As the great Ron Paul said…

Foreign aid is taking money from poor people in rich countries and giving it to rich people in poor countries. #CNNDebate #tcot #RonPaul

— Ron Paul (@RonPaul) October 19, 2011

But is it worse than that? Not simply a wealth transfer but a lever of control, wielded by the U.S. government to make weaker nations fall in line. Soft power as they call it.

Few understand it better than Mike Benz, formerly the “Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Communications and Information Policy” at the State Department. Benz believes soft power and foreign aid, managed effectively, have their place in the U.S. empire. Tonight we are bringing the reformist Benz together with foreign aid proponent Cenk Uygur and abolitionist Keith Knight (editor of Scott Horton’s Libertarian Institute) to answer the question: “should we abolish foreign aid?” Hosted by Josie the “Redheaded Libertarian”.

Tune in to the top of the ZH homepage or X page at 7pm ET tonight to watch the debate live.

Subscribe on YouTube, Spotify, and Rumble to be notified of new debates.

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

Substituting debt for earnings while enriching the rich will bear bitter fruit.

Climbing above the craziness of the Normalized Now news flow to view the economy from a quiet, windswept peak helps clear the mind of clutter. The entire economy–and its future–can be distilled down to four charts that tell the underlying story of the U.S. economy over the past 55 years.

Many of the thousands of charts floating around illuminate some aspect of the economy, but these four tell the primary story:

1. The gains from rising productivity–the only durable source of prosperity–were shifted from wages to owners of capital.

2. As wages lost ground, the central bank (Federal Reserve) replaced cash earnings with debt, by a) lowering interest rates for 40 years, b) increasing the money supply and c) opening the flood gates of credit.

3. Wage earners used credit to pay expenses, the wealthy used credit to buy income-producing assets.

4. As a result, assets such as houses are now unaffordable to all but the wealthy.

The net result of these dynamics is the rich got much, much richer, and wage earners became debt-serfs paying interest to the wealthy owners of their debts. Let’s start by noting the difference between an owner-occupied house and an asset (for example a rental property) that generates income.

The owner-occupied house may appreciate in value over time, but this increase isn’t income or a capital gain until the house is sold. Until that point of sale, the house is merely an expense.

Student loans, auto loans, credit cards, etc. are also expenses. Wage earners’ debts are expenses that aren’t offset by income generated by the “asset” purchased with credit.

The quibble here is a $100,000 student loan will “pay off” by increasing the earnings of the student debtor, but this is not the equivalent of buying a bond that pays guaranteed interest. The university diploma may or may not pay off, or it may pay off for a few years and then become a net liability. It’s more a wager than an investment, regardless of what the Higher Education / Student Loan industry claim.

The wealthy who already own assets have a much deeper pool of credit to tap, and the cost of borrowing money is lower for them, too. So the wealthy tapped the expanding pool of “money” and credit to buy income-producing assets: stocks, real estate, enterprises, etc.

Given the limited quantity of real-world assets that generate income, this relentless credit-fueled demand from the wealthy pushed the valuations of assets higher, rendering them less affordable to wage earners.

This massive, sustained transfer of wealth via credit expansion has been going on so long that it’s now normalized: very few people can recall an economy that shared the gains with wage earners rather than diverting most of the nation’s wealth to the already-wealthy.

This chart of wages’ share of the nation’s income is the key snapshot of the economy’s core dynamic. No, it’s not tech, or the stock market, it’s this systemic shift of income from wage earners to owners of capital.

Over the past 50 years, this transfer amounts to a staggering $150 trillion: (same chart, but with the FRED database link)

Here is the chart of total credit expansion, which has outpaced not just wages but GDP (gross domestic product):

This chart of the top 9% (the top 1% have their own chart) shows how the rich have become much richer. The top 10% (top 9% plus the top 1%) have a net worth of $108 trillion, double that of the bottom 90% ($52 trillion), and 27X the net worth of the bottom 50% of the populace ($4 trillion).

