World's Largest Data Center Campus Near Collapse As Blackstone Unexpectedly Pulls Out

 Up until now, when it comes to real estate, Blackstone was best known in recent years for dumping many of its trophy office properties - which in the aftermath of work from home never recovered their projected cash flow potential - at a huge discount. Now, it may be pulling a page from its old, pre-Lehman playbook  by calling the top in yet another commercial real estate segment: data centers. 

Two days ago we reported that Blackstone was selling its stakes in a trio of data centers across Northern Virginia for $3.5 billion, cashing out of part of a bet it made less than three years ago. According to Bloomberg, Digital Realty Trust would pay $1.2 billion of cash and offer $2.3 billion of its shares (which the PE giant has largely cashed in by now) to Blackstone funds; in exchange, the data center company will acquire Blackstone’s 80% interest in two 96-megawatt data centers in Manassas, Virginia, and a 50% interest in a 96-megawatt center in nearby Sterling.

We said that "the question is why did Blackstone decide to pull the cord now, just as fresh doubts are creeping whether the Mag 7s will continue funding the AI expansion with virtually unlimited capex."

Two days later we have an answer. 

The digital ink is barely dry on its Virginia data center sales, and we learn that Blackstone’s QTS (QTS Realty Trust) is again quietly fading its AI exposure by walking away from plans to build its portion (which at this point is the only portion left after its partner already pulled out days ago) of a 2,100-acre data center campus in Virginia - also known as Prince William Digital Gateway which would house as many as 37 data-center buildings - handing a win to residents who fought for years to topple the project. 

QTS's proposed facility at 9400 Godwin Drive in Manassas

The data center developer had planned to transform more than 800 acres in Northern Virginia’s Prince William County, a project that would have spanned 22 million square feet, making it the largest data center campus in the world. Located on the edge of an historic Civil War battlefield and on what used to be land protected from development, the project ignited strong pushback from homeowners and has been stalled by lawsuits.

As part of Wall Street’s broader push into data centers, investment has poured into Northern Virginia, which is considered the country’s largest data center market, and is better known as "Data Center Alley" 

But in a strategic U-turn, in recent days QTS executives decided that it isn’t worth pressing forward in court, the Bloomberg sources said. The firm’s attorneys plan to inform the court of their decision as soon as this week, the people said, asking not to be named discussing non-public information.

QTS’s rapid growth has made it a poster child of how private equity has fueled the data center industry’s breakneck expansion. Those ambitions are colliding with public anxiety over strains to electricity grids and home prices from AI data centers.

The retreat may be the final blow to Virginia’s “Digital Gateway” project, a mega site roughly twice the size of New York’s Central Park with city-sized power needs. The initiative was supposed to bring in some $100 billion in spending and create one of the world’s largest technology corridors. Not any more. 

The project had sparked contentious, drawn-out public hearings. A clerical blunder related to a key zoning meeting created setbacks for developers. Already, Brookfield-backed Compass Datacenters, which was supposed to build on more than 800 acres at the site, had pulled out in May. 

The U-turns by both firms, Bloomberg writes, amount to one of the most dramatic retreats by developers from a data center project.

It’s a reminder of how tech firms’ race for the computing infrastructure to support AI advances is increasingly facing the same bottlenecks, from power shortages to supply crunches, we have been warning about for the past two years and which Citadel Securities warned about just yesterday.

Organized opposition is mounting, forcing firms and developers to be more deliberate about where they choose to build. This is precisely what we warned one year ago would happen as more grassroots organizations pushed back against the relentless data center rollout. At least we haven't gotten to the arson stage (yet).

To account for the costs of such build outs, Virginia recently passed a budget with an energy consumption tax on data centers, and more states are threatening moratoriums on new development. Data centers - and how their costs and benefits are shared - are now emerging a major swing issue in the lead up to the US midterm elections. These hurdles raise questions for investors over whether the AI build out can keep going at this pace. 

For community organizers and residents that spent the last five years opposing the Digital Gateway, QTS’s pullout will now validate a playbook that involved pressure campaigns on local politicians and legal attacks. It will also unleash even more powerful blowback nationwide against these unwanted developments.

As Bloomberg recalls, hundreds of proponents and critics showed up at a 27-hour zoning hearing in 2023 to lobby authorities on the project. After county officials narrowly voted to approve the conversion of agricultural and semi-rural land for data centers, community organizers and residents pursued lawsuits.

