For once, Medicare is trying something that actually saves money



Medicare is the second-largest program in the federal budget, topping $1 trillion last year. In 2023, it accounted for 14% of federal spending — a share projected to reach 18% by 2032. After years of ballooning costs, something is finally being done to slow the growth. A new Medicare pilot program, the Wasteful and Inappropriate Service Reduction model, borrows a successful private-sector tool: prior authorization. And that’s good news.

Medicare Part B premiums now sit at $185 per month — up 28% from five years ago and a staggering 76% since 2015. Last year, 12% of the 61 million Americans enrolled in Part B spent more than a tenth of their annual income on premiums. That burden is unsustainable.

In a system as expensive and fragmented as ours, no one can afford to keep writing blank checks for low-value care.

WISeR, set to launch in Ohio, Texas, Washington, New Jersey, Arizona, and Oklahoma, will require prior approval for a short list of “low-value” services — procedures that research shows are frequently overused, costly, and sometimes harmful.

To some, the idea of Medicare reviewing certain treatments before covering them may sound like red tape. But when done correctly, prior authorization is not a barrier. It is a guardrail — one that protects patients, improves quality, and helps ensure that both tax dollars and premiums are spent appropriately.

The goal of WISeR is simple: Cut unnecessary treatments and shift resources toward more effective, evidence-based care. Critics warn about the possibility of delays or extra paperwork, and those concerns are worth monitoring. But they don’t negate prior authorization’s potential to make U.S. health care safer, more efficient, and more financially stable.

Prior authorization directly targets some of the most persistent problems in health care. Medicare spends billions each year on low-value services. A 2023 study identified just 47 such services that together cost Medicare more than $4 billion annually. Those are taxpayer dollars that could be put to better use.

The private insurance market shows the same pattern: unnecessary imaging, avoidable specialist referrals, and brand-name drugs chosen over generics all contribute to rising premiums. Prior authorization, when used properly, reins in this waste by ensuring coverage lines up with medical necessity and evidence-based best practices. Research from the University of Chicago shows that Medicare’s prior authorization rules for prescription drugs generate net savings even after administrative costs.

Consider one striking example. Medicare Part B covers wound-care products known as skin substitutes. But an Office of Inspector General report found that expenditures on these products skyrocketed over the past two years to more than $10 billion annually. Meanwhile, Medicare Advantage plans — which rely heavily on prior authorization — spent only a fraction of that amount for the same treatments.

RELATED: When a ‘too big to fail’ America meets a government too broke to bail it out

DNY59 via iStock/Getty Images

More importantly, prior authorization helps promote evidence-based medicine. It curbs outdated clinical habits and reduces financial incentives to overtreat. Health plans consistently say that prior authorization aligns care with gold-standard clinical guidelines, particularly in areas prone to misuse.

Of course, the system must be designed responsibly. A well-functioning PA process should be transparent, fast, and grounded in strong clinical evidence. Decisions should be made in close coordination with the patient’s treating provider. The appeals process must be straightforward. And both public and private payers should be held accountable for improper denials or harmful delays.

When structured this way, prior authorization is far more efficient than the current “pay-and-chase” model, where Medicare pays first and tries to recover improper payments later.

Prior authorization already works in the private sector. It can work in Medicare.

Public and private payers have an obligation to steward the dollars they spend — whether those dollars come from taxpayers or premium-payers. In a system as expensive and fragmented as ours, no one can afford to keep writing blank checks for low-value care. When implemented wisely, prior authorization keeps coverage aligned with medical necessity, elevates the value of care, and helps deliver better outcomes at a sustainable cost.

While the lights are off, let’s rewire the government



The United States faces an existential threat from the accelerating military power of communist China — a buildup fueled by decades of massive economic expansion. If America intends to counter Beijing’s ambitions, it must grow faster, leaner, and more efficient. Economic strength is national security.

The ongoing government shutdown may not be popular, but it gives President Trump a rare opportunity to make good on his campaign pledge to drain — and redesign — “the swamp.” Streamlining the federal government isn’t just good politics. It’s a matter of survival.

A government that builds wealth rather than expands debt can out-produce China, sustain deterrence, and restore the American ideal of self-government.