The net result is housing has shifted from being affordable to wage earners seeking a place to live to an asset snapped up by the wealthy, private equity and corporations: since wage earners have lost ground, they cannot possibly compete with the wealthy in a bidding war funded by bottomless credit lines. Housing is now unaffordable except to the wealthy.

As a lagniappe, here is a chart of the wealth held by the top 0.01%, which illustrated how the wealth piling up in the top 10% has aggregated in the top 1%, top 0.1% and top 0.01%.

What future do these charts forecast? Instability on a scale few believe possible in the Normalized Now of $100 million homes, $600 million yachts and the speculative frenzy arising as those left behind seek some long-shot wager to gain a bit of the ground that has been lost over 2+ generations.

Substituting debt for earnings while enriching the rich will bear bitter fruit. How it manifests is unknowable, but that it will manifest is predictable. Extremes become more extreme until they break the entire status quo into brittle shards.

My new book Ultra-Processed Life, is available at a 25% discount (ebook edition) and 19% discount (print edition) through Friday, June 27.

*  *  *

Become a $3/month patron of my work via patreon.com.

Subscribe to my Substack for free

Reporters and breaking news X accounts indicate that anti-scale fencing was erected late Friday night into early Saturday morning around the White House and Treasury Department buildings in Washington, D.C. 

While no official statement has been released, prevailing speculation online attributes the move to: 

• Preemptive security posture ahead of the July 4th holiday. 

• National March on Washington scheduled for Saturday, June 28 at 1 PM, led by ANSWER Coalition and affiliated anti-war organizations, protesting potential U.S. military escalation with Iran.

NBC News reporter Ben Popken questioned a U.S. Secret Service agent about the sudden construction of fencing and the apparent elevation in security posture. The agent attributed the move to standard protective measures ahead of the July 4th holiday. 

In DC for work trip. Some new high black metal fencing went up today around White House Lafayette Square. A Secret Service agent told me it was for renovations to the grounds and in preparation for the 4th. pic.twitter.com/DzIkaUbrR1

— Ben Popken (@bpopken) June 28, 2025

More footage of anti-scale fencing being erected. 

🚨#BREAKING: Tonight in Washington, D.C., construction crews are actively erecting and putting up Large anti-scale barricades around the White House and the Treasury.

Any guesses what’s coming 👀 pic.twitter.com/XLVHQhBZbi

— R A W S A L E R T S (@rawsalerts) June 28, 2025

Another possible reason for the heightened security posture could be the far-left ANSWER Coalition’s “National March on Washington,” scheduled for 1 PM EST today.

📆 Saturday, June 28
🕐 1:00PM
📍 Washington DC
🔗 Details and bus info: https://t.co/UqiNSlDy5s

Join people from across the country for a national march on the White House on Saturday, June 28 for a massive protest to demand that Trump & Netanyahu stop the war on Iran! pic.twitter.com/uRHReBYI2j

— ANSWER Coalition (@answercoalition) June 22, 2025

The usual suspects behind leftist protests are involved in organizing this event, including ANSWER, the Palestinian Youth Movement, Black Alliance for Peace, NIAC, Code Pink, and, of course, the Democratic Socialists of America.

Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project has linked some of these far-left organizers to foreign adversaries…

“Phones visiting the ANSWER Coalition and Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) also visited Iran and the Chinese consulate,” Oversight Project wrote on X. 

We analyzed ad data from devices visiting ANSWER’s/PSL’s public San Francisco address

One device had 4 data points at the address, which appear to correspond to two distinct visits separated by 1.5 years.

The same device had 213 data points in Iran. pic.twitter.com/ImKqxohsPY

— Oversight Project (@ItsYourGov) June 24, 2025

In recent weeks, U.S. Congressional Republicans, led by Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY), launched a formal investigation into dark money networks and the political affiliations of billionaire Neville Roy Singham, a U.S. national reportedly residing in Communist China. 

Singham is suspected of funding far-left color revolutions in the U.S. with alleged ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The inquiry focuses on Singham’s possible role as a proxy in CCP propaganda operations and his potential legal exposure under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).

