Via Middle East Eye

Former CIA Director George Tenet thought him “at least as dangerous as Osama bin Laden” and former Mossad Chief Shabtai Shavit regretted not killing him. But to almost 250 million Pakistanis, Abdul Qadeer Khan – the godfather of Pakistan’s nuclear programme – is a legend and national hero.

The nuclear scientist, who was born in 1936 and died in 2021 aged 85, was more responsible than anyone else for the South Asian nation developing a nuclear bomb. He ran a sophisticated and clandestine international network assisting Iran, Libya and North Korea with their nuclear programs. One of those nations, North Korea, ended up getting the coveted military status symbol. Israel – itself a nuclear power, although it has never admitted it – allegedly used  assassination attempts and threats to try and stop Pakistan from going nuclear.

In the 1980s Israel even formulated a plan to bomb Pakistan’s nuclear site with Indian assistance – a scheme that the Indian government eventually backed out of.

AQ Khan, as he is commonly remembered by Pakistanis, believed that by building a nuclear bomb he had saved his country from foreign threats, especially its nuclear-armed neighbor India.

Today many of his fellow citizens agree.

‘Why not an Islamic bomb?’

Pakistan first decided to build a bomb after its larger neighbor had done so. On 18 May 1974 India tested its first nuclear weapon, which it codenamed Smiling Buddha. Pakistani Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto immediately vowed to develop nuclear weapons for his own country. 

“We will eat grass or leaves, even go hungry, but we will get one of our own,” he said. There was, he declared, “a Christian bomb, a Jewish bomb and now a Hindu bomb. Why not an Islamic bomb?”

Born during British rule of the Indian subcontinent, AQ Khan completed a science degree at Karachi University in 1960 before studying metallurgical engineering in Berlin. He also went on to study in the Netherlands and Belgium. By 1974 Khan was working for a subcontractor of a major nuclear fuel company, Urenco, in Amsterdam.

The company supplied enriched uranium nuclear fuel for European nuclear reactors. Khan had access to top secret areas of the Urenco facility and blueprints of the world’s best centrifuges, which enriched natural uranium and turned it into bomb fuel.

In January 1976 he made a sudden and mysterious departure from the Netherlands, saying he had been made “an offer I can’t refuse in Pakistan”. Khan was later accused of having stolen a blueprint for uranium centrifuges, which can turn uranium into weapons-grade fuel, from the Netherlands.

That July he set up a research laboratory in Rawalpindi which produced enriched uranium for nuclear weapons. For a few years the operation proceeded in secret. Dummy companies imported the components Khan needed to build an enrichment program, the official story being that they were going towards a new textile mill.

While there is significant evidence indicating that Pakistan’s military establishment was supporting Khan’s work, civilian governments were generally kept in the dark, with the exception of Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (who had proposed the initiative). 

Even the late prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s daughter, was not told a word about the programe by her generals. She only found out about it in 1989 by accident – in Tehran. 

Iranian President Rafsanjani asked her whether they could reaffirm the two countries’ agreement on “special defense matters”.

“What exactly are you talking about, Mr President?” asked Bhutto, confused. “Nuclear technology, Madam Prime Minister, nuclear technology,” replied the Iranian president. Bhutto was stunned. 

Assassination attempts and threats

In June 1979, the operation was exposed by the magazine 8 Days. There was an international uproar. Israel protested to the Dutch, who ordered an inquiry. A Dutch court convicted Khan in 1983 for attempted espionage (the conviction was later overturned on a technicality). But work on the nuclear program continued.

By 1986, Khan was confident Pakistan had the capability to produce nuclear weapons.

His motivation was in large part ideological: “I want to question the holier-than-thou attitude of the Americans and British,” he said. “Are these bastards God-appointed guardians of the world?”

There were serious efforts to sabotage the program, including a series of assassination attempts widely understood to have been the work of Israel’s intelligence agency, Mossad.

Executives at European companies doing business with Khan found themselves targeted. A letter bomb was sent to one in West Germany – he escaped but his dog was killed. Another bombing targeted a senior executive of Swiss company Cora Engineering, which worked on Pakistan’s nuclear program.

Historians, including Adrian Levy, Catherine Scott-Clark and Adrian Hanni, have argued that the Mossad used threats and assassination attempts in a failed campaign to prevent Pakistan from building the bomb. Siegfried Schertler, the owner of one company, told Swiss Federal Police that Mossad agents phoned him and his salesmen repeatedly.

He said he was approached by an employee of the Israeli embassy in Germany, a man named David, who told him to stop “these businesses” regarding nuclear weapons. The Israelis “didn’t want a Muslim country to have the bomb”, according to Feroz Khan, a former official in Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program.

In the early 1980s Israel proposed to India that the two collaborate to bomb and destroy Pakistan’s nuclear facility at Kahuta in Pakistan’s Rawalpindi district.

Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi approved the strike. A plan developed for Israeli F-16s and F-15s to take off from the Jamnagar airbase in India’s Gujarat and launch strikes on the facility. But Gandhi later backed out and the plan was shelved.

In 1987, when her son Rajiv Gandhi was prime minister, the Indian army chief Lieutenant General Krishnaswami Sundarji tried to start a war with Pakistan so India could bomb the nuclear facility at Kahuta.

He sent half a million troops to the Pakistani border for military drills, along with hundreds of tanks and armored vehicles – an extraordinary provocation. But this attempt at triggering hostilities failed after the Indian prime minister, who had not been properly briefed on Sundarji’s plan, instigated a deescalation with Pakistan.