George Washington ran the nation with four Cabinet departments: war, treasury, state, and the attorney general. The Department of the Interior came later, followed by the Department of Agriculture, added by Abraham Lincoln in 1862 when America was an agrarian power.

The modern Cabinet, by contrast, is a bureaucratic junkyard built more in reaction to political problems than by design. The Labor Department was carved from the Commerce Department to appease the unions. Lyndon Johnson invented the Department of Transportation. Jimmy Carter established the Department of Energy in response to the Arab oil embargo. The Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence emerged after 9/11.

The result is a patchwork of agencies wired together with duct tape, overlap, and patronage. A government designed for crisis management has become a permanent crisis unto itself.

Enter the Department of National Economy

A return to first principles starts with a single question: How can we accelerate American productivity?

The answer: consolidate. Merge the Departments of Commerce, Labor, Agriculture, Transportation, and Energy into a Department of National Economy. One Cabinet secretary, five undersecretaries, one mission: to expand the flow of goods and services that generate national wealth.

The new department’s motto should be a straightforward question: What did your enterprise do today to increase the wealth of the United States?

Fewer bureaucracies mean fewer fiefdoms, less redundancy, and enormous cost savings. Synergy replaces stovepipes. The government’s economic engine becomes a single machine instead of six competing engines running on taxpayer fuel.

Fold Homeland Security into the Coast Guard

Homeland Security should be absorbed by the U.S. Coast Guard, which already functions as a paramilitary force with both military and police authority, much like Italy’s Carabinieri. Under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, DHS personnel would share discipline, training, and accountability.

FEMA would cease to be a dumping ground for political hacks. Any discrimination in disaster aid — such as punishing Trump voters — would trigger a court-martial.

The Secret Service would focus solely on protective duties, handing its financial-crime work to the FBI. The secretary of the Coast Guard would gain a seat in the Cabinet.

Restoring intelligence to the OSS model

The Office of Director of National Intelligence should be re-established as the Office of Strategic Services, commanded by a figure in the tradition of Major General “Wild Bill” Donovan. Elements of U.S. Special Operations Command would be seconded to the new OSS, reviving its World War II lineage.

All intelligence agencies — CIA, DIA, FBI, the State Department, DEA, and the service branches — should share common foundational training. The current decline in discipline and capability at the National Intelligence University, worsened by the DEI policies of its leadership, demands urgent correction. Diversity cannot come at the expense of competence.

RELATED: Memo to Hegseth: Our military’s problem isn’t only fitness. It’s bad education.

Photo by Isaiah Vazquez/Getty Images

Law enforcement and the flat tax

At the Department of Justice, dissolve the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Shift alcohol and tobacco oversight to the DEA, firearms and explosives to the U.S. Marshals.

Let the DEA also absorb the Food and Drug Administration, which would become its research and standards division.

Return the FBI to pure investigation — armed but without arrest powers. Enforcement should rest with the U.S. Marshals. Counterintelligence would move to the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency, reinforced by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.

The IRS should be dismantled and replaced with a small agency built around a flat-tax model such as the Hall-Rabushka plan.

Move the Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response to Homeland Security. Send its Office of Climate Change and Health Equity to NOAA — or eliminate it entirely.

At the Department of Housing and Urban Development, expand the inspector general’s office tenfold and pay bonuses for rooting out fraud.

Restoring deterrence

The Pentagon needs its own overhaul. Because of China’s rapid military buildup, the Air Force’s Global Strike Command should be separated from U.S. Strategic Command and report directly to the secretary of war and the president under its historic name — Strategic Air Command.

Submarines and silos are invisible; bombers are not. Deterrence depends on visibility. A line of B-1s, B-2s, B-52s, and 100 new B-21 Raider stealth bombers, all bearing the mailed-fist insignia of the old SAC, would send an unmistakable message to Beijing.

RELATED: Exclusive: China behind massive nationwide SIM farm network that directly threatens American critical infrastructure

Photo by Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Toward a leaner republic

With Trump back in the White House, this moment is ripe for radical efficiency. A government that builds wealth rather than expands debt can out-produce China, sustain deterrence, and restore the American ideal of self-government.

George Washington’s government fit inside a single carriage. We won’t return to that scale — but we can rediscover that spirit. A lean, unified, strategically organized government would make wealth creation easier, limit bureaucratic overreach, and preserve the republic for the long fight ahead.

