Inflation in essential areas, including car insurance, car repair, transportation, rent, homeowner costs, and food away from home, far exceeds the 3.2% CPI headline rate, challenging the notion of a broader decline in prices and signaling an ongoing affordability crisis for consumers.

Congressional decisions could lead to widespread repercussions in the trucking industry, particularly impacting small and mid-sized fleets, potentially causing financial strain and increased bankruptcy filings.

New York City is moving migrants out of shelters and offering them plane tickets to anywhere in the world.

As the late Tatiana Gracheva never tired of pointing out, the key component in the collective West’s battle plan is cultural and spiritual fragmentation of its perceived Russian adversary. Once the divisive groundwork had been successfully laid, the expectation is that political disintegration, creating opportunities for plunder on an epic scale, would follow as a matter of course.

The conflict in Ukraine raises the practical question of how realistic such expectations actually are. That question is very serious.

We would contend that more likely than not the indicated expectation is based on a colossal misreading of the target’s mentality and on woeful ignorance of its impressive historical record of resilience. The target, of course, is the Russian world as such, in the broad sense of the term, encompassing three pivotal components, Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus, but more than that as well.

Estrangement on all levels of Ukraine from Russia (Brzezinski: “Without  Ukraine, Russia ceases to be an empire”) is a fundamental objective in the multi-layered conflict engendered by the West between Russia and  Ukraine.

Iran's foreign minister has revealed the content of secretive back channel talks with Washington, and this marks rare positive news to come out of a Middle East which remains on knife's edge amid the Gaza conflict. The very fact of these quiet discussions over red lines suggests both sides are legitimately interested in restraint related to broader tensions outside Gaza. However, a dangerous tit-for-tat has ensued at US bases in Iraq and Syria.

Iran's top diplomat Hossein Amirabdollahian has said in a fresh interview with FT that Tehran does not want to escalate with Israel and the United States, and doesn't want to see the war centered on Israel and Hamas spiral further. He said this despite the now daily exchanges of fire involving Hezbollah along the Lebanese border. In the backdrop, Washington is rumored to be very hesitant at this point on censuring Iran over any development on its nuclear program.

Webmaster addition: That will be hard with Israel already attacking Syria and Lebanon!

The fighting in Gaza has left tens of thousands of Palestinians dead or injured, media workers among them. Israeli journalist and political activist Haggai Matar, executive director of +972 Magazine, said his colleagues there had paid with their lives for "doing an incredible job."

Israeli forces have killed dozens of Palestinian journalists reporting from inside the Gaza Strip, says their Israeli colleague.

Following a month-long bombing campaign against the besieged Palestinian enclave, home to 2.3 million people, the Israeli Defense Forces have surrounded Gaza City and are assaulting government buildings and hospitals. More than 11,000 Palestinians have been killed so far and almost 30,000 wounded, according to the Palestinian Authority's health ministry based in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Among them are dozens of journalists.

Israeli journalist Haggai Matar told Sputnik that his colleagues inside Gaza have done invaluable work in documenting the results of the Israeli military offensive and humanitarian conditions there.

The Israeli occupation army has blown up the Palestinian Legislative Council building in Gaza after it was occupied by the Golani Brigade, Yedioth Ahronoth has reported. The army announced on Tuesday that it had taken control of several government buildings in Gaza City, including the Legislative Council headquarters and the police headquarters.

As usual when destroying civilian infrastructure, the Israeli occupation forces claimed that the buildings were being used by Hamas for “military purposes”.

Suicide rates for American service members and veterans are nothing short of catastrophic, with recent estimates claiming almost 17 vets take their own lives in the U.S. every day. Many of them suffer from post-traumatic stress and debilitating brain injuries, which traditional medications have largely failed to cure.

As many veterans with PTSD remain desperate for healing, a growing number are turning to psychedelic-assisted treatment in Mexico — using substances the government they fought for says are illegal.

One of those former service members is Herb Daniels, who spent 14 years as a Green Beret and nearly four years in active combat. After he retired from the military, he said he faced a profound darkness that started to consume him. 

The suicide rate among veterans rose slightly in 2021 as federal officials struggled to make more progress in their outreach and emergency response efforts designed to curb self-harm.