Despite Indian and Israeli opposition, both the US and China covertly helped Pakistan. China provided the Pakistanis with enriched uranium, tritium and even scientists. Meanwhile, American support came because Pakistan was an important Cold War ally. 

US President Jimmy Carter cut aid to Pakistan in April 1979 in response to Pakistan’s program being exposed, but then reversed the decision months later when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan: America would need the help of neighboring Pakistan.

In the 1980s, the US covertly gave Pakistani nuclear scientists technical training and turned a blind eye to its program. But everything changed with the end of the Cold War.

In October 1990 the US halted economic and military aid to Pakistan in protest against the nuclear program. Pakistan then said it would stop developing nuclear weapons. AQ Khan later revealed, though, that the production of highly enriched uranium secretly continued.

The seventh nuclear power

On 11 May 1998 India tested its nuclear warheads. Pakistan then successfully tested its own in the Balochistan desert later that month. The US responded by sanctioning both India and Pakistan.Pakistan had become the world’s seventh nuclear power.

And Khan was a national hero. He was driven around in motorcades as large as the prime minister’s and was guarded by army commandos. Streets, schools and multiple cricket teams were named after him. He wasn’t known for playing down his achievements.

“Who made the atom bomb? I made it,” Khan declared on national television. “Who made the missiles? I made them for you.” But Khan had also organized another, particularly daring, operation.

From the mid-1980s onwards, he ran an international nuclear network which sent technology and designs to Iran, North Korea and Libya.

He would order double the number of parts the Pakistani nuclear program required and then secretly sell the excess on.

In the 1980s the Iranian government – despite Ayatollah Khomeini’s opposition to the bomb on the grounds that it was Islamically prohibited – approached Pakistan’s military dictator, General Zia-ul-Haq, for help. Between 1986 and 2001, Pakistan gave Iran key components needed to make a bomb, although these tended to be secondhand – Khan kept the most advanced technology for Pakistan. 

The Mossad had Khan under surveillance as he travelled around the Middle East in the 1980s and 1990s, but failed to work out what the scientist was doing.

Then-Mossad chief Shavit later said that if he had realised Khan’s intentions, he would have considered ordering Khan to be assassinated to “change the course of history”.

Gaddafi exposes the operation

In the end, Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi blew Khan’s operation in 2003 while attempting to win support from the US. Gaddafi disclosed to the CIA and MI6 that Khan was building nuclear sites for his government – some of which were disguised as chicken farms. 

The CIA siezed machinery bound for Libya as it was being smuggled through the Suez Canal. Investigators found weapons blueprints in bags from an Islamabad dry cleaner.

When the operation was exposed, the Americans were horrified. “It was an astounding transformation when you think about it, something we’ve never seen before,” a senior American official told the New York Times. 

“First, [Khan] exploits a fragmented market and develops a quite advanced nuclear arsenal. “Then he throws the switch, reverses the flow and figures out how to sell the whole kit, right down to the bomb designs, to some of the world’s worst governments.”

In 2004 Khan confessed to running the nuclear proliferation network, saying he had provided Iran, Libya and North Korea with nuclear technology.

In February, he appeared on television and insisted he had acted alone, with no support from the Pakistani government, which then swiftly pardoned him. 

President Musharraf called him “my hero”. However, reportedly under US pressure, he placed Khan under effective house arrest in Islamabad until 2009. Later AQ Khan said that he “saved the country for the first time when I made Pakistan a nuclear nation and saved it again when I confessed and took the whole blame on myself”.

He was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2006 but recovered after surgery. Enormously wealthy, in his later years, Khan funded a community centre in Islamabad and spent his time feeding monkeys. Those who knew him said Khan firmly believed what he had done was right.

He wanted to stand up to the west and give nuclear technology to non-western, particularly Muslim, nations. “He also said that giving technology to a Muslim country was not a crime,” one anonymous acquaintance recalled.

When Khan died of Covid in 2021, he was hailed as a “national icon” by then-Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan. And that is how he is still widely remembered today in Pakistan.

“[The] nation should be rest assured Pakistan is a safe atomic power,” the nuclear scientist had declared in 2019. “No one can cast an evil eye on it.”

Authored by Rebekah Barnett via The Brownstone Institute,

Like the Marvel franchise, with its unlimited instalments and spin-offs, a new Covid scare campaign is underway in Australia.

Like the Marvel franchise, the entertainment content exists largely to create demand for merchandise. 

Unlike most Marvel films, this latest virus fear-mongering drive is turning out to be a massive flop.

The hook: There’s a new “highly contagious” Covid Omicron subvariant in town, catchily named NB.1.8.1. 

Sticking with time-tested tradition, health authorities, experts, and media are playing the ‘cases, cases, cases’ angle, as the latest variant “sweeps the nation” with what I calculate to be Australia’s twelfth Covid wave since the pandemic scare series kicked off in 2020.

Exposition: “According to Griffith University, the NB.1.8.1 variant makes up more than 40 per cent of total COVID cases tested in Victoria, around 25 per cent in Western Australia and New South Wales, around 20 per cent in Queensland and less than 10 per cent in South Australia,” reports ABC. 

“There are hundreds of different strains of Omicron, and the new subvariant NB.1.8.1 is driving up infections and hospitalisations, particularly in Asia and Western Australia,” reports the Daily Mail.

Narrator’s aside: Case counts and hospitalisations are well within the normal range in Western Australia (WA), and no one has been admitted to ICU with Covid for months, according to the latest WA Health reporting.

Source: Virus WAtch, 11 May 2025, WA Health.

Source: Virus WAtch, 11 May 2025, WA Health.

We’re not seeing anything out of the ordinary in national statistics either.

Source: Australian Respiratory Surveillance Report – 5 May to 18 May 2025.

