when managing future wildfire hazard, or we risk ignoring one of the forces making the landscape more combustible and the resulting fires harder to contain.
If, as a country, we address the growing threat of wildfires only by preventing accidental ignitions and managing overgrown vegetation, we ignore rising temperatures that dry fuels and create more dangerous fire conditions. And as most forest managers know, managing forests this way is far too costly and unsustainable.
Protecting communities over the long term will require confronting climate change directly: replacing fossil fuels with cleaner, cheaper energy sources like solar and wind, and holding elected officials and industries accountable for the choices that continue to drive global warming. Without these necessary actions, fire prevention will address only a fraction of the problem while the underlying danger grows.
We also need to learn to live with fire, creating defensible spaces around our homes, factoring fire risk into zoning and emergency management planning, and using beneficial fires to restore healthy forests where appropriate.
There will undoubtedly be many more devastating wildfires, and responses will likely continue to blame the source while ignoring climate change's role. If we dismiss climate change, we also dismiss part of the solution, leaving the country unprepared for the increasingly dangerous conditions that drive fire intensity.
Humans may provide the spark, but the science shows that climate change is increasingly turning fires into catastrophes.
Dr. Erica A. H. Smithwick is a professor of Geography at Penn State, a landscape and ecosystem ecologist, and leader of the Eastern Fire Network.
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U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth testifies during a Senate Committee on Appropriations hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on July 21, 2026. Hegseth is crafting a strong and masculine identity for his audience as he reportedly contemplates a presidential run.
(Alex Wroblewski/AFP/Getty Images/TNS)
Politicians Can’t Just ’Give the People What They Want’
Oct 16, 2026
For reasons that will baffle my many detractors, I am often asked for advice about being an opinion journalist. One of my standard responses is: You have to be willing to disappoint your biggest fans.
What I mean is that if you start to see your job as telling fans what they want to hear, you risk becoming an entertainer rather than a thinker, and eventually you become a caricature. I’ve seen it happen numerous times. Patrick Buchanan was a brilliant columnist and a serious person. But over the course of his career, he listened too much to the people who said, “Go Pat, go!” and too little to friends who said, “I think that’s taking it too far.”
In journalism — or what passes for it — you can see the same arc most acutely in talk radio and TV hosts, who define their roles as telling the audience what it wants to hear rather than what it needs to hear. In the early Trump era, many prominent pundits were fairly conventional conservatives. When the audience veered towards populism and MAGA, the hosts followed the advice widely attributed to the French 19th century politician, Alexandre Auguste Ledru-Rollin: “There go the people, I must follow them, for I am their leader.” (In fairness, he didn’t say it, critics ascribed it to him.)
But the most dangerous realm for this dynamic isn’t political journalism. It’s politics. Politicians often are captured by their true-believing base. It’s most commonly seen among “conviction” politicians, who make a name for themselves on a single issue or idea. Congressman and Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan’s deep populist support was enough to earn him the Democratic nomination three times (1896, 1900 and 1908), but his support wasn’t wide enough to ever win.
Segregationists like George Wallace, socialists like Norman Thomas, and even Buchanan himself offer similar examples of the problem. Sarah Palin, Bernie Sanders, Kari Lake and Ron Paul provide more recent cautionary tales.
One of the key problems is ego. Politicians see huge crowds or read favorable media coverage and assume their people are the people. In the U.K., socialist Labor politician Jeremy Corbyn was wildly popular among people who liked Jeremy Corbyn. He brought his superfans into the party, but his superfans didn’t represent the broader electorate or even the traditional rank and file who fled the party in droves.
At a campaign event for Lake’s 2022 bid for an Arizona U.S. Senate seat, she asked the crowd, “We don’t have any McCain Republicans in here, do we? All right, get the hell out.” John McCain was one of the most dominant political figures in Arizona, winning six back-to-back Senate elections. Thinking that she didn’t need support from Republicans, or the Democrats and independents who voted for McCain, was a pristine example of mistaking intensity of support for quantity of support.