In a letter to the billionaire, House Republicans requested documents and information about his dark money network supporting leftist NGOs such as the Party for Socialism and Liberation, which reportedly played a part in the anti-ICE riots across Los Angeles.

“It has been reported that Mr. Singham is ‘the main backer behind’ the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), which has organized nationwide protests, including the Los Angeles riots. According to the New York Times, Mr. Singham, who resides in the People’s Republic of China, has a long track record of assisting far-left entities, such as Code Pink, that oppose U.S. interests and support U.S. adversaries,” House Republicans wrote in the letter.

As a reminder, Singham is married to Jodie Evans, a far-left political activist and co-founder of Code Pink. Notably, Code Pink is one of the listed sponsors of today’s National March on Washington. This raises serious questions about the extent to which foreign adversaries may be funding or influencing these rogue leftist NGOs operating under the guise of grassroots activism that have an agenda to create as much destabilization as possible. Anti-ICE riots are evidence of that… 

Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A federal judge in Texas has temporarily blocked a new Trump administration policy targeting small-dollar cross-border transactions aimed at curbing cartel money laundering, siding with two businesses who argued it was crippling their operations and scaring off customers.

In a June 24 ruling, U.S. District Judge Leon Schydlower granted a temporary restraining order to Valuta Corporation and Payan’s Fuel Center, two El Paso-based money services businesses, finding they were likely to succeed on their claim that the policy—requiring reports of cash transactions as low as $200—was arbitrary and capricious.

The policy, imposed by the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) through a Geographic Targeting Order (GTO) issued March 11, mandates that money service businesses in 30 ZIP codes across California and Texas file currency transaction reports on all cash transactions between $200 and $10,000. The reporting threshold was previously set at $10,000 under longstanding Bank Secrecy Act rules.

The new mandate, part of a broader Trump administration initiative to designate Mexican drug cartels as terrorist organizations and choke off their U.S. financing, was justified by officials as necessary to stop traffickers from breaking up large sums into smaller cash transactions to avoid detection.

But the plaintiffs—who testified earlier this year in a related case—said the policy instead ensnared law-abiding businesses in high-risk neighborhoods, driving away customers, and overwhelming staff with red tape. In court filings, both described staying up late into the night to complete paperwork and turning away regular customers unwilling to provide personal details such as Social Security numbers to convert or transmit modest sums.

Ashley Light, co-owner of Valuta, said her family’s business had operated since the early 1980s and had only ever filed 123 currency transaction reports (CTR) in all of 2024. Under the new rule, she was forced to submit approximately 1,600 reports in a single month—an explosion in paperwork she said threatened the business’s viability.

“One salaried employee and I have both increased our hours by about 50 [percent]. I am working until about 1:00 in the morning, just doing CTRs,” Light wrote in a declaration. “The failure to file on time is an offense. Each late CTR could mean a fine of over $1,400 or over $70,000 if the government decides the violation is willful. If Valuta slips up at all, we now face potentially ruinous fines.”

Andres Payan Jr., who runs a gas station that also provides check-cashing services, said in filings that many of his customers felt uncomfortable by the new identification demands. Since the GTO went into effect, Payan said he’s lost about 35 percent of his check-cashing business, along with secondary revenue, such as for goods that cash-checking customers might buy.

In response, Trump administration attorneys argued that the GTO is justified because money service businesses along the southwest border are “particularly vulnerable” to money-laundering abuses by cartels, who launder illicit proceeds through the U.S. financial system. They also disputed the claimed burden of compliance with the new rule, calling it “exaggerated.” But even if the court were to grant relief sought by the plaintiffs, it should do so narrowly, tailoring the ruling so that it only applies to the businesses involved in the lawsuit, rather than vacating the GTO with respect to all businesses within covered areas in Texas or elsewhere.

The judge sided with the plaintiffs, but tailored the ruling so it only shields Valuta and Payan’s Fuel Center from further enforcement, meaning other businesses that have not joined the lawsuit are not covered.

