Morgan County Parental Alienation Advocacy Group

10/31/2026

Iran: We Decide How This War Ends

** Deep Dive MERCH ** Rocks Glasses, Thermo Mugs, T-shirts & more!...

10/31/2026

With or Without Netanyahu, Israel Will Want American Taxpayers To Keep Funding Its Wars
https://reason.com/2026/10/30/with-or-without-netanyahu-israel-will-want-american-taxpayers-to-keep-funding-its-wars/
Benjamin Netanyahu and his challenger Gadi Eisenkot disagree on some policies, but both still expect the U.S. to provide billions of dollars in military aid.

On Friday morning, with 99.5 percent of the votes tallied, the Israeli Central Elections Committee published a final version of the Knesset seat count. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing bloc secured the most seats in the country's parliament after Tuesday's election, though significantly fewer than in 2022. The bloc, according to The Times of Israel, will enter the Knesset with 53 seats, while the main opposition bloc led by Gadi Eisenkot will hold 48. With both groups failing to win the 61 seats needed for a majority, tricky negotiations between the nine Zionist parties and the two Arab-interest parties will be needed to form a governing coalition.

Regardless of who becomes Israel's prime minister, Americans can be confident about one thing: Israel's next leader will likely keep making war in the Middle East with American money and American bombs.

Under Netanyahu, who has served 19 nonconsecutive years as prime minister, Israel has been engaged in controversial and expansive wars across the Middle East. Throughout these wars, the U.S. has armed and funded Israel. Although Israel received aid throughout the Cold War, the U.S. increased its obligations starting in FY 1999 by regularly renewing 10-year funding commitments. Under the current agreement between the two countries, which went into effect in FY 2019, the United States pledged to provide $38 billion in military aid to Israel through FY 2028, subject to congressional appropriations.

A large component of this aid—$33 billion pledged under the current agreement, according to the Congressional Research Service (CRS)—has come through Foreign Military Financing (FMF) grants. These allow partner countries to purchase American weapons, with the costs "reimbursed" by American tax dollars. Data from the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, which manages U.S. arms transfers, show that from FY 2020 to FY 2024, almost $13 billion—90.5 percent—of U.S.-to-Israel arms transfers were paid for by American-issued FMFs. Last year, the CRS found that "annual FMF grants to Israel represent approximately 14% of the overall Israeli defense budget."

Earlier this month, Al Jazeera reported that since Hamas' October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, the United States has approved $33.16 billion in arms transfers to Israel, almost all of which were funded by FMF grants.

Netanyahu has said he plans to wean Israel off a donor-recipient aid system, preferring joint defense collaboration. The U.S. and Israel already jointly develop some weapons, such as the David's Sling and Iron Dome missile defense systems, but, as The Washington Post reports, the U.S. funds most of these projects. A CRS report from earlier this year explains how difficult it would be for Israel to transition away from U.S. assistance: "With a fleet of fighter aircraft that is almost entirely American-made and a missile defense architecture which relies on U.S. assistance," the CRS writes, "Israel may remain dependent for quite some time on U.S. supply chains and, in times of military operations, direct defensive U.S. military support."

Should an Eisenkot-led coalition come to power in the coming government negotiations, the prospect of America sending less money to Israel is slim as well. Eisenkot has been clear that his government would expect U.S. financial support, telling BizPortal earlier this week that he would keep seeking the $3.8 billion in annual aid the U.S. currently provides. He's also praised "[U.S. President Donald] Trump's decision to strike Iran together with Israel," telling the New York Post it was "courageous."

Should he become the next prime minister, conflict between Israel and Iran, or with any of Israel's neighbors, is unlikely to be resolved, which, as the CRS report above indicates, comes at the cost of American taxpayers.

With over $32 trillion in debt held by the public, the United States clearly needs to cut spending. Military aid to highly developed foreign nations like Israel is an obvious place to start. However, given America's long history of signing checks for the country, combined with Trump's unwavering support, taxpayers hoping for such relief shouldn't hold their breath.