The outcome of the meeting - and whether the county properly advertised the event - was at the center of legal challenges. The lawsuits hinged on one detail: The first two newspaper notices publicizing the hearing weren’t separated by at least six days, as state and local codes required at that time. While it is unclear if Blackstone agents had tried to "grease" the zoning board's palms to quietly fast-track the data center, in the end the outcome was catastrophic to the builders. 

In March, Virginia courts upheld an earlier ruling that the zoning approvals were invalid because the public notices for the meeting fell short of rules.

Opponents of the Digital Gateway data center project rallies at Manassas Battlefield Park.

“While we still believe this project offered significant benefits for the region and our neighbors, recent legal actions and compounding regulatory hurdles have effectively closed a viable path forward,” Compass Datacenters President AJ Byers said in a statement following the ruling.

After Compass bailed on the project, that left QTS as the lone developer. It was the only party that petitioned for an appeal of the case in Virginia’s Supreme Court.

Originally, the firm’s executives were concerned about the prospect of setting a legal precedent on the back of an administrative oversight. After Compass’s retreat, QTS lost a partner who would share the costs of upgrading various utilities needed for the massive developments, said one of the people familiar with the matter. QTS decided it was not worth proceeding with the project.

Blackstone, which acquired QTS in 2021, is a major financier of data centers, with a portfolio of more than $150 billion of such assets around the world. 

The increasingly bitter political and grassroots pushback against new data center construction explains why Blackstone has been getting cold feet just as the AI bubble is peaking, first selling existing data centers and now walking away from upcoming projects.  A recent Gallup poll found that 7 in 10 Americans oppose constructing data centers for artificial intelligence in their local area, including nearly half, 48%, who are strongly opposed. Barely a quarter favor these projects, with 7% strongly in favor.

Half of opponents mention data centers’ excessive use of resources, including 18% each mentioning their use of water and energy. Sixteen percent mention a related environmental concern of pollution, including noise pollution and air and water pollution.

About one in five opponents are concerned with the impact on local quality of life, including increased population, increased traffic and preferring that the land be used for other purposes. A similar share mention potentially negative economic consequences, including higher utility bills, cost-of-living increases, and the cost of building the data centers (which could involve the use of taxpayer funds).

Most of the remaining opposition stems from general or specific concerns about artificial intelligence.

Blackstone, which manages more than $1.3 trillion, bills itself as the largest global provider of data centers, and also owns some of the utilities that power them. It acquired QTS in 2021 and bought Australian computing provider AirTrunk in 2024. In May, the firm held an initial public offering for Blackstone Digital Infrastructure Trust Inc., its data center acquisition vehicle, which aims to buy already built and leased properties benefiting from the artificial intelligence boom.

And now that the protest movement knows how to push back against uninvited Wall Street occupants, thanks to the BlackStone capitulation, expect an exponential increase in legal (and other) attempts to hinder the rollout of data centers across the US, assuring that the AI supercycle, which is already years behind schedule with just half of the data centers meant to be built in progress and on time, will expect to see an avalanche of delays and cancellations assuring that the return on debt-funded capex will be even less as eventual launch dates gradually move ever further into the unknown future. 

https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/worlds-largest-data-center-campus-verge-collapse-after-blackstone-unexpectedly-pulls-out

Feds Nab Alleged Member Of "Sprawling" Cuba Communist Subversion Net Tied To Piker Havana Trip

 Readers have been well ahead of both the federal government and the mainstream news cycle in asking whether there is a "Cuba connection" behind the radicalization of the Democratic Party and its aligned billionaire-funded nonprofit universe.

What was once dismissed as speculation is now beginning to look more like a foreign influence operation, one tied to an alarming rise of anti-American socialist networks that openly seek to dismantle capitalism and the American way of life.

Even mainstream Democrats are now sounding alarms over the socialists hijacking their party. Meanwhile, the federal government appears to be putting more pieces of the complex puzzle together, only now recognizing that some of these radical networks may be connected to foreign influence campaigns aimed at subverting the country from within.

On Wednesday, the State Department revealed that the three Cuban nationals were detained by federal agents after Secretary of State Marco Rubio terminated their legal status.

Carlos Antonio Lloga Dominguez, his wife, and his son are now in federal custody pending removal, according to the press release.