Disabled vets denied dignity as VA claim backlog becomes unbearable



My husband and I visited our families for Independence Day. For millions of Americans, that's a typical summer tradition. For us, it was an extraordinary day. Kyle is an active-duty naval officer who has spent several years of our marriage deployed overseas and across the United States.

Kyle and I expected the challenges of military life: the deployments, the stresses on mental health, even the risk of homelessness or divorce that looms over many military families. Yet the one issue we weren’t prepared for — one we are keenly aware of as Kyle approaches retirement — is the shock of seeing firsthand the Department of Veterans Affairs repeatedly fail those who have served.

The VA made all veterans a promise: dedicated care after service. Today, that promise is broken daily.

From December 2023 until June of this year, I served as the ombudsman for my husband's ship, the USS Harry S. Truman. My role was to bridge the gap between command and families, ensuring that they had access to critical resources and could reach command in case of emergency. In that position, I watched closely as families ahead of ours navigated life after active service, applying for the VA benefits they had been promised.

What I’ve observed is nothing short of betrayal.

A broken promise

Veterans aren't just denied their hard-earned benefits by bureaucratic red tape. Their entire lives are often put on hold, causing untold mental health, family, and professional suffering in addition to what is endured during deployments.

One of the most common struggles veterans and their families face is the historic backlog of claims at the Department of Veterans Affairs. While the number has improved in recent months, nearly 185,000 backlogged disability claims remained unprocessed as of June.

RELATED: Anti-American ideology still festers at West Point

DepthofField via iStock/Getty Images

Veterans regularly spend months — or even years — in limbo, trying to secure the benefits they’ve earned while dealing with disabilities incurred while serving.

Partially disabled veterans with treatable conditions like tinnitus or various levels of post-traumatic stress disorder want to work in the private sector, but they need specialized care to do so. Getting approval for that care is a nightmare, with many giving up altogether or resorting to expensive — or sometimes shady — advocates for assistance.

Lawmakers must step in

That's why states and Congress must intervene where the VA has failed. In Rhode Island — my home state and possibly our future home — the legislature introduced the Save Act, a state-level version of the federal Choice Act. Both bills aim to expedite the benefits process by allowing veterans to hire certified consultants. Importantly, these measures would safeguard veterans from exploitation by setting payment caps, ensuring that providers have VA approval, and mandating that consultants only receive payment after veterans do.

Unfortunately, Rhode Island's legislature rejected the Save Act, instead passing a more restrictive bill that prohibits veterans from consulting experts during their initial claims for benefits. Despite this setback, momentum in several states and Congress to support veterans is encouraging.

Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins says he’s made progress on the backlog, but decades of mismanagement and corruption can’t be unwound in a matter of months. Moreover, a supposed 25% reduction in claims backlog raises troubling questions: How many veterans were hastily denied to meet bureaucratic quotas?

I’ll be old and gray before this bureaucratic nightmare is fixed — if ever.

Our veterans deserve better

When Kyle first raised his right hand, America made him — and all veterans — a promise: dedicated care after service. It’s the same promise that has been made to veterans for decades in return for enduring stressful deployments, risking both their lives and family bonds. Today, that promise is broken daily. Families are subjected to unbearable delays and bureaucratic hurdles, often forced to fight for benefits they've already earned or tragically never receive.

I’ll always cherish Independence Day 2025, which took us up and down much of the East Coast — together, for once, as an entire family. It offered a glimpse into the life we dream of when Kyle retires — a life we earned together through sacrifice. The VA should help us realize that dream, not obstruct it.

It's past time for lawmakers and VA leadership to fulfill their obligations and put veterans first.

This conservative fix — without protections — could help Democrats rig elections



Conservatives across the country are building momentum to clean up elections. Donald Trump’s proposals call for paper ballots, voter ID, and in-person voting on Election Day only. These reforms would mark a major improvement over the chaotic 2020 election — when Joe Biden somehow received more votes than any presidential candidate in history.

But tightening election procedures also risks reviving an old Democratic trick: voter suppression.

The inability to print a ballot is ultimately no different than a refusal to provide a ballot to a voter. It is voter suppression.

In an ideal system, voting would happen exclusively on paper ballots and in person. No mail-ins. No drop boxes. ID required.