In his ruling, Schydlower noted that the government had failed to grapple with the real-world consequences of the rule’s geographic design, which penalizes businesses based solely on ZIP code boundaries. He pointed to Yarbrough Drive, an El Paso street that separates two adjacent ZIP codes—one covered by the order and one not—and said a cartel member “could simply cross” the street to avoid the requirements.

“Innocent businesses can be profoundly disadvantaged if they are located on the ‘wrong’ side of an El Paso street,” he wrote, calling the GTO “completely toothless” from an enforcement perspective.

The case is one of several legal challenges to the GTO. Federal judges in California and Texas previously granted preliminary injunctions, but those orders only applied to a limited number of plaintiffs. Because Valuta and Payan’s Fuel Center were not covered by earlier rulings—despite having provided testimony in those lawsuits—they filed a new suit in June seeking protection.

The GTO targets ZIP codes in six counties along the U.S.–Mexico border: Imperial and San Diego in California, and Cameron, El Paso, Hidalgo, Maverick, and Webb in Texas. Officials argue these areas pose heightened risks for illicit financial activity linked to cross-border narcotics trade.

The Epoch Times has reached out to the Treasury Department with a request for comment on Schydlower’s June 24 ruling and whether the administration plans to appeal or modify the GTO in light of the court’s findings.

In somewhat surprising statements and what can be viewed as a very frank ‘concession’, President Vladimir Putin has said  Russia is “ready” to part with its $300 billion in frozen assets, framing it as a another way which accelerates Russia’s and its allies’ shift away from Western-dominated financial systems.

“A significant amount of Russian gold and currency assets is frozen in Western banks. They keep telling us they intend to steal our money,” Putin said before the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) summit in Minsk on Thursday.

If the West does simply take the funds in the end, it would create an “irreversible trend toward the regionalization of payment systems” – and this in the long run would benefit the global economy. “I think it is probably worth paying for,” Putin mused, while further describing the Moscow aims to strengthen its own financial settlement systems with “friendly states.”

For now, the some $300 billion in Russian Central Bank assets currently frozen (mostly in Europe) hasn’t been fully or outright appropriated permanently, but instead the plan is to fund Ukraine’s defense based on interest earned on the significant assets.

This plan is already in effect, with for example former President Biden at the tail-end of his administration having announced that it disbursed a $20 billion loan for Ukraine, to eventually be paid back using interest earned on frozen Russian Central Bank assets.

The US Treasury Secretary had said the following at the time:

“These funds — paid for by the windfall proceeds earned from Russia’s own immobilized assets — will provide Ukraine a critical infusion of support as it defends its country against an unprovoked war of aggression.”

“The $50 billion collectively being provided by the G7 through this initiative will help ensure Ukraine has the resources it needs to sustain emergency services, hospitals, and other foundations of its brave resistance,” the statement said.

The Kremlin has consistently decried this as “theft” and “simply robbery” while vowing that retaliation will soon come.

Meanwhile, some ‘respect’ still thrown Trump’s way by Putin…

Putin: I deeply respect Trump. He’s a courageous man who survived two assassination attempts

I believe he truly wants peace in Ukraine and the Middle East, though it may be harder than he expected pic.twitter.com/73qH4qio0t

— RT (@RT_com) June 27, 2025

President Putin fresh words suggest Moscow is resigning itself to a situation where it won’t see the funds handed back for anytime in the foreseeable future, at a moment Russia continues strengthening economic ties with BRICS countries.

Via Remix News,

On Wednesday morning at 6 a.m., a large-scale police operation was launched across Germany, targeting hundreds of individuals suspected of insulting politicians or spreading “hate and incitement” online.

The massive crackdown saw police launch morning raids against 170 individuals, which saw police seize computers, cell phones, and tablets, and conduct searches in multiple locations across the country.

The action, which was conducted by the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA), uses the new Criminal Code Paragraph 188 to target individuals accused of racism and hate speech.

North Rhine-Westphalia’s Interior Minister, Herbert Reul (CDU), who has overseen a massive increase in crime in his state in recent years — including violent crimes and knife crimes committed by foreigners — celebrated the police raids.

“Digital arsonists must not be able to hide behind their cell phones or computers,” he said.