The department accused Lloga Dominguez of spending more than a decade working for the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples, or ICAP, which Washington describes as Cuba's top influence and intelligence front group in the U.S.

And where have we heard ICAP before? Let's revisit our December 2025 note in which we pointed out:

According to a defected Cuban intelligence officer and corroborating intelligence reporting, legacy Castro-aligned groups such as the Venceremos Brigade and the National Lawyers Guild have been controlled by Cuba's Dirección General de Inteligencia (DGI) since at least the 1980s. That influence is exerted through ICAP (the Cuban Institute for Friendship with the Peoples).

ICAP is an official Cuban government organization, founded in 1960, that promotes international solidarity and cultural exchange. On paper, it organizes delegations, volunteer brigades, educational tours, and international conferences that oppose U.S. sanctions and support Cuba's political system. It appears benign - almost quaint.

But declassified CIA documents dating back to the Cold War describe a consistent operational method: foreign recruits were brought to Cuba for training in intelligence tradecraft or guerrilla sabotage and were received by DGI officers posing as ICAP officials. ICAP functioned as the intake valve - political cover for intelligence operations designed to cultivate long-term assets rather than short-term spies.

What exists today is not a single organization but a complex ecosystem.

ICAP sits at the center, functioning as a coordinating hub. Orbiting it is the National Network on Cuba (NNOC), a deliberately loose coalition that links 77 organizations of activists, nonprofits, and campaigns while minimizing legal exposure or clear command structures. The National Lawyers Guild serves as the lawfare and agitation arm, training protesters, facilitating delegations, and litigating against U.S. institutions under the guise of civil rights.

Funding and infrastructure come from the Neville Roy Singham Network, a web of organizations tied to Chinese Communist Party-aligned capital that provides money, logistics, and professionalized organizing capacity. Public narratives are amplified by legacy anti-war organizations like CODEPINK and the ANSWER Coalition, which are also now under the Singham umbrella. They frame U.S. foreign policy as illegitimate while defending authoritarian adversaries. The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) functions as the political activation channel, translating activist energy into electoral and legislative influence on behalf of the Cuban regime.

Last month, Rubio sanctioned ICAP under Executive Order 14404, calling it a central node in a Cuban intel and influence network that claims links to more than 2,000 organizations across 150 countries.

The State Department said ICAP has maintained close ties to Cuban intelligence, noting that its current president, Fernando González Llort, was convicted in the U.S. for his role in the Wasp Network, a Cuban spy ring uncovered in Florida in the late 1990s.

Bloomberg noted that Lloga Dominguez was one of the individuals who brought far-left streamer Hasan Piker and parts of the Neville Roy Singham Network on a recent trip to Cuba.

It should be noted that Piker, the unofficial spokesperson for the DSA, has told millions of his followers "to kill capitalists. Let the streets soak in their fucking red capitalist blood."

Related:

• How Bad Is Foreign Influence In America's Nonprofit Universe?

Alongside its Cuba focus, the Trump administration is also investigating China-based billionaire and self-described Marxist Neville Roy Singham over allegations that his NGO networks have helped sow chaos and propel far-left, anti-American movements across the U.S.

Related:

• Troubling Pattern Of Left-Wing Revolutionaries Targeting "Capitalists" Raises Alarm Over Youth Radicalization

Earlier this week, U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton for the Southern District of New York, authorized by Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, launched an investigation into whether Singham, NGOs he funded, or their leaders committed wire fraud, bank fraud, money laundering, or other financial crimes.

What is becoming increasingly obvious is that the pieces of the puzzle are coming together very quickly, giving readers a rough framework for understanding why the radical left has become so radical and why its rhetoric often sounds as if it were not organically born in the U.S.

That is because these movements may be operating within or adjacent to foreign influence networks with one main objective, as the DSA itself lays out: the destruction of the US.

With Democrats increasingly alarmed that socialists and Marxists are hijacking their party, Republicans may now have a simple and highly recognizable target: communism. For the first time in decades, the GOP has a message that can cut across partisan lines, because most Americans, regardless of political affiliation, still broadly understand one thing: communism is bad.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/feds-nab-alleged-member-sprawling-cuban-communist-subversion-network-linked-hasan-pikers

Building Codes For Energy Conservation Can Increase US Home Costs By $14,000: DOE

 by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times,

States that adopt the updated 2024 International Energy Conservation Code could see building costs for a typical single-family home go up by $14,000, the Department of Energy (DOE) warned on June 26.