Source: Australian Respiratory Surveillance Report – 5 May to 18 May 2025.

However, we mustn’t let this contextualising information get in the way of the narrative arc.

Climactic buildup: Back to cases, cases, cases. It’s “pretty much everywhere,” according to ABC. “Doctors are expecting a further spike in cases,” so “experts are urging people to get their COVID booster jab.”

Source: ABC

Endless vaccination is the only way out! 

Climactic escalation: But experts are furious that Australians are not vaccinating enough. You naughty, naughty Australians. In the past six months, only 6.6% of adults have received a Covid vaccine, according to recent federal figures, despite the vaccines being “free,” i.e., already paid for with your taxes.

Source: Daily Mail

Crisis response: Our protagonist takes action to meet the threat head-on. After all, the government has product to shift, so the vaccine advertorial must keep pumping.

Health Minister Mark Butler bravely does the media rounds, imploring anyone who can get a booster to “have a serious think” about following through.

Source: news.com.au

Hero falters: Unfortunately for Butler, boosters aren’t recommended for many cohorts in Australia anymore, because the risk-benefit profile is not favourable for most people.

Current Australian guidelines suggest adults aged over 75 should get a booster every six months, while those aged between 65 and 74, along with severely immunocompromised adults over 18 years of age, should get one every year. Outside of this, boosters are not recommended but are available to all Australian adults and to children who are severely immunocompromised.

Plot twist: Experts admit that the reason everyone needs another booster is that vaccinating against a fast-mutating coronavirus doesn’t work super well. 

“The virus gradually evolves so that some of its proteins are a little bit different so that it can avoid the antibodies that we’ve now got present at population level,” says one. 

“In this case, we’ve got mutations in the spike protein that seems to be making it easier for this virus to attach to our cells and it seems to be making this virus evade our antibodies better,“ says another.

Flashback montage: Every expert who warned of immune imprinting, immune suppression, immune tolerance, the role of vaccines in driving new variants, vaccine-associated enhanced disease (VAEDs), and the general futility of vaccinating against respiratory viruses. 

Slow roll a peer-reviewed article co-authored by Dr Anthony Fauci concluding that, “Durably protective vaccines against non-systemic mucosal respiratory viruses with high mortality rates have thus far eluded vaccine development efforts.”

Comic relief: Like the good lackeys they are, media outlets are beating up the BREAKING new variant story, to which the general public response has been LMAO.

An online Murdoch media poll indicates three-quarters of their readers just aren’t interested.

Denouement: Collective apathy. The failure of this latest scare campaign is unlikely to preclude a thirteenth scare campaign, as the government is generally unresponsive to market feedback, and it has mRNA investments and purchase commitments driving its decision-making.

Media will continue to uncritically print government press releases provided they convert to clicks – LMAO or otherwise.

Expect the next installment just in time for the summer Covid wave.

Republished from the author’s Substack

Republican Senator Josh Hawley slammed the stranglehold four mega-corporations—two of them foreign-owned—have over America’s beef processing industry, calling it a “modern-day monopoly.” 

Hawley, speaking Monday at the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Competition Policy, Antitrust, and Consumer Rights, warned about the cartel-like grip that mega-corps such as JBS, Tyson Foods, Cargill, and National Beef have on the nation’s beef supply chain. 

“Four companies currently control over 80% of beef processing in this country and very similarly high shares of poultry and pork. In Missouri, just in the last year, we have had two poultry plants closed by the dominant. Poultry processor Tyson Food canceling contracts with farmers putting hundreds of people out of work across my state really acting with total impunity why … because they can because they they are essentially a monopolist,” Hawley said. 

Hawley asked Federal Trade Commissioner Mark Meador: “Is this kind of thing [beef monopoly] that the FTC can take action on?” 

Meador responded, “Yes, with the small caveat that the Department of Justice typically handles the packers but the FTC sees this at the retail level as well. When there are a smaller number of packers, retailers pay higher prices, and then consumers pay higher prices, and then retailers want to merge and consolidate their own part of the supply chain to counteract that, and then it’s sort of an arms race to see who can get the biggest, the fastest.” 

Hawley noted, “I’ll end with this right now beef processing is just one example but it’s a perfect example for a state like mine the only people who win are the monopolists – you know if you’re a cattle rancher you’re not getting paid for your product – if you are a consumer at the grocery store you’re paying an arm and a leg for some hamburger – yet so the consumers are paying more the farmers are getting paid less who is making out like a bandit here? It’s the monopolists, it’s the four companies that control 80% of beef processing, that is not competition. We need more competition in this country, economy-wide.” 

On X, Hawley called for “more industry competition in America.” 

A total of 4 companies control a whopping 80% of the entire beef-processing industry. That’s a modern-day monopoly.

The winners here? The monopolists – like Tyson Foods. The losers? Farmers & grocery shoppers.

We need more industry competition in America pic.twitter.com/UxZc7eoAOZ

— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) June 24, 2025

More here

Hawley is right. And here at ZeroHedge, we’ve been at the forefront of sounding the alarm on America’s imploding food sovereignty. With two of the Big Four beef processors—JBS and National Beef—foreign-owned, it’s only a matter of time before Washington wakes up to the national security threat that poses. 

The answer? A grassroots revival of regional microprocessors—a decentralized, community-driven push to take back control of the food supply chain from globalist monopolists and put it where it belongs: in the hands of ranchers nationwide. 

A network of smaller processors adds redundancy, preventing catastrophic bottlenecks, such as what we saw during the early days of the Covid pandemic. When one large meat plant goes offline, the entire national supply chain is thrown into chaos.