However, to counter suppression efforts in Republican precincts, polls should remain open for several days — perhaps even a full week. Extending in-person voting would allow voters to push back against the tactics designed to keep them home.

I am well aware of how voter suppression works because I have the scars to prove it. When I started voting in Travis County (Austin), Texas, in the 1980s, ballot suppression in Republican precincts was an established protocol by the Democrats who ran the county. The strategy was two-pronged:

Insufficient voting booths: Conservative precincts were provided very few voting booths, causing extremely long lines. I watched many people drive up, look at the line, then drive away. Many other would-be voters already in line would finally give up and forgo voting. While my precinct had four or five booths, I’d later watch the evening news show Democratic precincts outfitted with dozens.

Ballot shortages: It was a predictable occurrence that Republican precincts would run out of ballots before the polls closed due to “unexpectedly” high turnout. Those in line could either wait for hours until someone showed up with “provisional” ballots, or they could give up. Most people would not wait in line until 10 p.m. just to cast a vote.

Not enough ballots

I was in the habit of voting first thing in the morning on Election Day to ensure I got a ballot. Even though the wait was long due to the bottleneck caused by so few voting booths, I would at least get my vote in. But the ballot I cast also resulted in a missing ballot for someone else trying to vote later in the day, as Democratic officials who ran the county made sure that there were fewer ballots than voters in my precinct.

The county elections administrator always had an excuse for the ballot shortages in Republican precincts. She’d cite a local statute that required her to allocate ballots based on average county turnout. Since Republican precincts had higher voter turnout than the county as a whole, shortages were guaranteed — by design.

When early voting finally came about several years later, I was thrilled. I was tired of battling my own county officials just to cast a Republican vote.

Decades later, these tactics are still in use.

The recent Wisconsin Supreme Court election, for example, drew national attention because the outcome could affect midterm Congressional redistricting, which could then swing control of the U.S. House of Representatives from Republican to Democrat.

On Election Day in Milwaukee, 69 of its 180 precincts reported ballot shortages, and nine precincts ran out of ballots completely. Milwaukee’s top election official offered a familiar excuse: Ballots were printed based on past turnout. But voter participation surged to 50%, far above normal for a spring election. It was “unexpected.”

Some conservatives pushing for same-day voting likely haven’t considered that those in charge of ballot preparation might simply not provide enough.

Ballot printing — or lack thereof

Another method of voter suppression involves ballot printing. If the printer “breaks,” there’s no ballot to cast. This tactic has benefited Democrats in recent elections, such as in Phoenix, Arizona’s Maricopa County, and Texas’ Harris County.

In the 2022 Arizona gubernatorial election, Republican Kari Lake narrowly lost by 17,000 votes out of 2.5 million counted ballots. Long lines due to printer problems caused many Arizonans to give up and leave before voting. Moreover, thousands of ballots that were printed could not be read by ballot-counting machines.

RELATED: Why voters are done compromising with the ‘America Last’ elite

cosmaa via iStock/Getty Images

Similarly, in the 2022 gubernatorial election in Texas, printer problems prevented many voters in Republican precincts around Houston from being able to obtain a ballot. As reported by the Houston Chronicle, a few days after the election, “More than a dozen voting locations in Harris County ran out of the paper used to print ballots in voting machines Tuesday, county officials confirmed. Some sites, poll workers and voters said, had no ballots on hand for one to two hours.”

“From our standpoint, it seems there was an attempt to make sure there were not enough ballots at Republican polls,” the chairman of the Harris County GOP told the Chronicle. The inability to print a ballot is ultimately no different than a refusal to provide a ballot to a voter. It is voter suppression.

Ample ballots, ample booths

If we are going to use all-paper ballots, states need to mandate that each precinct open on Election Day with enough printed ballots for every registered voter. Any unused ballots must be destroyed after polls close to protect election integrity.

There also must be enough voting booths to ensure that long lines don’t become a voting deterrent.

Personally, I’d prefer that in-person, paper ballot voting be allowed over several days to ensure that Democrats cannot engage in Election Day voter suppression tactics. One suppressed Republican ballot carries the same weight as one fraudulent Democratic vote stuffed in a ballot box.

