The Power of Truth® has been released for sale and assignment to a conservative pro-American news outlet, cable network, or other media outlet that wants to define and brand its operation as the bearer of the truth, and set itself above the competition.

In every news story the audience hears of censorship, speech, and the truth. The Power of Truth® has significant value to define an outlet, and expand its audience. A growing media outlet may decide to rebrand their operation The Power of Truth®. An established outlet may choose to make it the slogan distinguishing their operation from the competition. You want people to think of your outlet when they hear it, and think of the slogan when they see your company name. It is the thing which answers the consumer's questions: Why should I choose you? Why should I listen to you? Think:

  • What’s in your wallet -- Capital One
  • The most trusted name in news – CNN
  • Fair and balanced - Fox News
  • Where’s the beef -- Wendy’s
  • You’re in good hands -- Allstate
  • The ultimate driving machine -- BMW

The Power of Truth® is registered at the federal trademark level in all applicable trademark classes, and the sale and assignment includes the applicable domain names. The buyer will have both the trademark and the domains so that it will control its business landscape without downrange interference.

Contact: Truth@ThePowerOfTruth.com

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., speaks during the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs hearing

The Pentagon isn't tracking medical debt among troops despite federal recommendations that it should, and now Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., the chairwoman of the Senate Armed Services Committee's personnel panel, wants to change that.

Warren has been pressing the Pentagon for an update on medical debt and wrote to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in March asking about[1] recommendations from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, or CFPB, that called for better collection of the data to safeguard service members' financial stability and credit ratings.

But Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness Gil Cisneros sent back this response: The Pentagon doesn't collect data on the medical debt owed by service members and their families. Troops can self-report debt, he added, but "the data is not complete enough to accurately report the extent or amount" of the total medical debt held by personnel.

Read Next: Search for Military Personnel Continues After Osprey Crash Off Coast of Southern Japan[2]

Cisneros said the Defense Health Agency -- the arm of the Pentagon that oversees the military's private health program, Tricare[3] -- provides support through counselors and assistance officers to troops with medical claims and issues with debt collection when the bills should have been paid by Tricare.

The response vexed Warren, who underscored the importance of medical debt in a follow-up letter to Austin [4]Sunday. The debt can negatively affect military careers, hinder a service member from acquiring a security clearance and affect credit ratings -- preventing them from buying a house or a car or even renting a property.

Without the data, the DoD can't identify the issues that cause active-duty service members or their dependents to acquire such debt, especially when they have access to premium-free, no- or low-cost health care.

"This is why the CFPB's actions to remove medical debt from credit reports will make a real difference for service members and their families," Warren wrote.

Among the most common reasons service members rack up medical debt is when they are sent to specialists or other providers outside the military health system and these private providers incorrectly process their Tricare claims or simply send the bills directly to the service member.

Such was the case for Army[5] Spc. Daysha Cartagena and her husband, Staff Sgt. Isaiah Cortez, who received bills totaling nearly $670,000 when their daughter was transferred from the military hospital at Fort Liberty[6], North Carolina, to private facilities for advanced medical care in Raleigh.

Warren cited the couple, whose case was profiled in June on Military.com[7], in her Dec. 3 letter to Austin.

"Given service members' frequent relocations, some service members may not discover these charges in a timely manner," Warren wrote.

A CFPB report published in June 2022 found that more than 5,000 troops and family members reported medical billing issues to the agency from 2018 to 2021. In 2021 alone, the CFPB received more than 1,500 complaints from service members about incorrect medical bills appearing on credit reports, according to the report.

About 54% of the complaints in 2021 were about attempts to collect medical debt the service members did not actually owe, according to the report.

Warren, who is largely credited for proposing the creation of the CFPB while she was a professor at Harvard University, told Austin in her Dec. 3 letter that she was disappointed that the DoD had failed to implement CFPB's recommendations in the year since the agency made them.

"In the [August] response, DoD claimed it would need to create a centralized reporting system or database in order to understand the full scope and impact of medical debt on service members. I urge DoD to develop such a system," she wrote.

-- Patricia Kime can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Related: Agency Helping Protect Veterans from Predatory Lenders Endangered by Supreme Court Case, Advocates Warn[8]

© Copyright 2023 Military.com. All rights reserved. This article may not be republished, rebroadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without written permission. To reprint or license this article or any content from Military.com, please submit your request here[9].