But I started with journalism to illustrate a point. Jesse Watters, a reliable water-carrier for President Trump, is Fox News’ most popular prime-time host, averaging about 2.7 million viewers per night. That means on any given night, roughly 346 million Americans aren’t watching. But if you’re Trump, you might think Watters is representative of the American people.
Now Watters’ audience does matter, not least because GOP primary voters and small donors are undoubtedly more likely to watch. And because of idiotic “reforms” to our system, many politicians now care more about the primary electorate than the general electorate, because the greatest threat to incumbency is in party primaries. Also, primaries are what matter for the nomination.
The result: Politicians orient themselves to small, intense slices of the electorate. This polarizing dynamic is further intensified by social media. Politicians and activists mistake the “vibes” of X and TikTok for the real world. They become intensely “online” and responsive to the feedback they’re fed by social media algorithms.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth recently told Jack Posobiec, the exceedingly online conspiracy theorist and right-wing troll, that the Pentagon would livestream the execution by firing squad of Nidal Hasan, the Fort Hood shooter. I have no issue with Hasan being executed, but a livestreamed execution of a man in a wheelchair is grotesque. Hegseth, who is reportedly contemplating a presidential run, cares about appearing strong and manly to Posobiec and his audience. Posobiec, if you didn’t know, is an open superfan of Spanish dictator Francisco Franco, hosting “Franco Fridays” on his podcast.
It seems that Hegseth’s pandering to a tiny sliver of the electorate won’t yield a political snuff film. Even Trump and JD Vance are leery of the idea.
But, who knows, maybe if Watters starts pushing it, they’ll change their minds.
Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.
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Gallup and The Rippel Foundation report just 48.1% of Americans are thriving and hope is at a record low. See how 14 communities are changing course.
Getty Images, miodrag ignjatovic
America’s Well-Being Falls, but Communities Are Rewriting the Future
Oct 15, 2026
American well‑being has fallen to levels not seen in more than a decade, and hope about the future has dropped to its lowest point since Gallup began tracking it in 2008. Yet a new report released today by Gallup and The Rippel Foundation argues that decline is not destiny. Across the country, communities are already using well‑being data to understand local conditions, bring residents and leaders together, and chart a different course.
The report, Thriving Together in America: Trends, Discoveries, Community Action, and Advice for Leaders, draws on Gallup’s national well‑being data plus insights from practitioners working to reverse the slide. It paints a sobering picture of the nation’s present trajectory—but additionally highlights local efforts that show how communities can strengthen the vital conditions that support thriving.
Well‑Being Is Falling — and Hope Is Falling With It
Gallup finds that just 48.1% of U.S. adults were “thriving” in the third quarter of 2026, down more than 10 percentage points from the 2021 peak and approaching historic lows. Hope — measured by expectations for future life — stands at 59.4%, essentially unchanged from last year’s all‑time low.
The declines are not evenly distributed. Young adults ages 18 to 29 have experienced the sharpest deterioration: from the highest‑thriving age group in 2010 (64%) to the lowest in 2026 (44%). Thriving levels have also converged across racial and ethnic groups, but the convergence reflects broad declines rather than shared improvement.
Place is still a powerful determinant. Some counties approach 70% prospering while others hover near or below 40%, underscoring how national averages may obscure the actual realities shaping people’s lives.
“The report’s data confirm what we already know: division, othering, and turning away from each other are bad for our well‑being,” said Becky Payne, President and CEO of The Rippel Foundation. “The steep declines are a clarion call, but in no way a verdict on our future.”
Communities Already Changing the Trajectory
The report profiles 14 communities using well‑being measurement not simply to document challenges but to guide action. Their experiences point to a shared lesson: data becomes most powerful when assessed alongside resident knowledge and used to inform decisions over time.