Trump’s SEC pick would blow up Biden’s lawless financial agenda



The media’s narrative has done its job. Many Americans now see Donald J. Trump not as a reformer but as a symbol of corruption. That perception is both dishonest and deeply misleading.

The reality? The first 100 days of Trump’s second term leave no doubt about his goal: to reform and remake the federal government.

Reform should mean growing the economy, not growing the bureaucracy.

It’s about time. Too many unelected bureaucrats accountable to no one infest the federal government like roaches, wielding unchecked power over our lives, liberty, and happiness. They treat the mandate for reform as a nuisance. Their mission: obstruct Trump’s appointees and protect the status quo.

Organizations like the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Voice of America have deservedly drawn the president’s attention. But many others deserve the same scrutiny. One that stands out is the Securities and Exchange Commission, which repeatedly overstepped its authority during the Biden years, using vague regulatory powers to impose sweeping social mandates under the guise of financial oversight.

Trump tapped former SEC Commissioner Paul Atkins to fix it. As chairman, Atkins can be counted on to take a best-practices approach to administrative responsibilities and to ensure that the SEC conducts its mission as described by the law: “facilitate capital formation; maintain fair, orderly, and efficient markets; and protect investors.”

That’s a welcome clarification of responsibility. Gary Gensler, who ran the SEC for Joe Biden, was often accused of having a reach that exceeded legitimate bounds, as when, for example, he tried to regulate the market for precious metals.

Gold and silver are not securities. Neither are individual retirement accounts. Yet the Gensler-era SEC attempted to assert authority over companies offering precious-metals IRAs to individuals and families who wish to own gold and silver.

As the Heritage Foundation’s David Burton told the House Financial Services Committee in March 2024, “The commission is statutorily required to promote efficiency, competition, and capital formation by responsible participants in the capital markets.” Still, under the Biden administration, “it increasingly does the opposite.”

John Gulliver of the Committee on Capital Markets Regulation told the same committee that Gensler’s SEC had “an unprecedented rulemaking agenda that will radically redesign the regulation of our securities markets and will have a major impact on the cost of being a public company and investing in our markets.”

RELATED: DOGE isn’t dead — it’s growing beyond Elon Musk

Photo by Tom Brenner for the Washington Post via Getty Images

Atkins can and must guide the SEC away from such nonsense. As CEO of Patomak Global Partners, Atkins oversaw the development of best practices for managing digital assets. Congress should follow his lead wherever it may go, solidifying his reforms into law and preventing the agency from trying to regulate financial instruments that are not securities.

The overreach matters. The United States is in a race with China for cryptocurrency dominance. The winner gets to establish the terms under which everyone else must live. It’s no surprise that the SEC’s failure to establish what Burton called “basic rules for responsible actors to follow” undermines America’s ability to take the lead.

“I am not entirely sure whether this irresponsible failure to provide basic rules is a function of the limited understanding of those charged with regulating in this area or their desire to simply have no rules so that the commission can engage in regulation by enforcement,” Burton told the committee.

Regulation by enforcement doesn’t just stifle innovation — it cripples the economy. It may also violate new limits the U.S. Supreme Court just imposed on federal agencies in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, which ended the Chevron deference doctrine.

But Atkins can’t fix the SEC alone. Congress must step in and rewrite the law to bar the commission from using backdoor tactics to seize authority over emerging markets and financial technologies.

If lawmakers fail, they’ll guarantee a future where financial technology innovation gets strangled in red tape while real fraudsters skate by untouched. That’s bad news not just for entrepreneurs, but for America’s investors — roughly half the population — who rely on strong markets to secure their retirements.

Reform should mean growing the economy, not growing the bureaucracy. With Atkins at the helm, the SEC finally has a chance to get back to doing what it was meant to do.

West Point Trades Real Reform For Illusory Paper Compliance

If the academy cannot produce officers loyal to the Constitution, its leadership is not just failing, it is compromising national security.

Patel’s plan to dismantle the deep state starts with a moving van



The time has come to dismantle the FBI as we’ve known it — and rebuild it into the law enforcement agency it was always supposed to be.

Under former Director Christopher Wray, the FBI became a political weapon. It targeted thousands of Americans, including former President Donald Trump, whose Mar-a-Lago estate was raided in 2022 over “key classified documents.” At the same time, Joe Biden had his own stash of classified material at his Delaware home, which he allegedly took as Barack Obama’s vice president, but the FBI dragged its feet before lifting a finger.