Regional processors would provide alternative outlets for ranchers and farmers to sell cattle at higher prices, helping to revive rural economies and preserve family farms. The move to support local ranchers will only gain momentum under the MAHA movement. Know your rancher. 

Authored by Bill Pan via The Epoch Times,

The U.S. Department of Education has found California in violation of federal anti-discrimination laws for allowing male athletes to compete in women’s sports.

The finding on June 25 follows investigations launched earlier this year into both the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF), which is the governing body for high school sports in the state, and the California Department of Education.

The inquiries, opened in February and April, focused on whether California’s School Success and Opportunity Act conflicts with Title IX, the law prohibiting sex-based discrimination in education programs that receive federal dollars.

The California law, in effect since 2014, allows students to participate in sports programs and use sex-segregated bathrooms and locker rooms based on their preferred gender identity rather than biological sex.

CIF has stated that it intends to continue following state law, even as President Donald Trump warned that doing so could jeopardize its federal funding.

As a result of Wednesday’s noncompliance finding, the U.S. Education Department outlined a series of required actions that state authorities must implement within 10 days.

Those include directing schools to adopt biology-based definitions of “male” and “female”; restoring titles, awards, and records to female athletes who were displaced by male competitors in girls’ events; and sending personalized letters of apology to each affected female athlete on behalf of California for the discrimination they had suffered.

Failure to comply, the U.S. Education Department warned, could be met with enforcement actions, including referral to the U.S. Department of Justice for legal proceedings.

The state agencies did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The announcement comes just weeks after CIF crowned two champions in girls’ track and field events at the state meet, where a transgender athlete took first place in both the high jump and triple jump. The male student, who also finished second in the long jump, shared the podium with female competitors under a new rule that allows all athletes to receive medals based on their placement if no transgender athlete had competed.

“The CIF values all of our student-athletes and we will continue to uphold our mission of providing students with the opportunity to belong, connect, and compete while complying with California law and Education Code,” the federation said in a statement ahead of the championship matches.

In March, in a rare change of tone, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, described the current policy as “deeply unfair” during an episode of his own podcast. Speaking with conservative commentator Charlie Kirk, Newsom agreed with Kirk’s argument that Democrats had become out of touch with many Americans by insisting that transgender athletes should compete based on gender identity.

“I revere sports, and so the issue of fairness is completely legit,” Newsom told Kirk. He has not yet proposed any changes to the law since the show aired and has drawn criticism from members of the Democratic Party, including pro-LGBT state lawmakers.

Citing the governor’s remarks, U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon condemned the state’s continued enforcement of the policy.

“Although Governor Gavin Newsom admitted months ago it was ‘deeply unfair’ to allow men to compete in women’s sports, both the California Department of Education and the California Interscholastic Federation continued as recently as a few weeks ago to allow men to steal female athletes’ well-deserved accolades and to subject them to the indignity of unfair and unsafe competitions,” McMahon said in a statement.

“The Trump Administration will relentlessly enforce Title IX protections for women and girls, and our findings today make clear that California has failed to adhere to its obligations under federal law.

“The state must swiftly come into compliance with Title IX or face the consequences that follow.”

Israel claims that its military campaign against Iran has resulted in the targeted killing of at least 14 scientists. Although these were key figures, the reality is that this is unlikely to completely halt any potential nuclear ambitions.

Speaking to The Associated Press, Israel’s ambassador to France has declared that assassinations would make it “almost” impossible for Iran to develop nuclear weapons with what infrastructure might remain. Other assessments say that all of this set back the Islamic Republic’s program by a mere months.

And of course, nuclear scientists are replaceable – and it remains that the country’s nuclear energy program has always been large, and a top national priority.

Also important is that on Wednesday Iran belatedly confirmed the death of Maj. Gen. Ali Shadmani, who succumbed to injuries sustained during Israeli airstrikes last week.

Shadmani had been appointed on June 13 to lead the Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, which coordinates operations between Iran’s regular military and the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

He filled the top spot following the death of his predecessor, Lt. Gen. Gholam Ali Rashid, in Israel’s earlier attacks that took the lives of several senior commanders.

Israel had called Shadmani Iran’s ‘War-Time Chief of Staff’ upon claiming his death in a targeted operation last week. But Tehran has only now issued official confirmation of his death.

Additionally:

At least 35 Air Defense Force personnel were killed in the Israeli attacks between June 13 and Tuesday, Iran’s semi-official Student News Network (SNN) said today.

SNN published the names of those who were killed. Among them were two brigadier generals, seven colonels and three lieutenant colonels.

Below are some further casualty figures in Iran following what Trump dubbed the ’12-day war’:

At least 627 people were killed in Iran during its conflict with Israel in the period between June 13 and June 25, Iranian state media outlet IRIB reported on Wednesday, citing the country’s health ministry.

At least 4,870 other people were injured during that time, IRIB said.

The health ministry said 86% of the victims died at the scene of Israeli attacks, as cited by IRIB.

Currently a ceasefire is held, and Iran is assessing the damage – and likely rapidly trying to replenish losses both in terms of personnel and equipment and infrastructure.

Meanwhile The GrayZone’s Max Blumenthal weighs in on where things stand regarding Trump’s statements saying Iran’s nuclear program has been completely destroyed…

Only the most deluded Trump cultists believe Orange McCain destroyed Iran’s nuclear program, or that it’s possible to do so in a Top Gun-style raid

Even Israeli nationalists admit Trump’s attack was a PR stunt, complimenting a leaked DIA assessment, satellite imagery and more https://t.co/HMrnkujJDJ

— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) June 25, 2025

Among Iran’s first pressing tasks will be to quickly try to reconstitute its destroyed anti-air defenses, given that Israeli warplanes apparently achieved total domination and freedom of action over Western Iran’s skies.