The International Energy Conservation Code (IECC) is a model code developed by the Washington-based International Code Council (ICC) for setting minimum energy efficiency requirements for commercial and residential buildings.

While the ICC doesn’t mandate its code, states and local jurisdictions can choose to mandate the code in their building standards. The IECC is the most adopted across the United States as it is recognized in federal law as the national model energy code for low-rise residential buildings.

The DOE takes part in the ICC’s consensus process to update energy efficiency provisions of the IECC. The code is revised once every three years.

Regarding the latest IECC codes published in 2024, the DOE has determined that adoption of the code “would increase residential construction costs by more than $9.2 billion annually compared to the 2006 code levels, adding more than $127 billion in cumulative costs nationwide.”

The IECC model regulation forces “American families to pay thousands of dollars more upfront for a new home, while projected energy savings may take decades to materialize. In most states, estimated payback periods exceed 10 years, with some exceeding 20 years—locking American families into decades-long repayment timeframes and restricting consumer choice.”

According to the National Association of Home Builders, the 2024 IECC contains several provisions related to energy efficiency, including heat or energy recovery ventilation systems; installation of energy-efficient appliances such as refrigerators, dishwashers, and clothes washers; and the deployment of renewable energy resources on building sites.

In March 2024, when the 2024 IECC codes were approved by the ICC’s Board of Directors, the ICC said that the new codes were anticipated to improve energy efficiency for commercial buildings by roughly 10 percent, and for residential buildings by around 6.5 percent.

On Feb. 15 this year, the DOE sent a letter to the ICC, raising “serious concerns” about the trajectory of the IECC.

The purpose of IECC is to provide model building codes that can be adopted to provide energy efficiency gains for communities. However, in recent years, IECC has expanded its scope to focus on areas such as energy generation infrastructure requirements and greenhouse gas emissions. This shift risks undermining existing DOE objectives, the letter said. 

The department’s priorities for building energy codes involve ensuring affordability for American households and businesses, and safeguarding consumer choice to opt for their preferred appliances and equipment.

The DOE urged the ICC to return its codes to its traditional focus on building energy efficiency that would provide both “clear cost savings and beneficial efficiency advances” to consumers.

In its recent statement, the DOE said it encouraged the ICC to omit requirements related to onsite energy generation and greenhouse gas avoidance, which raise construction costs.

“This analysis shows how unnecessary regulations and ineffective building codes have drastically increased housing costs with little to no benefit for homeowners or communities,” Assistant Secretary of Energy Audrey Robertson said.

“Standard-setting bodies should take note: we prioritize the American homeowner and will not allow erroneous building requirements to push homeownership out of reach.”

The Epoch Times reached out to ICC for comment but did not receive a response by publication time.

Ensuring Housing Affordability

The DOE said in its recent statement that it would continue implementing President Donald Trump’s March 13 executive order titled “Removing Regulatory Barriers to Affordable Home Construction.”

In the order, Trump wrote that unnecessary regulatory barriers and “onerous mandates” have delayed construction and driven up the cost of new homes, making housing less affordable for Americans.

One of the provisions in the order directed the Secretaries of Energy, Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and Agriculture to take “appropriate action to reform and, where appropriate, eliminate unduly burdensome or costly energy-efficiency, water-use, or alternative-energy requirements regarding housing.”

This shall include reviewing and revising residential building energy codes, energy efficiency standards for certain new construction, and energy conservation standards for manufactured housing.

In a March 13 statement, HUD said that regulatory costs make up almost $94,000 in the final price of a new single-family home, with green energy mandates in building codes alone raising construction costs by $30,000.

As such, cutting red tape, including “onerous” energy and water requirements and “woke” green building codes, will boost housing stock and bring down the cost of newly built homes, the department said.

In April, HUD and the Department of Agriculture rescinded a policy related to energy standards, which HUD said would have pushed home construction costs by $20,000 to $31,000.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/building-codes-energy-conservation-can-increase-us-home-costs-14000-doe

Equipping Schoolchildren for a Better America

 As the nation soon celebrates its 250th birthday, it is worth recalling that religious freedom and practice were vital to the birth of our constitutional republic and are necessary to sustain it. The various school choice laws in states, along with the new Federal Scholarship Tax Credit law, are a growing confirmation that the government respects the free exercise of religion by allowing the choice of religious schools by parents for their children.