This isn’t just a logistical shift — it’s a symbolic one. A once-centralized, politicized agency now has a chance to rebuild credibility, brick by brick, city by city.

The bureau’s double standards didn’t stop there. Agents monitored citizens for their social media posts and even flagged Christians based solely on their religious beliefs. This isn’t law enforcement — it’s ideological policing.

Now, with Wray gone and Kash Patel stepping in, the FBI has reached a crossroads. And Patel has already announced a major shift. Change can’t come fast enough.

Moving out

Patel recently announced on Fox News that the FBI plans to vacate its longtime home at the J. Edgar Hoover Building in Washington, D.C., and disperse more than 1,500 active employees to field offices nationwide.

This is welcome news — for several reasons.

First, keeping the FBI’s nerve center in D.C. creates obvious political risks. It placed the bureau within easy reach of powerful politicians eager to influence investigations — something President Biden has reportedly taken advantage of more than once. Centralizing the agency in one building also posed a glaring security risk. A single well-coordinated attack could have crippled the FBI’s operations.

Second, the Hoover Building itself has deteriorated significantly. The Biden administration showed no interest in restoring it. Patel’s plan doesn’t just address a structural issue — it signals a cultural shift.

RELATED: Inside Trump’s plan to make the FBI great again

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

“We want the American men and women to know if you’re going to come work at the premier law enforcement agency in the world, we’re going to give you a building that’s commensurate with that, and that’s not this place,” Patel said.

The goal is clear: decentralize power, reduce vulnerability, and rebuild the bureau’s credibility from the ground up.

Time to rebuild

This move offers real benefits.

Dispersing FBI agents across the country allows them to respond more quickly to cases without relying on costly, time-consuming travel. Imagine a homicide investigation that requires FBI involvement. Instead of waiting days for special agents to arrive from Washington, a local team can jump in immediately. That keeps cases from stalling and gets justice moving faster.

It also improves coordination with local law enforcement. For years, under Wray, cooperation often felt strained or disjointed. Decentralization gives agents a better chance to build working relationships with police departments on the ground. That alone marks a major improvement.

But the real win? Breaking from the old image of what the FBI had become.

This isn’t just a logistical shift — it’s a symbolic one. A once-centralized, politicized agency now has a chance to rebuild credibility, brick by brick, city by city.

As I’ve said, keeping the FBI in the J. Edgar Hoover Building only reinforces the agency’s worst associations. That building still bears the scars of Director Wray’s missteps — and before him, James Comey, whose antagonism toward President Trump in 2017 got him fired.

(And judging from recent headlines, Comey still hasn’t taken the firing well.)

This move offers the FBI a much-needed reset. It gives the agency a chance to move past its baggage and build something more effective, transparent, and accountable. Credit to Patel — and likely Trump — for making the call. FBI agents deserve the opportunity to leave behind the cloud of corruption and step into something better.

I’m eager to see how this changes the bureau — not just for agents but for law enforcement as a whole.

DOGE isn’t dead — it’s growing beyond Elon Musk



Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk’s decision to scale back his role at the Department of Government Efficiency sparked the media frenzy we all expected.

Corporate media outlets wasted no time celebrating. They’ve declared the project dead, mocking the effort that has — by every metric — cut bureaucratic waste, exposed entrenched fraud, and disrupted the comfortable routine of Washington’s permanent class.

We didn’t come this far just to hand victory back to the bureaucrats.

In just 100 days, Musk brought more transparency and urgency to federal operations than most “public servants” manage in a career. Under his leadership, the DOGE slashed bloated budgets, shut down globalist slush funds like USAID, and launched investigations into waste across the Departments of Education, Social Security, and more.

DOGE isn’t just a project. It’s a movement. And it didn’t start with Elon Musk — it started when the American people sent Donald J. Trump back to the White House with a mandate to finish the job.

Voters didn’t re-elect Trump just for tough talk. They sent him to dismantle the unaccountable, tax-dollar-burning administrative state that’s grown fat off politics as usual. And the DOGE delivered.

Now, Musk reducing his hours doesn’t mean the mission is over. Far from it. The next phase requires every agency leader who believes in reform, every state and local official who sees the model working, and every grassroots patriot who wants real accountability to step up.