Authored by Maureen Steele via AmericanGreatness.com,

The Constitution wasn’t suspended… it was sidelined, buried under emergency powers, executive orders, and fear, while Americans barely noticed the quiet coup…

Let’s get this out of the way first.

No, the Constitution wasn’t officially suspended in 1933. But it was gagged, blindfolded, and tied to a chair while the federal government handed itself sweeping emergency powers and redefined “freedom” into a kind of bureaucratic improv comedy routine.

They didn’t declare martial law on paper because that would have looked bad. Instead, they declared it in practice and gave it a haircut, a press pass, and a desk job. Most Americans never noticed. Most still don’t.

The story begins with a “banking emergency.” On March 6, 1933, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed Executive Order 2039, effectively closing the banks. This wasn’t a request—it was a national lockdown of the financial system. Within days, Congress passed the Emergency Banking Relief Act, which amended the Trading With the Enemy Act of 1917 to allow the president to seize private property and control commerce even in peacetime. You read that right. The original act was intended for use against foreign enemies during wartime. Roosevelt’s administration simply redefined the term “enemy” to include American citizens. That’s not a conspiracy theory. That’s a matter of historical record. You can read it here and here. This wasn’t martial law with tanks in the streets. It was something more insidious: the silent transfer of authority from constitutional governance to executive fiat, wrapped in the language of patriotic crisis management.

Then came House Joint Resolution 192 in June of that same year. This little piece of legal sorcery declared that debts could no longer be paid in gold. Instead, all gold was to be surrendered to the Federal Reserve, and the American public would now transact in fiat currency—Federal Reserve Notes. In one move, Roosevelt erased the gold standard domestically, outlawed the most stable form of lawful money, and replaced it with an I.O.U. The people didn’t protest. They complied. It was all for the good of the nation, they were told. Never mind that their savings were now denominated in debt-backed paper. Never mind that the Constitution says only gold and silver shall be legal tender. Never mind that the American people’s wealth was effectively nationalized with the stroke of a pen.

By 1938, the Supreme Court put the nail in the coffin. Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins may sound like a mundane case about trains and trespass, but the decision fundamentally altered the legal landscape of America. Prior to Erie, federal courts operated under general common law principles—those ancient foundations rooted in natural law and the rights of man. After Erie, federal courts were now confined to statutory law. In other words, judges would interpret the rules written by bureaucrats and legislatures, not derive justice from first principles. The Constitution didn’t vanish overnight. It just became irrelevant in practice. What mattered now was what the statute said. If Congress wrote a law giving an agency the right to inspect your property, seize your earnings, or regulate your behavior, the courts would uphold it, even if it made a mockery of the Bill of Rights.

So no, martial law was never formally declared. But we’ve been living under a continuous state of emergency ever since. Roosevelt’s national emergency was never truly repealed. Instead, it became the precedent for every president that followed. As of this writing, there are at least 41 ongoing national emergencies in effect, some of them decades old. You can find the full list here. The 9/11 emergency is still active. The COVID emergency was extended multiple times before it was quietly phased out. New emergencies are declared regularly over foreign sanctions, trade disruptions, and cyber threats. Each declaration unlocks a set of executive powers that bypass the normal constitutional process. Congress almost never intervenes to end them. The public barely registers their existence. The result is a legal environment in which emergency governance is the norm, not the exception.

Why does this work? The answer lies in psychology. When people feel threatened, they surrender liberty for safety. The fight-or-flight part of the brain takes over. Critical thinking shuts down. This is not speculation. It’s basic neuroscience. Governments have long known that fear makes citizens more compliant. Tell them the banks are collapsing, the virus is coming, the terrorists are plotting, or the climate is boiling, and they’ll accept almost anything in the name of protection. Even the erosion of their most sacred rights. Once that pattern is set, it becomes permanent. Americans have been conditioned to believe that constitutional protections are optional—valid only when convenient and subject to immediate cancellation when the sirens start blaring.

Now let’s talk about the legal sleight of hand. Most Americans assume they live under the jurisdiction of the Constitution. But the courts increasingly operate under a hybrid system of statutory and administrative law, often enforced through what is functionally maritime law. Don’t believe me? Take a look at the gold-fringed flag in most courtrooms. That’s not just decoration. It’s a symbol of admiralty jurisdiction, meaning you’re not in a constitutional court. You’re in a corporate tribunal. And speaking of corporations, the United States is defined in 28 U.S. Code § 3002(15)(A) as a federal corporation. You are not a sovereign individual under natural law. You are a legal entity—an asset tracked by a Social Security number and collateralized against the national debt.

From Roosevelt to Biden, every president has expanded these powers. Truman declared emergency powers during the Korean War. Reagan authorized secret continuity of government plans. Bush signed the Patriot Act. Obama embedded indefinite detention into the NDAA. Trump launched Operation Warp Speed and accelerated the surveillance state through Palantir and FISA. Biden renewed and expanded nearly every emergency he inherited. The mechanisms of control don’t change. Only the branding does.

And here we are. The Constitution is still there, printed in pocket-sized booklets and waved around at rallies. But in most courtrooms, classrooms, and government buildings, it has all the force of a museum artifact. They didn’t suspend it. They just bypassed it. They didn’t tear it up. They just buried it under 90,000 pages of federal regulations. And when someone like you or me points this out, we’re called extremists, radicals, or conspiracy theorists. That’s fine. History is full of people who were slandered for telling the truth too early.