This federal law, effective in 2027, has the potential to transform K-12 schooling to a high-quality, more competitive system, and help sustain religious freedom and practice in America. It will financially empower parents with potentially billions of dollars in scholarship opportunities to direct their children’s education in any school setting, public, charter, private, religious, or homeschool.

By making more parents effective “customers” of K-12 education for their children, this law will expand options for how and where their children are educated. No longer will parents have to subject their children to baleful influences in an educational setting that undermines their faith, while parents also will be in a stronger position to influence schools to improve quality and respect their faith.

Scholarships will be funded by private contributions from individuals to scholarship granting organizations (SGOs) that serve students in K-12 education. Donors will receive a 100 percent credit against their federal income tax liability for a maximum $1,700 per year -- a huge financial incentive that will accumulate billions of new scholarship dollars for use in elementary and secondary education.

This July 4th, represents another historic milestone as the 200th anniversary of the deaths of the second and third presidents, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson -- providentially, each dying on the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Both these founders of our nation had plenty to say about religious freedom.

President Adams understood that religious practice was integral to the success of constitutional government. In October 1798, he penned a letter to the Massachusetts Militia that contained this admonition:

We have no Government armed with Power capable of contending with human Passions unbridled by morality and Religion. Avarice, Ambition, Revenge or Gallantry, would break the strongest Cords of our Constitution as a Whale goes through a Net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

 

In January 1802, President Jefferson wrote his famous letter to the Danbury Baptist Association, quoting the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which reaffirmed that religious organizations were protected against government interference, rather than the misapplied claim that religion was to be walled off from public life:

[The] legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;" thus building a wall of eternal separation between Church & State.

 

Beyond improving academic quality and parental satisfaction, this federal tax credit 

scholarship law reflects both these constitutional perspectives in that the government is safeguarding religion without injecting itself in religious practices or favoring one in lieu of others. 

Recent Supreme Court case law further captures this crucial balance. For example, in Espinoza v. Montana Dept. of Revenue (2020), which upheld that state’s tax credit scholarship program, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the Court, “the Establishment Clause is not offended when religious observers and organizations benefit from neutral government programs.”

Indeed, the federal tax credit scholarship will make access to religious schools more affordable for lower-income families nationwide who desire that option for their children, and enhance access to educational goods and services for children in public schools. Importantly, the federal government remains neutral in parents' educational decisions for their children.

One caveat in this federal scholarship law is that governors must decide whether their state participates to benefit their resident students with the new scholarships. Thus far, 30 states have “opted in” while 20 have not. Several governors in the latter category are waiting for the U.S. Treasury Department to issue rules and guidance on the new program.

It is vital for people of faith and for religious organizations to take full advantage of this law and help it succeed by (1) urging governors of every state to “opt-in” to allow the program to benefit their resident students; (2) ensuring SGOs are established and connected to parochial schools; and (3) spreading the word to donors at every income level to contribute to SGOs to award scholarships to children to attend those schools.

The Federal Scholarship Tax Credit law will financially empower exponentially more parents to access the highest quality, most suitable education of their choice for their children, including faith-based schools that will enable religious freedom to thrive. This will better prepare succeeding generations of young people to know and respect our nation’s constitutional foundations, the rule of law, and the democratic process.

Peter Murphy is Vice President at the Invest in Education Foundation.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2026/07/equipping-schoolchildren-for-a-better-america/

Why are we still funding Planned Parenthood?

 by Susan Quinn

he evils of the abortion giant know no bounds. Not only are they in the business of slaughtering the preborn, but they’re expanding their empire into “transgender medicine” for children.

And, the funding limits extended to Planned Parenthood using our tax dollars are set to expire, meaning we must demand that Congress seriously curtail, or eliminate, all funding for Planned Parenthood permanently.

Last year, Congress restricted funding for abortion and “transgender” interventions for only one year, and on July 4, that restriction expires; Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough maneuvered the provision to stand for one year, not the proposed ten, apparently due to its inclusion in the reconciliation bill.

Funds are being restricted for abortion procedures on a state-by-state basis, but the transgender “treatments” have significantly expanded at Planned Parenthood to compensate for the shortfall:

A report by the American College of Pediatricians (ACPeds) and the American Principles Project found that Planned Parenthood has expanded into the lucrative ‘transgender medicine’ business in a big way, capitalizing on sex-rejecting treatments and mutilation of gender-confused youth.