In Greater Cincinnati, the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center partnered with Gallup to build one of the nation’s most comprehensive regional well‑being measurement systems. The data now informs decisions on food security, youth well‑being, and juvenile justice — demonstrating how granular insights shall shape policy and investment.
“Community measurement isn't just about tracking a number; it's about giving leaders and residents a shared, more granular perspective of their own conditions,” said Dan Witters, Research Director of the Gallup National Health and Well‑Being Index. That shared perspective, he said, helps communities move from a general sense of decline to specific, actionable priorities.
“Well‑being data can be both a mirror on the past and a map toward a better future,” added Bobby Milstein, Director of System Strategy at The Rippel Foundation.
Four Drivers of Thriving
The report identifies four drivers that shape whether communities thrive:
- Belonging and civic muscle — Opportunities for people to show up for one another strengthen connection to place.
- Vital conditions — From food and water to humane housing and social connection, these necessities form the foundation for long‑term well‑being.
- Fairness in systems — Redesigning systems so opportunity is not determined by identity or starting point.
- Effective urgent services — Meeting immediate needs without allowing emergency responses to crowd out long‑term solutions.
Communities aligning around these drivers are already showing measurable gains. But the report stresses that no single institution — not government, philanthropy, business, or health systems — can create these conditions alone. Progress requires cross-sector coordination and a common understanding of what residents need.
A Call to Measure, Learn, and Act
The report urges leaders to begin by measuring well‑being locally — not to produce a scorecard, but to start a conversation. Sustained improvement, it argues, will come from communities learning from one another, acting on what they find, and coordinating across sectors.
The full report, Thriving Together in America: Trends, Discoveries, Community Action, and Advice for Leaders, is available here.
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A Navy veteran argues the Trump administration keeps reaching for fascist symbols, from eagle imagery to a livestreamed execution.
Ira L. Black/Getty Images
If It Quacks Like a Fascist
Oct 15, 2026
The Trump administration is evoking neo-fascism on purpose. I want to say that plainly, because when a pattern is this consistent, it would be naive to call it a coincidence. They may deny the intent, but they keep reaching for fascist symbols. If it looks like a fascist and quacks like a fascist, it probably is one.
When a reporter at opening night of Les Misérables asked Trump whether he identified more with Jean Valjean, the protagonist who steals bread to feed the hungry, or Javert, the villain who treats mercy as weakness, Trump called it a tough one. It’s not a tough one, unless you want to be the bad guy. And he might. In their new book, Regime Change, New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan describe a moment when President Trump showed them a list that placed him alongside Mao, Stalin, Hitler, Attila the Hun, and Genghis Khan. By Swan’s account, the president relished the company. Trump is less worried about his approval ratings or the law than about expanding his personal power.
The symbolism is far from subtle. In June, Trump posted an AI-generated image of a giant gilded eagle spread across the Truman Balcony, and the official White House account shared it. People quickly saw its resemblance to the Reichsadler, the Nazi eagle. On October 3, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth addressed Air Force Academy cadets in front of an eagle emblem with rigid, straight-edged wings, breaking from the department’s own brand guide. I served as a Naval officer for ten years, and it’s hard to think of a group that takes symbols more seriously than the military. We salute flags, memorize insignia, and can identify a squadron by its patch. When the people running the Pentagon redesign the imagery, they know what they’re doing.
It’s not just imagery. This spring, a Colorado state intelligence center warned law enforcement nationwide that the Department of Homeland Security’s ICE recruitment posts carried so many white supremacist themes they could endanger the public. Cops were warning other cops about their own government’s memes while DHS called its tactics “bold and effective.” DHS was also urging people to “remigrate,” a word Europe’s far right uses to mean ethnic expulsion and one historians tie to Nazi-era deportation rhetoric. Meanwhile, neo-Nazi forums keep urging their members to join ICE. DHS is preaching to the choir, and recruiting from it.