But the Constitution doesn’t give you rights. It recognizes the rights you already have. The paper is not the source. You are. And no act of Congress, no executive order, no foreign or domestic emergency can erase what God has written into your being. They can only convince you to forget it.

Until you remember.

Hunter Biden, the crackhead son of former President Joe Biden who was sitting in on meetings in the waning months of his father’s administration, is being sued by his lawyers for unpaid bills “substantially in excess of $50,000,” according to a new complaint filed against him on Monday. 

“This is breach of contract action against Mr. Biden for unpaid legal fees,” reads the complaint filed in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia by Winston & Strawn LLP – which notes that the 55-year-old bagman-in-chief hired the firm “to represent him in several complex matters, including criminal trial in the United States District Court for the District of Delaware,” and that the firm provided him “with extensive legal services in those matters which generated a substantial amount of fees.”

According to the law firm, Hunter has dodged “repeated” efforts to collect those fees.

“Although a portion of those fees have been paid, Mr. Biden presently owes [Winston & Strawn] substantially in excess of $50,000 in fees and interest that are due and payable,” reads the complaint. “Despite repeated requests for payment, Mr. Biden has failed to pay the amounts he owes.”

“This action is brought to enforce [Winston and Strawn’s] contract rights against Mr. Biden through judgment for the amount due, and lien on all Mr. Biden’s assets.”

The firm includes a copy of Hunter’s “engagement contract” signed on Dec. 23, 2022, which details representation “with respect to any congressional oversight and investigation events in which you are involved, help your coordinate the work of other attorneys, advisors, related parties on pending issues and communications strategy, and assist in the investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice and US Attorney for the District of Delaware.”

As the NY Post notes, Hunter’s attorney Abbe Lowell – who has since left Winston & Strawn, has an hourly rate of $1,510,” and that billing rates for other attorneys and services at the firm range from $230 to $1,945 an hour. 

The firm says it has “devoted substantial resources to defend” Hunter, which generated “substantial legal fees.” 

“While some of Mr. Biden’s bills were paid between March 2023 and October 2024, a substantial amount remains due and owing,” reads the filing. “Mr. Biden never objected to any of W&S’s invoices for the legal services rendered to him.”

“As of April 30, 2025, the outstanding amount due, when factoring in invoiced amounts and interest, is substantially in excess of $50,000.”

An initial hearing in the case has been scheduled for Sept. 19. 

Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times,

The Federal Reserve has adopted a draft proposal to ease a key capital requirement for the nation’s largest banks, aiming to reduce regulatory pressure that discourages them from holding low-risk assets such as U.S. Treasurys and to make it easier for these institutions to act as intermediaries in the Treasury market during times of stress, when liquidity is most needed.

At a public board meeting in Washington on June 25, Fed governors voted 5-2 to advance a long-awaited plan to modify the enhanced supplementary leverage ratio (eSLR)—a post–2008 financial crisis safeguard that requires global systemically important banks (GSIBs) to hold capital against all assets, regardless of risk. The proposal will now be published in the Federal Register and will be open for public comment for 60 days.

Fed chair Jerome Powell, speaking before the vote, endorsed the proposal and pointed to the banking sector’s overall strength. But he warned that the current leverage rule may be over-calibrated, potentially discouraging banks from holding safe assets and contributing to market strain.

“In the case of the leverage ratio, over-calibration may lead to diminished liquidity in the Treasury markets and other unintended consequences,” Powell said. “A leverage requirement functions best when it is generally a backstop to risk-based capital requirements,” Powell continued, adding that when leverage requirements are binding, they can discourage banks from participating in lower-risk lower-return activities that support the U.S. financial system and economy, such as Treasury market intermediation.

The proposed rule would replace the current flat leverage buffer of 2 percent at the parent bank level and 6 percent at the subsidiary level with a variable buffer based on each bank’s systemic risk score.

That change would reduce total capital requirements for America’s biggest banks by about 1.4 percent, according to Fed staff estimates. While capital requirements for bank subsidiaries would fall by a much larger 27 percent, most of that capital would remain locked within the banking group due to holding company rules and would not be available for shareholder payouts.

The reductions apply to Tier 1 capital—the core capital that includes common stock and retained earnings—used as a primary buffer to absorb losses during times of financial stress.

Supporters of the proposal say that the current version of the leverage rule has become too rigid—penalizing banks for holding safe assets and discouraging them from helping stabilize financial markets during periods of stress. Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman, who spearheaded the effort, called the recalibration a “sensible and timely” fix that restores the eSLR’s original purpose.

“The proposal will help to build resilience in U.S. Treasury markets, reducing the likelihood of market dysfunction and the need for the Federal Reserve to intervene in a future stress event,” Bowman said in prepared remarks. “We should be proactive in addressing the unintended consequences of bank regulation, including the bindingness of the eSLR, while ensuring the framework continues to promote safety, soundness, and financial stability.”

Fed governor Christopher Waller likewise endorsed the plan, saying that the current rule fails to distinguish between risky and safe assets.

“The leverage ratio treats a Treasury bond the same as a junk bond, but we know they’re not the same,” Waller said in prepared remarks, adding that the currently calibrated eSLR serves not as a backstop but as a binding requirement for some banks, imposing “unintended consequences for bank health,” with the added potential to impede market functioning.

“Re-working that incentive structure to address these unintended consequences of the current calibration makes sense,” said Waller, who also voted for the proposal.

Oppositions

Two Fed governors voted against the measure, warning that easing the rule could weaken safeguards that protect the banking system in a crisis.