Read more

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., speaks during the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs hearing

The Pentagon isn't tracking medical debt among troops despite federal recommendations that it should, and now Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., the chairwoman of the Senate Armed Services Committee's personnel panel, wants to change that.

Warren has been pressing the Pentagon for an update on medical debt and wrote to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in March asking about[1] recommendations from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, or CFPB, that called for better collection of the data to safeguard service members' financial stability and credit ratings.

But Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness Gil Cisneros sent back this response: The Pentagon doesn't collect data on the medical debt owed by service members and their families. Troops can self-report debt, he added, but "the data is not complete enough to accurately report the extent or amount" of the total medical debt held by personnel.

Read Next: Search for Military Personnel Continues After Osprey Crash Off Coast of Southern Japan[2]

Cisneros said the Defense Health Agency -- the arm of the Pentagon that oversees the military's private health program, Tricare[3] -- provides support through counselors and assistance officers to troops with medical claims and issues with debt collection when the bills should have been paid by Tricare.

The response vexed Warren, who underscored the importance of medical debt in a follow-up letter to Austin [4]Sunday. The debt can negatively affect military careers, hinder a service member from acquiring a security clearance and affect credit ratings -- preventing them from buying a house or a car or even renting a property.

Without the data, the DoD can't identify the issues that cause active-duty service members or their dependents to acquire such debt, especially when they have access to premium-free, no- or low-cost health care.

"This is why the CFPB's actions to remove medical debt from credit reports will make a real difference for service members and their families," Warren wrote.

Among the most common reasons service members rack up medical debt is when they are sent to specialists or other providers outside the military health system and these private providers incorrectly process their Tricare claims or simply send the bills directly to the service member.

Such was the case for Army[5] Spc. Daysha Cartagena and her husband, Staff Sgt. Isaiah Cortez, who received bills totaling nearly $670,000 when their daughter was transferred from the military hospital at Fort Liberty[6], North Carolina, to private facilities for advanced medical care in Raleigh.

Warren cited the couple, whose case was profiled in June on Military.com[7], in her Dec. 3 letter to Austin.

"Given service members' frequent relocations, some service members may not discover these charges in a timely manner," Warren wrote.

A CFPB report published in June 2022 found that more than 5,000 troops and family members reported medical billing issues to the agency from 2018 to 2021. In 2021 alone, the CFPB received more than 1,500 complaints from service members about incorrect medical bills appearing on credit reports, according to the report.

About 54% of the complaints in 2021 were about attempts to collect medical debt the service members did not actually owe, according to the report.

Warren, who is largely credited for proposing the creation of the CFPB while she was a professor at Harvard University, told Austin in her Dec. 3 letter that she was disappointed that the DoD had failed to implement CFPB's recommendations in the year since the agency made them.

"In the [August] response, DoD claimed it would need to create a centralized reporting system or database in order to understand the full scope and impact of medical debt on service members. I urge DoD to develop such a system," she wrote.

In addition to Warren, the letter to Austin was signed by Sens. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, and Raphael Warnock, D-Ga.

-- Patricia Kime can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Related: Agency Helping Protect Veterans from Predatory Lenders Endangered by Supreme Court Case, Advocates Warn[8]

© Copyright 2023 Military.com. All rights reserved. This article may not be republished, rebroadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without written permission. To reprint or license this article or any content from Military.com, please submit your request here[9].

Read more

Marchers with the Alt-Right Neo-Nazi group

An annual Pentagon report on extremism within the ranks reveals that 78 service members were suspected of advocating for the overthrow of the U.S. government and another 44 were suspected of engaging or supporting terrorism.

The report released Thursday[1] by the Defense Department inspector general revealed that in fiscal 2023 there were 183 allegations of extremism across all the branches of military, broken down not only into efforts to overthrow the government and terrorism but also advocating for widespread discrimination or violence to achieve political goals.

The statistics indicate the military continues to grapple with extremism following its public denunciations and a stand-down across the services[2] ordered by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in 2021. Furthermore, the numbers do not make it clear whether the military's approach is working. In 2021, the year the data was first released to Congress[3], there were 270 allegations of extremist activities. In 2022[4], that figure dropped to 146 before rebounding over the past year.