10/31/2026

President Donald Trump Just Proclaimed, "Tariffs Don't Cause Inflation, They Cause Wealth," but Data From Federal Reserve Economists Show Otherwise
https://www.fool.com/investing/2026/10/25/donald-trump-proclaimed-tariffs-dont-cause-inflation-they-cause-wealth-federal-reserve-economists/
Statistically speaking, tariffs have been bad news for Wall Street and consumers.

Key Points
Although the Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500, and Nasdaq Composite have delivered outsize returns under Donald Trump, not all of his policies have been well-received by Wall Street.
Tariffs have been foundational to Trump’s presidency.
Not only are the president’s tariffs raising consumer prices, according to New York Federal Reserve economists, but they’re also having a lasting negative impact on select public companies.
Trumpflation could do a real number on a historically pricey stock market.

From a purely statistical standpoint, Wall Street has enjoyed having President Donald Trump in the White House. Even accounting for a few periods of historic volatility (e.g., the COVID-19 crash in February-March 2020 and the tariff tantrum of April 2025), the average annual return of the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI -1.09%), S&P 500 (^GSPC-1.82%), and Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC
-2.86%) has been higher under Trump than under most presidents since the late 1890s.

However, this doesn't mean that all of the president's policies are necessarily well-received on Wall Street. For example, Trumpflation (inflation specifically driven by Donald Trump's policies) is a genuine threat to the artificial intelligence (AI)-driven bull market.

President Trump sees things differently. While speaking to an audience at a campaign rally in Montana ahead of the Nov. 3 midterm elections, Trump touched on inflation and the role his tariff and trade policy may have played in it. Said the president:

We don't have inflation, and tariffs don't cause inflation.

You know what they cause? Wealth.

Although Trump insists that tariffs aren't contributing to persistently elevated inflation and are beneficial to the U.S. economy, reports from New York Federal Reserve economists show otherwise.

Tariffs have been foundational to Donald Trump's presidency
While tariffs have been a hot-button topic since Trump's second non-consecutive term began in January 2025, they've been a theme throughout both of his terms. In 2018, the Trump administration kicked off a trade war with China, imposing tariffs on washing machines, solar panels, steel, aluminum, and various tech goods.

President Trump's tariffs had three purposes:

To protect American jobs
To encourage overseas companies to manufacture goods bound for the U.S. in this country
To make U.S.-made products more price-competitive with those imported

According to Washington, D.C.-based think tank The Tax Foundation, which has been regularly updating its Tax Foundation General Equilibrium Model to account for dozens of tariff changes since April 2025, the president's tariffs are projected to bring in $1.426 trillion in revenue from 2026 to 2035. While it's not the "trillions of dollars" Trump proclaimed the U.S. was bringing in from tariffs, there is a path to significant revenue collection over the next decade.

Unfortunately, economists have also shown that President Trump's tariff and trade policy comes with several unintended and undesirable consequences.

Trump's tariffs are potentially bad news for consumers, the economy, and Wall Street
To begin with, The Tax Foundation's model estimates that hours worked would convert to a loss of 338,000 full-time-equivalent jobs. Furthermore, it projects that U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) would decline by 0.4%. In other words, The Tax Foundation foresees the president's tariffs hindering, not helping, the U.S. economy over the next decade.

But these long-term projections might be the least of consumers' and Wall Street's worries.

According to a newly released report ("How Fast Do Tariffs Pass Through into Consumer Prices") by three New York Federal Reserve economists writing for Liberty Street Economics, the president's tariffs are having a decisively negative impact on consumer prices.

The trio of economists estimate that the president's 2025 tariffs added 2.9 percentage points to consumer prices by February 2026. The real kick in the pants is that prices would have declined without Trump's tariffs.

New from the New York Fed: "By February 2026, tariffs had contributed 2.9 pp to goods price inflation, and without them goods prices would have fallen slightly." About one quarter of every point in higher tariff rates shows up in consumer prices within one year.
• A 10% across-the-board tariff yields a 2.6% rise in consumer goods prices after one year.
• About two thirds of the increase comes from pricier imports, which get passed through quickly.
• Another third comes from U.S. made goods, as producers face higher input costs and less import competition. This takes longer, about 6-12 months, to filter through.