Ignore the media narrative. CNN, MSNBC, and the rest of the usual suspects are already spinning this as a defeat. They won’t say it out loud, but what they really hate is simple: Musk asked federal employees to justify their jobs.

He demanded answers. He forced Cabinet secretaries to make hard choices. That’s not chaos. That’s reform. And it scared the right people.

So now it’s up to us. Trump provided the mandate. Musk brought the firepower. The American people must now carry this momentum forward— to local government, to state agencies, and to every inch of federal bureaucracy still resisting change.

We didn’t come this far just to hand victory back to the bureaucrats. The real work is just beginning.

I called out the CIA on X — and then my account disappeared



Some say the Central Intelligence Agency is the world’s leading cause of “coincidences.”

This might be another one. Just as the government released thousands of JFK assassination files, I — a former CIA officer turned whistleblower — was suddenly blocked from posting reform proposals on social media.

The experience showed just how powerful X has become in the fight against deep-state corruption. Americans want their country back from those who have taken control.

I post regularly on X, sharing updates on CIA activity and government corruption. My account has 125,000 followers and delivers unfiltered information without paid promotion.

After 17 years in the CIA, including high-level assignments across multiple global stations, I know how the agency operates — and how often it violates the U.S. Constitution without consequence.

Since I began publicly exposing CIA corruption in 2010, I have created documents and posted videos about CIA misconduct. My computer crashes frequently — twice in the past four months — destroying all my data. Even my backup account on Carbonite failed to save this information. Recently, “someone” accessed my primary computer through the router and specifically targeted and corrupted only the files and videos related to the CIA, rendering them inaccessible.

My account on X has been a quick and protected way to get this information to Americans. In my book, “Twilight of the Shadow Government: How Transparency Will Kill the Deep State,” written with my courageous co-author Kent Heckenlively, we reveal the CIA’s criminal and unconstitutional operations for everyone to see. “Light dispels darkness,” as so many have observed. In the book, Kent and I lay out 12 steps that must be taken to reform the CIA.

Two weeks ago, on my X account, I spelled out 13 additional radical steps to reform the CIA and end its tyranny of secrecy once and for all. I posted each step back-to-back. These reforms are lethal to the CIA’s control over all three branches of our elected government — and the fear of reprisal against anyone who challenges its power.

Maybe it was the 13th step that annoyed the agency the most: “Legally indict and charge CIA officials who engage in a criminal conspiracy to silence whistleblowers, block information from Congress, or violate U.S. and constitutional law.” It just wouldn’t be the same old CIA any more if they couldn’t lie to Congress or our duly elected president.

The day after I posted the 13 steps, I received a warning from X stating I had violated its guidelines and was being suspended for multiple copyright violations. I was unable to log in and access my account. Four attempts to appeal the suspension resulted in a boilerplate response instructing me to log in to my account for further information.

Of course, I was unable to log in to do so.

What’s more, I could not follow any other X users or post comments on their pages. It was an endless loop of blockages. This occurred just as 80,000 pages of JFK assassination documents were released — a critical moment. I had prepared evidentiary posts indicating the CIA was involved in the murder of President John F. Kennedy. My position as a CIA officer who had worked in all four agency directorates — as well as being the only one to publicly challenge the state secrets privilege and publish a book about the history of the CIA without the agency's approval — made me unique among commentators.

Finally, I contacted my dear friend Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — who has reached the same conclusion regarding the CIA's culpability in the murder of his uncle — spelling out what had just happened. Since he is extremely busy with his new Cabinet post at Health and Human Services, I was unsure whether I would receive an answer.

Within a matter of hours, I received a text back from Bobby. He advised me that he had passed my text to James Musk — Elon’s cousin and an X executive. James responded immediately. After researching the matter, James advised me that X had not suspended @kevin_shipp. Some entity — perhaps the CIA? — had created a fraudulent @kevin_shipp account, which caused an override of the true account and sent me a fictitious X community guidelines violation along with multiple copyright violation claims on the 13 steps to CIA reform.

James uncovered this malicious attack in just under two hours. Following his guidance on how to regain access to the real account, @kevin_shipp was back up, and all 13 steps were there and open for comments.