Read Next: Airman's Remains Recovered from Osprey Crash off Coast of Japan, 7 Others Listed as 'Whereabouts Unknown'[5]

The Army[6] had the most allegations in fiscal 2023 with 130 soldiers suspected of participation in extremist activity. The Air Force[7] suspected 29 airmen; the Navy[8] and Marine Corps[9] reported 10 service members each. For the first time, the inspector general also reported numbers for the Space Force[10] as a separate entity from the other services -- it suspected four Guardians of extremism.

The IG report also included instances of alleged criminal gang activity: There were 58 allegations of gang activity across the military.

However, the report did note that, out of all the suspected extremism and criminal gang activity, 68 of the total cases were investigated and cleared or deemed unsubstantiated.

In the U.S., extremist activity, including neo-Nazi, white supremacist and anti-government movements, has been growing, and numerous violent plots by veterans and even active-duty troops have been thwarted in recent years[11]. Experts on extremist movements have warned about the growing potential of more violence and future attacks, similar to the Oklahoma City federal building bombing in 1995 that killed 168 and was carried out by an Army veteran.

In February, a former National Guardsman[12], Brandon Russell, who founded the Atomwaffen Division, a neo-Nazi hate group, was charged with plotting to blow up Baltimore's electrical grid and cause as much suffering as possible. Russell, who allegedly kept a framed photo of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, was sentenced to five years in prison in 2018 after an arrest in Florida for possessing explosives.

In the wake of the Jan. 6 siege of the U.S. Capitol building, the Pentagon tried to make a show of dealing with the problem of extremism among troops after it became clear that veterans as well as some active-duty troops were among the mob that stormed the halls of Congress in an effort to halt the certification of the 2020 election.

Military.com has reported that many of those efforts[13] -- including the military-wide extremism training stand-down ordered by Austin -- were largely symbolic and were widely considered as just another box for commanders to check.

One active-duty noncommissioned officer said that, aside from the fact that no one was paying attention at the stand-down briefing he attended, the commander giving the lecture was "talking about what he thought were radical groups like Black Lives Matter."

The idea that far-left groups are just as problematic as far-right ones is a popular talking point among conservatives[14] and Republican lawmakers[15]. However, law enforcement officials[16] and experts who study the topic have consistently noted that far-right groups espousing anti-government and white supremacist views are the biggest threat to the U.S. today[17].

The report also revealed that other efforts such as screening prospective recruits before enlistment are not working as well as intended.

Some recruiters[18] did not complete all of the screening steps and "as a result, military service recruiters may not have identified all applications with extremist or criminal gang associations," according to the inspector general report.

"Further, the audit found that one military service entered data indicating applicants disclosed extremist or gang associations even though the applicants had not made such disclosures," the IG said, but it did not reveal which of the services falsely accused some of its recruits of having extremist ties.

What the report does make clear, however, is that when allegations are made, they are being referred for investigation, and when allegations are substantiated, some action is taken.

Of all the extremist and gang activity allegations, 135 were reported to military or civilian law enforcement, and 109 of the allegations were reported to another DoD organization or official.

Furthermore, 69 of all the allegations were substantiated at the time the report was written and the vast majority of those -- 50 -- were handled through administrative actions. That included involuntary discharge for 19 and counseling in three instances, while 17 more were handled by nonjudicial punishment and two went to court-martial.

There were no substantiated cases of extremism or gang activity where no action was taken.

While these figures, compared with the overall size of the services, are small, research and experts say that military service members and veterans pose an outsized danger to communities when they go down the path of extremism, given their increased familiarity with firearms and ability to organize and plan effectively.

In 2020, an Air Force sergeant at Travis Air Force Base[19] in California pulled up to a federal courthouse in Oakland, California, in a white van and opened fire on security guards[20], killing one before going on the run and murdering a county sheriff's deputy a week later as part of a larger plan to incite a civil war.

Also in 2020, members of a group that included two Marines[21] and styled itself as a "modern day SS" were arrested on allegations that they were plotting to destroy the power grid in the northwest. U.S. court records in that case[22] say members discussed recruiting other veterans, stole military equipment, asked others to buy explosives, and discussed plans to manufacture firearms.

-- Konstantin Toropin can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow him on X at @ktoropin[23].

Related: What the Pentagon Has, Hasn't and Could Do to Stop Veterans and Troops from Joining Extremist Groups[24]

© Copyright 2023 Military.com. All rights reserved. This article may not be republished, rebroadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without written permission. To reprint or license this article or any content from Military.com, please submit your request here[25].

Read more

More Articles …