His state conducted 14 of the approximately 130 nationwide cases in a “day of action” against so-called hate postings.

In fact, even as the number of such raids has exploded in recent years, violent crime has also reached record highs in Germany, in large part due to mass immigration, which is a statistical fact. However, police resources have shifted towards targeting hate speech violations, including those complaining about rising crime in relation to mass immigration, with even politicians, such as Alternative for Germany’s (AfD) Marie-Thérèse Kaiser, being targeted in such cases.

Germany now routinely has these “days of action” against citizens who commit “violations” against new and more draconian speech laws in Germany. In some cases, a national scandal has erupted when the details of the cases became public, such as the case of a pensioner, Stefan Niehoff, having his house raided over calling former Economic Minister Robert Habeck an “idiot.”

As the details of the case show, Niehoff became a major target for speaking out against the raid, with the state eventually dropping the “idiot” charge, the one they raided his house for, and pursuing other ones. He was eventually convicted for a variety of retweets despite these retweets being explicitly anti-Nazi posts that targeted left-wing politicians.

In another case, someone criticized CDU leader Friedrich Merz as “drunken.”

It is unclear who was targeted in the latest raids and what statements they made. Most cases allegedly involve right-wing extremist statements, but a small number of cases involve extremist religious or left-wing extremist content. It should also be noted that Alternative for Germany (AfD) co-leader Alice Weidel has also filed a number of such complaints, a point she has been criticized for. However, it is unclear if anyone’s house was raided over any of her complaints. So far, there have been no reports of such raids based on any complaints Weidel has filed.

CDU Interior Minister Reul said there needs to be a clear distinction between opinion and hate speech.

“What you don’t do in the real world isn’t appropriate digitally either. It’s time for more attitude, both offline and online,” he said.

However, the federal interior ministry made a similar argument last year while conducting raids against multiple homes of Compact Magazine journalists, as well as the magazine’s publisher. The raids were followed by a ban on Compact Magazine and its erasure from the internet. A top federal court has now ruled this week that the ban was not constitutional and constituted a violation of freedom of the press in a major blow to the federal interior ministry.

These house raids are conducted with the support of various reporting centers run by left-leaning organizations. Essentially, a center reports a post, which then forwards this to the federal police for action.

Last year, there were 10,732 such cases recorded, which is quadruple the number of 2021.

As an example of the type of raids going on, last year, a 14-year-old German boy had his house raided for posting a banned hashtag on TikTok, which translated to “Everything for Germany.”

Read more here…

The Kremlin in a new Friday statement made clear that NATO’s decision to significantly boost military spending, formalized this week at the annual NATO summit in The Hague, which Trump and other leaders attended, won’t have a meaningful impact on Russia’s security.

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov responded to a reporter’s question over what impact NATO’s commitment to 5% of GDP on defense over the next decade for each member state will be by saying, “I don’t think it will have any significant effect.”

“We know what goals we are pursuing; we don’t hide them, we state them openly, and they are absolutely legitimate in terms of any interpretation of the UN Charter and international law. We know by what means we will always ensure these goals,” he said.

NATO has cited the necessity of a drastic increase in spending, which notably Spain has resisted, as necessary based on the “long-term threat posed by Russia to Euro-Atlantic security.”

Throughout over three-years of the grinding Ukraine war, Western officials have consistently sounded the alarm over an ‘expansionist’ Russia; however, it has become clear that the Kremlin does no even want to occupy Kiev or Western Ukraine – and that the top goal is solidifying hold over Russian-speaking territories of the east.

In response to this NATO assumption that Putin could breach the ‘eastern flank’ and amid expansionist aims, Russia’s RT has the following:

Moscow has repeatedly said it has no intention of attacking any NATO member states, dismissing such claims as “nonsense” and attributing them to Western officials’ attempts to justify increased military spending. 

Meanwhile, this week the European Union planned to push forward and approve it’s 18th package of anti-Moscow sanctions, but this has been postponed due to resistance from Hungary and Slovakia.

Also, President Trump has voiced his view that yet more fresh sanctions would likely not have any immediate effect and that the action would be detrimental to peace efforts.