What a relief to see my first post go live again — just one word: “Test.” My co-author quickly shared the story on X, paying to boost the post. It reached 1.6 million people.

The experience showed just how powerful X has become in the fight against deep-state corruption. Americans want their country back from those who have taken control.

Watching Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and James Musk respond so swiftly and boldly to a targeted attack on my account was inspiring and reassuring. That night, I slept peacefully, knowing I wasn’t alone in standing up for our republic.

This fight isn’t mine alone — it belongs to all of us. And with people like Kennedy and Musk stepping up, we’re finally pushing back.

The real threat to US security? Defense industry grift



The Department of Government Efficiency is expected to save between $1 trillion and $2 trillion, a pledge made by Elon Musk himself. Now, Musk has turned his attention to the Pentagon, an institution notorious for government waste.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth recently partnered with the DOGE to cut 8% from the Pentagon’s budget — roughly $50 billion annually — over the next five years.

Reducing military spending will require more than just cutting obvious waste, fraud, and abuse.

The Department of Defense is overdue for a DOGE-style overhaul. Defense contractors profit from no-bid contracts and inflate costs by “gold-plating” weapons systems with unnecessary features. The procurement system remains so outdated that it still relies on fax machines.

Reducing military spending will require more than just cutting obvious waste, fraud, and abuse. Hegseth should work with the DOGE to eliminate inefficiencies wherever possible, but he must also be prepared to take on more controversial reforms.

One major step would be canceling the Constellation-class frigate. The Pentagon placed its first order for these warships in 2020, aiming for a quick and cost-effective solution to fill a gap in the Navy’s capabilities. The ships were supposed to be lightly modified versions of the European Fregata Europea Multi-Missione, with the first expected to enter service in 2026.

Excessive modifications to the European design have drastically increased the Constellation’s weight and cost, however, erasing the efficiency gains that justified the project. The Wisconsin shipyard responsible for production now estimates that the first frigate won’t be ready until at least 2029.

The Navy plans to purchase at least 20 Constellation frigates, each costing over $1 billion. Canceling the order and relying on the Navy’s existing fleet of capable destroyers could save more than $20 billion immediately.

The F-35 is another prime target for budget cuts. Lockheed Martin’s $1.7 trillion fighter jet is the most expensive defense program in world history, yet barely half of all F-35s are combat ready or mission capable. After two decades of development, the aircraft remains riddled with issues, forcing Lockheed to halt deliveries to the Air Force for a year in 2023.

The design itself is flawed. The F-35 cannot “supercruise” (sustain supersonic speeds without afterburners), has limited range, carries a small payload, and lacks the maneuverability of many peer aircraft in dogfights. Just this month, the U.S. canceled an F-35 demonstration at the Aero India airshow after Russia’s Su-57 impressed the crowd. Scrapping the demonstration at the last minute sent an embarrassing message: No matter how much money is poured into the F-35, it still falls short.

If the U.S. military is serious about maintaining air superiority, it should abandon the F-35 and focus on the Next-Generation Air Dominance and Collaborative Combat Aircraft programs.

President Trump has criticized the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier, making it a prime target for the DOGE budget hawks. At the swearing-in of Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, Trump noted that the carrier, initially projected to cost $3 billion, has now ballooned to $17 billion. Technical failures — including unreliable electromagnetic catapults and malfunctioning weapon elevators — delayed full deployment for years.

Some defense analysts argue that these carriers, while powerful, are outdated for modern warfare. Emerging threats like drones and hypersonic missiles raise questions about whether these funds would be better spent on more relevant defense capabilities. In an era dominated by unmanned systems, satellite-guided ballistic missiles, and hypersonic weapons, continuing to pour money into this project is difficult to justify — even if it had remained on budget.

Cutting wasteful programs like the USS Gerald R. Ford won’t weaken America’s military strength or global presence. As Hegseth said when announcing the DOGE partnership, “The only thing I’ve cared about is doing right by our service members — soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen, and guardians.” The best way to ensure the U.S. maintains, in Hegseth’s words, “the biggest, most badass military on the planet” is to eliminate wasteful spending.

As he put it, “With DOGE, we are focusing as much as we can on headquarters and fat and top-line stuff that allows us to reinvest elsewhere.” There’s nothing controversial about that.