That’s just the advertising. The product looks like people getting disappeared on their way to work, and a father shot in front of his child, and more than 500 American citizens detained by immigration agents, some held for at least a day without being able to call a lawyer or their family. Deaths in detention have hit a record, in facilities some human rights scholars are calling modern concentration camps. As a reminder, 100% of detainees are human beings.
There is no remorse from this administration. If anything, they’ve doubled down. In late September, the White House spent more than $1.7 million in taxpayer money on TV ads in which the president vows to drive out the globalists and cast out the communists and Marxists. Even Republican Senator Thom Tillis likened it to Viktor Orbán’s Hungary. Historian Timothy Snyder, who literally wrote the book on tyranny, called it fascist.
Last week, Hegseth announced that Nidal Hasan, the man responsible for the murder of 13 people at Fort Hood in 2009, will be executed by a firing squad of soldiers, and that it will be public. The Pentagon confirmed it will be livestreamed. A military court convicted Hasan and sentenced him to death, but why must there be an audience? Last year, only two countries are known to have carried out public executions: Iran and Afghanistan. Is that the company we want to keep?
England and Wales abolished public executions in 1868, partly out of alarm at what watching hangings did to the crowd. As historian Rosalind Crone told The Guardian, public executions didn’t deter crime, and sometimes had the opposite effect. Psychiatrists have warned that the livestream could cause PTSD in viewers, not to mention what it may do to the soldiers chosen to pull the triggers. As a veteran who was trained to fire torpedoes and Hellfire missiles, I still find it sickening to glorify violence of any kind. But this administration has posted hype reels splicing a montage of actual strikes on Iran with Call of Duty clips. If they can post war slop with such gleeful abandon, turning an execution into “content” is on brand.
Ultimately, we know this administration is not actually trying to deter violence. At Trump’s recent rally for Ken Paxton, a man in a MAGA hat grabbed a protester by the hair and tried to pull him to the ground. The president reacted by saying, “Is there anything like a Trump rally?” Then he joked that the man was going home to his mother, who, Trump added, had voted for him. An American was exercising his right to protest, he was assaulted, and his president mocked him. For this administration, the cruelty has always been a spectacle. Now they just want a bigger audience.
Neo-fascism is upon us. This administration has shown off an eagle that looks like Hitler’s, ridiculed a beaten protester, courted neo-Nazis, and packed warehouses full of humans who are dying in record numbers. Now they want to livestream an execution by firing squad. They want to embolden the Nazis among us, and to provoke everyone else. Elon Musk, who, according to the mother of one of his children, told her he wanted “a legion of children before the civil war,” was just tapped by Hegseth to co-lead the Pentagon’s study on the future of warfare. It would not be an overreaction to be upset, but don’t take the bait.
Some insist we’re nowhere near fascism because they’re naive or haven’t been paying attention. Others are hoping that’s exactly where we end up. Learn to tell the difference. The first group can still wake up, and we can help. Show them how far down the authoritarian playbook we already are, and welcome them into the resistance. To anyone who says I’m fearmongering, consider this: if we sound the alarm and then never lose our democracy, we might feel a little embarrassed for being dramatic. But when the cost of not sounding the alarm could be losing our country to neo-fascism, dismissing the threat is negligent, at best.
So join me. Call your representatives and ask them, on the record, whether DHS should be recruiting with white supremacist messaging and whether the Pentagon should be livestreaming executions. Talk about it with your family and friends, too. And be prepared to show up for your neighbors. All of them.
Valjean wins in the end, by the way. Not because he’s stronger, but because he refuses to stop being decent.
Julie Roland was a Naval Officer for ten years, deploying to both the South China Sea and the Persian Gulf as a helicopter pilot before separating in June 2025 as a Lieutenant Commander. She has a law degree from the University of San Diego, a Master of Laws from Columbia University, and is a member of the Truman National Security Project.
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The President Invited Iran to Bomb My Home