— Nick Timiraos () October 6, 2026

In addition to tariffs adding to consumer costs on a near one-for-one basis, assigning duties to unfinished imported goods, such as steel, can increase domestic manufacturing costs. Furthermore, economists suggest that when U.S. goods were notably cheaper than imported products, domestic producers would occasionally raise their prices to capture some of this difference.

In December 2024, a separate report from Liberty Street Economics ("Do Input Tariffs Protect U.S. Firms?") found that Trump's 2018 China tariffs increased consumer prices and led to worse future real outcomes for public companies whose stock declined on tariff announcement days. Specifically, these businesses witnessed drop-offs in labor productivity, employment, sales, and profits from 2019 to 2021.

What's especially damning for Wall Street is the effect tariffs are having on the prevailing inflation rate. Although tariffs are one of several puzzle pieces boosting consumer prices, they've also played a role in prompting the Federal Reserve to act. In September, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) kicked off only its fourth rate-hiking cycle of the 21st century.

Between the inflationary effects of the Iran war, the AI infrastructure build-out, and Trump's tariff and trade policy, it's likely that the FOMC will get more aggressive with interest rate hikes in 2027 to deliver price stability. If this happens, it could slow the partially debt-driven AI data center build-out. A historically pricey stock market can ill afford any slowdown from its leading catalyst.

While Trump's tariffs are on track to bring in well over $1 trillion in revenue for the U.S. government over the next decade, their cost to consumers, the U.S. economy, and Wall Street may be far greater.

Statistically speaking, tariffs have been bad news for Wall Street and consumers.

10/31/2026

10/31/2026

Knowing the truth, I can reflect on how my dad tried to get through...

10/30/2026

'A lot of people don't realize it's coming': Americans brace for HIGHER health care costs next year
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eMxFl35gik

Families are paying nearly $7,500 a year for health insurance. The next price hike is already looming.
https://www.businessinsider.com/workers-paying-thousands-health-insurance-premiums-costs-going-up-2026-10

It's costing families nearly $7,500 a year for health insurance — and more increases are looming.

A 2026 health benefits survey from KFF found that workers on a family plan paid an average of $7,471 a year in premiums — a 9% increase from 2025. And that's just the worker contribution — when accounting for employer contributions, family plan premiums totaled $28,303 in 2026, a roughly 5% increase from 2025.

How much employers pay vs. how much workers pay for family plans

https://www.kff.org/health-costs/premiums-worker-contributions-among-workers-covered-by-employer-sponsored-coverage/

That's a hefty price for both workers and their employers, and even more acute for workers at smaller businesses: KFF's survey found that at firms with fewer than 200 employees, they paid nearly $10,000 toward family premiums in 2026. Smaller firms are often more beholden to insurance companies, since they don't wield the same bargaining power as larger firms.

Mounting health costs might be part of why consumers feel so gloomy: As wages have increased, insurance premiums have risen even faster. While wages increased 3.7% year-over-year for workers — which might look like a nice pay bump on paper — worker-paid premiums outpaced that salary growth, rising by 9%.

And over the past few years, how much workers pay for health plans has eaten up a larger share of their household income. For workers across all firms, their premium costs amounted to nearly 8% of real household median income in 2025.

Worker contributions to family plan health insurance as a share of median household income

https://www.kff.org/health-costs/premiums-worker-contributions-among-workers-covered-by-employer-sponsored-coverage/

All of that comes as employers and workers brace for open enrollment season, and more hikes loom: An analysis from PricewaterhouseCoopers, based on a survey of health plan actuaries, projects that commercial healthcare group costs will rise by 9% in 2027. Similarly, Aon, an insurance management firm, found that employer healthcare costs are projected to climb by 9.5% next year without any cost mitigation measures — meaning before firms figure out how to pass some of those mounting costs on to their workers.

For workers and firms, that means a tighter financial squeeze: Companies are paying more to cover their workers, but costs are likely still outpacing wages. At the same time, firms might not be able to provide higher wages as care costs climb. It means that everyone is paying more, and nobody's feeling good about it: An Ipsos/Axios poll found that 69% of Americans say a 10% increase would negatively impact their household finances, with 30% saying it would have a major negative impact.