According to estimates released by the Department of Veterans Affairs on Thursday, suicides among veterans were up 1.8% from 2020 to 2021, the most recent year for which state death data is available. The totals had dropped each of the two years before the 2021 reversal.

An estimated 17.5 veterans died by suicide every day in 2021. That’s the second lowest rate since 2007 but still translates into nearly 6,400 preventable veteran deaths that year.

Elon is done FA'ing with these people.

He is going after Media Matters and anyone related to or funding the organization, and ALL of their related entites!!

We are witnessing an inconsistency in the legal treatment of former President Trump and President Biden concerning the handling of documents.

Has Kiev noticed where the real political power is in today’s America, or is it just a way to pressure the Biden ‘administration from hell’?

Before he was an unshaven, military-clad worrisome wartime leader we see today, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was just a smiling, smart-looking, suit-wearing eastern European leader negotiating with US president Donald Trump in seemingly good faith.

However, a ‘perfect’ phone call between Trump and Zelensky was later weaponized by Democrats and used as justification for his first ‘impeachment hoax’.

Crime is so out of control in Memphis that police chief CJ Davis doesn’t think the Army can save the day.

OutKick readers know the situation in Memphis is far past bad. It’s downright appalling, and a stain on the entire country that criminals seem to run roughshod in a major American.

Below are a few recent examples of the carnage and chaos:

Palestinian death toll: 11,025[1] (10,829 in Gaza[2] (including at least 4,506 children and 3,027 women), and at least 196 in the West Bank). 

Palestinian injuries: 30,076[2] (including at least 27,490 in Gaza[2] and 2,625 in the West Bank). 

It remains unknown how many Americans are among the casualties. About 1.6 million people have been displaced; 3,500 are missing (1,740 children) and presumed to be under rubble.

Israel has now killed more Palestinians in a little over a month than in all the previous 22 years combined.

Reported Israeli death toll has been reduced to ~1,200[3] (The Israeli spokesman said the original figure of deaths on March 7 was an “initial estimate” – 3 killed in West Bank, 49 in Gaza), including 32 Americans, and ~5,400 injured). The names of the 1,162 identified (33 of them children) are here.

At least 21,927 Palestinians and 2,597 Israelis have been killed by someone from the other side since 2000.

Author Ben Bartee confirms in the article below, quoting Lt General Richard Clark that:

American Troops are “prepared to die for the Jewish State”.

What should be understood by this statement is that the US and Israel have a longstanding Military “Partnership”  as well as a “Signed” Military Agreement (classified) regarding Israel’s attack on Gaza. Our analysis confirms that the U.S. is pulling the strings. 

Lt. General Richard Clark is U.S. Third Air Force Commander, among the highest-ranking military officers in the U.S. Armed Forces.

While he refers to Juniper Cobra, “a joint military exercise that has been conducted for almost a decade”, his statement points to a much broader military-intelligence agreement (classified)  which no doubt consists on the unconditional endorsement of the Israeli genocidal attack against Gaza by President Joe Biden, leading to the annexation of all Palestine territories to the State of Israel.

While this so-called “signed agreement” remains classified (not in the public domain), it would appear that Biden is obeying the orders of the perpetrators of this diabolical military agenda.

Webmaster  addition:I notice that actual American troops did not have a comment about this!

Donald Trump is now 39 points ahead of his rival Ron DeSantis in Florida, a new poll has revealed, in yet more bad news for the struggling state governor.

Trump, 77, won 60 percent of support among registered Republicans polled by the University of North Florida, while DeSantis could only claim 21 percent.

Nikki Haley, Trump's former UN ambassador, came in third with six percent, while Chris Christie, the former governor of New Jersey, won two percent.

Vivek Ramaswamy, the millionaire entrepreneur and political newcomer whose star has burned brightly but now seems to be fading, won one percent.

Sales of electric vehicles in the US have plateaued even though sales of cars overall remain healthy - suggesting many buyers are in no mood to ditch gasoline models anytime soon. 

Over the last six months, overall car sales have been higher than they were for the same months in 2022 or 2021 - when demand for EVs was still increasing.

But in 2023, EV sales during the same period have stalled at around the 100,000- a-month mark following a period of rapid growth.