Governor Michael Barr, the Fed’s former top regulatory official, criticized the proposal for significantly reducing bank-level capital and potentially encouraging firms to take on more risk or return capital to shareholders rather than expanding Treasury market activity.

Barr, who previously served as the Fed’s top regulatory official, said in prepared remarks that the proposal would significantly reduce capital across the banking system: by $210 billion at the holding company level, $280 billion at bank subsidiaries, $73 billion in total loss-absorbing capacity, and $132 billion in long-term debt requirements.

“Taken together, these changes would significantly increase the risk that a GSIB bank would fail, orderly resolution would not be possible, and the Deposit Insurance Fund would incur higher losses,” he said, referring to the fund at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), which is used to protect depositors and cover losses when insured banks collapse. Barr warned that with less capital on hand, large banks would be vulnerable in a crisis, potentially leaving the financial system—and taxpayers—more exposed.

Governor Adriana Kugler also opposed the measure, saying she might have supported a narrower recalibration at the holding company level but could not back the deeper capital cuts proposed for bank subsidiaries.

“Broker-dealers, not banks, are the subsidiaries of the G-SIB organizations that play the most critical role in intermediating Treasury markets through market making and securities financing activities,” Kugler said in prepared remarks. “Banks do not play the same role, and I am not convinced that the benefits to Treasury market intermediation from the change at the bank-level justify the significant proposed reductions in tier 1 capital requirements, especially in light of the potential for elevated financial stability risk.”

The proposal also invites public comment on potential alternatives, including whether to exclude certain Treasury assets entirely from the leverage ratio calculation, to further address concerns around U.S. Treasury market intermediation.

As he had hinted on several previous occasions, FHFA Chair Bill Pulte said he had ordered Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to prepare a proposal to include cryptocurrencies as assets in the risk assessment of single-family mortgage loans.

The order directs Fannie and Freddie to “only consider cryptocurrency assets that can be evidenced and stored on a US-regulated centralized exchange.”

After significant studying, and in keeping with President Trump’s vision to make the United States the crypto capital of the world, today I ordered the Great Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to prepare their businesses to count cryptocurrency as an asset for a mortgage.

SO ORDERED pic.twitter.com/Tg9ReJQXC3

— Pulte (@pulte) June 25, 2025

The move is intended to help mortgage seekers who have crypto assets qualify for loans, and comes amid a collapse in the number of mortgage applications in recent years as the US experiences a housing crisis. 

Pulte hinted at today’s notice in a statement on X from June 23, when the FHFA head said his agency will “study the usage of [sic] cryptocurrency holdings as it relates to qualifying for mortgages.”

While homeownership has remained relatively stable over the last 50 years in the US, with around 62% of the population owning homes, the number of new applicants has seen a sharp decline in recent years forcing a record number of young Americans to live with their parents or to be stuck in rental purgatory for decades.

The number of mortgage originations dropped to near record lows in the middle of 2024 and has improved little in the first quarter of 2025, with rates still viewed as sky high by most consumers. The drop in originations, and particularly in refinancing, has been attributed to several factors. 

Firstly, the supply of housing is not growing sufficiently to address demand. Construction is lagging, more housing is being purchased by investors,rather than by would-be homeowners, and elderly homeowners are still living at home rather than moving to senior living accommodations. 

Borrowing is also getting more expensive, and many have attributed the slump in originations to the Federal Reserve’s higher interest rates to combat inflation. Pulte has frequently criticized the Fed’s rate policies, going so far as to call for the resignation of Chair Jerome Powell, who will be testifying before Congress on June 26. 

Amid these headwinds, Pulte is looking for ways to make borrowing more feasible for homeowners, and crypto has emerged as possible wildcard. 

While some boutique lenders already allow borrowers to use their crypto as collateral, study and acknowledgement from the FHFA would represent a major step forward for crypto adoption, particularly amid flagging mortgage application numbers. 

According to CoinTelegraph, acknowledging crypto officially at the FHFA could open up sizeable federal lending programs for more borrowers. In 2024, the FHA alone issued over 760,000 single-family mortgages worth $230 billion. 

Until Jan. 23, 2025, most banks couldn’t offer crypto-backed loans or mortgages due to Staff Accounting Bulletin No. 121, a banking rule from the Securities and Exchange Commission that required financial institutions to count cryptocurrencies as a liability rather than an asset on their balance sheet. The rule was repealed quickly after President Donald Trump took office. 

Still, loans secured through federal programs like FHA, VA and USDA currently do not let borrowers use their crypto as collateral. Indeed, some federal loans may not even allow dollar liquidations from crypto sales to be used for down payments, according to 99Bitcoins editor Sam Cooling. 

Personal finance expert Andrew Lokenauth said that would-be homeowners looking to buy with their Bitcoin proceeds need to “be careful to document everything and save the paperwork.” 

Bitcoin advocates lauded Pulte’s openness to Bitcoin (BTC), with some stating that there are already features that lenders prefer — e.g., a transparent paper trail — built into the digital asset.

Mitchell Askew, an analyst at Bitcoin mining-as-a-service Blockware, said that the asset’s liquidity and transparent custody, namely its public blockchain, make it a “perfect collateral” for home loans. 

CJ Konstantinos, founder of Bitcoin mortgage and bond company People’s Reserve, said that Bitcoin could further help derisk the mortgage-backed securities market the FHFA oversees by regulating Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. “This is a no brainer.”

There are already a small number of lenders that let borrowers offer up their crypto as collateral, but they are few and far between. These cater more toward the investor class of home buyers and carry risks some may not be ready to stomach.

Milo (formerly MiloCredit) approves loans for borrowers instantly, but they first need to show that they have enough crypto to cover the entire value of the loan. Milo CEO Josip Rupena said that many clients were buying their second homes, vacation properties or investment properties.