[snip]

The numbers are significant and disturbing. According to the report, cross-sex hormone treatments and procedures are now accessible at nearly 80 percent of Planned Parenthood clinics, outstripping access to abortion. Data is limited, but some states reported a more than 400 percent increase in sex-rejecting procedure visits between 2018-2025.

 

The federal government provides substantial funding to PP. The 2024–2025 report lists the following facts:

• Taxpayer funding in the form of government grants, contracts, and Medicaid reimbursements hit $832 million, nearly $2.3 million per day – an increase of $39.8 million from the previous report and representing 39% of Planned Parenthood’s overall revenue. 
• Planned Parenthood’s taxpayer funding has increased by 50% since 2014.

Planned Parenthood laments its loss of funding and the difficulties it has experienced:

For the organization itself, the withdrawal of funds has already done ‘irreversible damage’ and led to the closure of 51 of its health centers last year, according to Nora Walsh-DeVries, its vice president for political and legislative affairs.

‘Our fantastic affiliates across the county have done so much work to still see as many patients as they can and cover the costs and make sure patients can still come at no cost to them, but that's just not a sustainable way to operate,’ Walsh-DeVries told NOTUS. ‘Any further defund will just continue this devastation.’

Members of Congress are not optimistic about being able to pass a third reconciliation bill and instituting another funding ban. These are the questions we must ask:

• We’re living in a post-Roe world, so why does the federal government continue to fund abortions?
• Instead of the taxpayers, shouldn’t private donors be benefactors of the abortion giant? If they want to support abortion and sexually mutilating, why should they get our money to do so?
• When other national organizations have put a pause on transgender “treatment” programs because the science and harm is becoming undeniable, are we willing to fund Planned Parenthood’s expansion of it?
• Do we, as citizens, have the social appetite for the killing of babies and mutilating of children?

It’s time to take a stand against these abhorrent treatments that destroy and damage the lives of our citizens. Congress must withdraw all funding of Planned Parenthood.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2026/07/why-are-we-still-funding-planned-parenthood/

Mamdani’s rent freeze makes him a fascist

 The New York City Rent Guidelines Board recently approved Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s key campaign promise to “freeze the rent,” and it will cause economic chaos.  More importantly, it exposes a point the far left wants everyone to forget: The left has used the same lies and playbook for 90 years, and the various forms of collectivism are closely related.  The far left will soon repeat its usual 90-year-old propaganda, claiming it is fighting “fascism.”

The definition of fascism from the Library of Economics and Liberty (Econlib) differentiates the two concepts.

As an economic system, fascism is socialism with a capitalist veneer. The word derives from fasces, the Roman symbol of collectivism and power: a tied bundle of rods with a protruding ax. ...

Where socialism sought totalitarian control of a society’s economic processes through direct state operation of the means of production, fascism sought that control indirectly, through domination of nominally private owners. Where socialism nationalized property explicitly, fascism did so implicitly, by requiring owners to use their property in the “national interest” — that is, as the autocratic authority conceived it. (Nevertheless, a few industries were operated by the state.) Where socialism abolished all market relations outright, fascism left the appearance of market relations while planning all economic activities.

Note the difference between the two collectivist concepts: Whereas socialism sought control through direct state operation of the means of production, fascism sought that control indirectly, through domination of nominally private owners.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines socialism as

a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.

 

In a fascist system, the means of production are privately owned but publicly controlled, as in Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s “freezing the rent” of privately owned buildings — as was the case in National Socialist Germany and other fascist regimes.  Therefore, it should be clear that there isn’t much difference between the two systems.

This was well known decades ago, before the far left started rewriting history, while accusing the pro-freedom right of rewriting history.  A number of prominent personalities have stated these obvious facts, such as Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., associate professor of history at Harvard:

In certain basic respects — the totalitarian state structure, the single party, the leader, the secret police, the consuming fear of political and intellectual freedom — fascism and Communism are clearly more like each other than they are like anything in between.

Also Democrat President Harry S. Truman, in a news conference on March 30, 1950:

There isn’t any difference between the totalitarian Russian Government and the Hitler government and the Franco government in Spain. They are all alike. They are police state governments.