The reduced demand has seen inventories stock piled, with prices of EVs slashed over the last year. 

Video footage reveals the shocking moment a huge stampede of migrants cross into the US through the Tijuana River - with one man found dead shortly afterward. 

A 36-year-old West African man who was part of the crowd died along the Tijuana River channel early Wednesday morning.

Mexico's National Institute of Migration shared the video showing dozens of migrants running into the country - knee-deep in the water.

The victim's body was reportedly found downstream near the northern border in California's Tijuana River Valley, according to Fox 5. 

The only Democrat who has announced plans to run against Joe Biden for the 2024 presidential nomination has hired a former Minneapolis lawmaker who backed a movement to abolish the city's police department. 

Minnesota Representative Dean Phillips revealed on October 26 that he would be challenging the current president for the Democratic primary.

The 54-year-old, who is one of the richest members of Congress, has enlisted the help of a former Minneapolis City Council member who supported calls to dismantle the city's police following the murder of George Floyd in June 2020.

Alondra Cano, 42, said 'the Mpls Police Department is not reformable' but is now part of Phillips' presidential campaign despite the fact he has been against the 'defund the police' movement. 

Influencers are increasingly using TikTok to complain about the economy and their financial future, giving rise to fears among Joe Biden's team that his 2024 election chances could be imperiled by the platform.

Hashtags such as 'Silent Recession' are gaining traction online, which the White House worries is undermining their message about 'Bidenomics' showing positive signs.

Generation Z - those born after 1996 - and Millennials combined could account for as many votes next year as the Baby Boomers and their elders: the groups that have made up a majority of voters for decades.

Amid the ongoing fighting in Gaza, Israel is reportedly looking to hire construction workers to replace Palestinians.

It is believed that as many as 90,000 Palestinians had been working in the construction sector in Israel, but the terrorist attacks by the Hamas militants in October prompted Israeli authorities to revoke their work permits.

According to media reports, the Israel Builders Association has since urged the government to take steps toward hiring up to 100,000 workers from India.

The war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza is increasingly having an effect on neighboring Jordan.

"The country is very involved in the war across the border," Kelly Petillo, Middle East researcher at the European Council on Foreign Relations, or ECFR, told DW.

"More than half of Jordan's population is of Palestinian origins, Queen Rania herself has Palestinian roots and the issue of Palestinian statehood sees huge support from the population and the government," she said.

In turn, Jordan's King Abdullah II has sharpened his tone against Israel since the beginning of the war that was prompted by the deadly Hamas attack on Israel on October 7. During the Cairo Summit for Peace in late October, Abdullah II called Israel's siege and bombardment of Gaza "a war crime."

Since then, bilateral relations between the two countries that signed a peace treaty in 1994 and collaborate closely across economic, energy and security related projects, have reached a new record low.

Hundreds of patients, staff and displaced people left Gaza's al-Shifa hospital on Saturday, leaving only a skeleton crew to care for those too sick to move.

Columns of sick and injured — some of them amputees — displaced people, doctors and nurses, made their way toward the seafront, AFP news agency reported.

On Saturday, the Israeli military said it had been asked by the hospital's director to help those who would like to leave do so by a secure route.

The military, however, said it did not order any evacuation, and that medical personnel are being allowed to remain in the hospital to support patients who cannot be moved.

As The Gateway Pundit reported earlier, House Speaker Mike Johnson released the first batch of January 6th footage that is accessible to the general public on the Committee on House Administration website.

Johnson, in a post on X, shared, “To restore America’s trust and faith in their Government, we must have transparency. This is another step towards keeping the promises I made when I was elected to be your Speaker.”

He continued to write, “This website will be updated continuously with thousands of hours of footage.”

As of right now,  Rep. Johnson has released over 90 videos that range anywhere between 20 seconds to 10 minutes long.

This looks like the end.

It doesn’t seem likely that the government would skip a Ukraine funding bill and then come back with another big one.

PayPal Holdings, Inc. is a great company and their stock price reflects that. They are a leader in the online payment space and have shown consistent growth over the years. Their revenue for the most recent quarter was impressive and I expect them to continue to perform well going forward.