“Many have strong incomes, but traditional banks wouldn’t have qualified them for the full value of these homes,” he said. 

Strike, another company offering Bitcoin-collateralized loans, states that there are some risks to crypto loans in their current form. Volatility is a major factor. If BTC’s price decreases dramatically, the loan-to-value rate increases, “which can trigger margin calls or liquidations — forced sales at inopportune times.”

Lenders are open to risk as well. One commenter stated, “The risk models for this will be insane. Traditional mortgages assume relatively stable income and assets. Now you’re dealing with borrowers whose net worth can swing 50% in a week. How do you stress-test a portfolio when your collateral includes everything from Bitcoin to random DeFi tokens?”

But crypto ownership in the US is growing increasingly common, with lawmakers and regulators in Washington moving apace to implement rules and legal frameworks that are friendly to the industry. 

Recent studies show that crypto is no longer just the remit of uber-rich crypto bros but is increasingly seen as a legitimate retail asset among normal investors. Some 20% of Americans, around 65 million people, are estimated to now own crypto, according to the National Cryptocurrency Association’s “2025 State of Crypto” report.

Their investments aren’t astronomical either; some 74% of crypto portfolios in the US are worth less than $50,000. 

Allowing crypto for downpayments or as collateral could unlock homeownership for the growing number of investors if Bitcoin joins the list of other securities they can use to get a mortgage. 

Authored by Larry Sand via AmericanGreatness.com,

The fact that many children are ditching America’s public schools is undeniable. Most recently, Nat Malkus, Deputy Director of Education Policy at the American Enterprise Institute, reported that while chronic absenteeism spiked during the COVID pandemic, it remains a serious problem.

In 2024, rates were 57% higher than they were before the pandemic. (Students who miss at least 10% of the school year, or roughly 18 days, are considered chronically absent.)

Malkus goes on to explain that in 2018 and 2019, about 15% of K–12 public school students in the U.S. were chronically absent—a number so high that numerous observers and the U.S. Department of Education are labeling it a “crisis.”

In total, nearly one in twelve public schools in the United States has experienced a “substantial” enrollment decline over the last five years.

The problem is especially egregious in our big cities. In Los Angeles, more than 32% of students were chronically absent in the 2023-2024 school year.

In Chicago, dwindling enrollment has left about 150 schools half-empty, while 47 operate at less than one-third capacity.

Additionally, schools identified by their states as chronically low-performing were more than twice as likely to experience sizable enrollment declines as other public schools.

In February 2025, FutureEd disclosed that data from 22 states and the District of Columbia for the 2023-24 school year show significant differences across grade levels, with absenteeism particularly severe in high school.

“In most states, 12th graders have the highest rates of chronic absenteeism, often far exceeding state averages. In Mississippi, for example, the overall absenteeism rate was 24%, but among seniors, it soared to 41%. Several other states have senior absenteeism rates above 40%, with rates in the District of Columbia and Oregon exceeding 50%.”

FutureEd also reports that kindergartners have disproportionately high rates of chronic absenteeism.

Yet another analysis of data from three states—North Carolina, Texas, and Virginia—shows that, before the COVID pandemic, 17% of students were chronically absent; however, by 2023, long after schools had to cope with new variants and hybrid schedules, that figure had risen to 37%.

The question then becomes, why is this happening?

Many kids have no interest in attending school. A 2024 report from Gallup and the Walton Family Foundation, which surveyed over 1,000 Gen Z students aged 12 to 18, found that only 48% of those enrolled in middle or high school felt motivated to attend school. Only half said they do something interesting in school every day. Similarly, a 2024 EdChoice survey indicates that 64% of teens said school is boring, and 30% perceive it as a waste of time.

It’s not just teens who are unhappy with their school. According to a Gallup poll published this past February, 73% of 1,005 adult respondents were dissatisfied with the quality of public education in the U.S., the highest dissatisfaction rate since the survey began and a 5-point increase from last year’s rate of 68%. In 2001, dissatisfaction was at 57%.

Another reason for the decline in students is that people, particularly in urban areas, are having fewer children than in the past. In fact, 80% of metropolitan areas are experiencing a downward trend in the number of children aged 14 and younger.

One of the ironies of the situation is that while enrollment declines, fewer schools are closing. The IZA Institute of Labor Economics found that in 2014-15, the closure rate—the share of schools nationwide that were open one year and closed the next—was 1.3%. In 2023-24, the rate was just .8%.

What steps can we take to rectify this distressing situation?

Due to the declining school population, schools must be consolidated. Schools, such as those in Chicago, that are only half or a third full need to be closed. Some students may have to take a bus to school, but that’s not an onerous task.

There is also a problem with teacher quality. With declining student numbers in schools, teachers will likely face layoffs. Ideally, the lowest-performing teachers should be the first to be eliminated. However, restrictive union contracts stipulate that layoffs must be based on seniority.

Ultimately, parents must take responsibility for their children’s education. They can choose to homeschool or enroll them in a local microschool. A study shows that parent-led tutoring efforts in Oakland “produced similar gains in reading for young students as instruction from classroom teachers—a nod that could inspire similar efforts in other districts.”

Also, there are currently 76 private school choice programs in 35 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. Overall, 45% of the nation’s 49.6 million students are eligible to participate in a private school choice program. However, just 1.2 million students partake in one.

Too many Americans have become overly dependent on government-run schools, many of which are underperforming. Therefore, for the sake of their children, parents must take responsibility for their education, just as they do for their food, clothing, and shelter. By doing so, they can change the course of their children’s lives.