Since then, the constant gaslighting has been that these two very similar collectivist ideologies are somehow far apart — on opposite ends of a mythical political spectrum, no less.  Dinesh D’Souza recently offered a short explanation on why this happened.

How did fascism — built on state control of industry, education, banks, churches, and media — end up labeled as “right wing” when those are traditionally left-wing platforms? Filmmaker and author @dineshdsouza joins PragerU CEO @realtalkwithmarissa to unpack how progressive academics redefined fascism after World War II to distance it from the left.

But as you can see, from the practical and definitional aspects of the word, fascism is clearly from the left.  As articulated by President Trump, it demands absolute allegiance.

In our schools, our newsrooms, even our corporate boardrooms, there is a new far-left fascism that demands absolute allegiance.

This is going to be very important in the next few months, for these critical reasons:

• Zohran Mamdani is a collectivist; a communist; and, as we have proven, a fascist.
• It should also be clear that these ideologies belong on the far left.
• And as sure as the sun rises, the fascist far left will trot out the lie that it is fighting “fascism.”

Thus, it will be vitally important to have these facts at hand to counter the lies we know are coming.  The fascist far left has been able to get away with this gaslighting for far too long.  It’s time to fight back with the facts.

D Parker is an engineer, inventor, wordsmith, and student of history, former director of communications for a civil rights organization, and a long-time contributor to conservative websites.  Find him on Substack.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2026/07/mamdani-s-rent-freeze-makes-him-a-fascist/

Anthropic’s biggest healthcare bets: 6 key moves

 Anthropic has rapidly expanded its footprint in healthcare this year, rolling out a HIPAA-compliant AI platform for providers, investing in drug discovery and public health initiatives, advancing cybersecurity programs aimed at protecting critical infrastructure and weighing in on the future of AI regulation. 

Here are six of the company’s biggest healthcare moves so far in 2026, as reported by Becker’s:

1. At June 30 event in San Francisco, Eric Kauderer-Abrams, Anthropic’s life sciences head, said Anthropic is launching an internal drug discovery program with a focus on neglected diseases that traditional pharmaceutical companies would not consider commercially attractive.
   
   
2. On June 10, Anthropic published two policy frameworks calling for stronger federal oversight of advanced AI systems, including mandatory safety testing, independent evaluations and penalties for companies that violate safety requirements. The company highlighted cybersecurity threats to critical infrastructure, including hospitals, as a key risk area and urged investments in more secure software and modernization of legacy systems. Anthropic also opposed federal preemption of state AI laws unless national regulations meet or exceed the standards outlined in its proposals.
   
   
3. On June 9, Anthropic launched Claude Fable 5 and Claude Mythos 5, a new class of AI models the company says accelerated parts of its internal drug design work by about 10 times. Anthropic reported the models demonstrated advanced capabilities in drug discovery, protein engineering and genomics, including generating novel scientific hypotheses and autonomously completing complex biology research tasks. While Fable 5 is available broadly, the more powerful Mythos 5 is currently limited to select partners and researchers.
   
   
4. On June 2, Anthropic expanded Project Glasswing, adding 150 organizations to its initiative aimed at identifying and remediating critical software vulnerabilities using its unreleased Claude Mythos Preview model. The company said initial participants uncovered more than 10,000 high- and critical-severity flaws, prompting the program’s expansion into sectors including healthcare, energy and communications. Anthropic also signaled plans to broaden access to its cybersecurity tools while continuing to develop safeguards designed to prevent misuse of the model’s advanced cyber capabilities.
   
   
   
5. In May, Anthropic committed $200 million in grants and Claude-related support to the Gates Foundation, with a focus on advancing healthcare initiatives. The partnership will dedicate resources to accelerating drug and vaccine development and helping governments make better use of health data, particularly in low- and middle-income countries.
   
   
6. On Jan. 11, Anthropic launched Claude for Healthcare, a HIPAA-compliant version of its AI platform tailored for providers, payers, life sciences organizations and patients. The platform includes tools for prior authorizations, claims appeals, care coordination, regulatory submissions and patient support, while integrating with healthcare data sources such as CMS coverage databases, ICD-10 codes and provider registries. Anthropic also expanded its life sciences offerings to support clinical trial operations and regulatory workflows.

https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/healthcare-information-technology/ai/anthropics-biggest-healthcare-bets-5-key-moves/