The question of US-backed efforts to get the two warring sides to the negotiating table is very much an open one currently. Both have become even more entrenched in their unwillingness to compromise, with Zelensky having said he won’t even give up Crimea. There is not even a date for a potential next round of Istanbul talks.

Submitted by Thomas Kolbe

The digital age is dawning. Repetitive tasks are being automated, and technologies like artificial intelligence and autonomous vehicles are reshaping our daily lives—just as the financial sector is undergoing a profound digital transformation. The slow disappearance of physical bank branches is one of the clearest signs of this upheaval.

The desertion of Germany’s town centers is a symptom of this new era. High rents, shrinking consumer power, and demographic decline—especially in rural areas—collide with the shockwaves of e-commerce and a rapidly digitalizing economy. More and more of our consumer habits are migrating online, and the banking industry, long anchored by its brick-and-mortar branches, is no exception.

A Long-Term Trend

The quiet death of Germany’s bank branch networks has been underway for years—a global phenomenon driven by customers embracing online banking, decentralized access to investment portfolios, and other digital financial services. The latest data presented by Barkow Consulting on behalf of the European Central Bank (ECB) confirms this trend: in 2023 alone, German banks closed approximately 560 branches, a 2.8 percent reduction.

That may sound like a moderate consolidation—but in context, it’s part of a decades-long structural shift. Ten years ago, German banks operated more than 35,000 branches. A quarter-century ago, that number was closer to 60,000. Today, only 18,933 remain.

Deutsche Bank Leads the Way

In March, industry giant Deutsche Bank announced major job cuts during its annual press conference, citing the need to boost cost efficiency in light of ongoing sectoral changes. “We are witnessing a fundamental transformation in the German banking sector,” stated Deutsche Bank CEO Christian Sewing. His institution alone plans to eliminate roughly 2,000 jobs and close a “significant number” of branches this year.

Customer consultations, he explained, will increasingly take place via video and phone. This marks not only a cost-saving shift but also a paradigm change that threatens to erode the personal trust traditionally built in face-to-face banking relationships. The business becomes leaner and more efficient—but less personal, and perhaps less trustworthy.

Multifaceted Pressures

Commercial banks have for years operated in a complex web of pressures: technological change, the digitization of transaction processes, the rise of online banking, and above all, monetary policy. Margin pressure has forced cost-cutting across the board. One key reason for the shrinking sector is the ECB’s ultra-loose monetary policy. More than a decade of zero and negative interest rates has destroyed the traditional banking model of earning profits through interest spreads.

Savings banks, credit unions, and even large private banks found themselves unable to operate profitably under artificially distorted yield curves. Deposits no longer generated returns, while regulatory costs and penalty interest increased. The ECB’s monetary policy not only eroded customer savings but also deprived the banking sector of its essential function. The closure of branches, layoffs, and digital pivots are direct consequences of a policy that primarily served one goal: stabilizing the over-indebted public finances of much of the Eurozone.

Countries like Spain, Italy, and France, with debt-to-GDP ratios exceeding 120 percent, can no longer service their debts at market interest rates. The ECB’s continued intervention—through rate suppression and asset purchases—buys these governments time but shifts the burden onto private banks and savers.

Digital Euro and Stablecoins

Now, the next tidal wave is approaching. The rise of “stablecoins”—digital currencies pegged to fiat currencies like the U.S. dollar—heralds the next level of direct banking. Stablecoins offer fast, low-cost, round-the-clock global transactions without intermediaries like traditional banks.

As decentralized finance (DeFi) grows, traditional banks are losing their roles as payment processors and credit intermediaries. The more people embrace digital wallets and smart contracts, the less need there is for checking accounts, physical branches, or personal banking advice. Stablecoins accelerate the disconnection from traditional banking—a creeping loss of control for institutions built on an analog infrastructure ill-suited for the digital era.

The coup de grâce for bank branches may come with the introduction of the digital euro. This programmable currency, developed by the ECB on a blockchain platform, would likely turbocharge the adoption of digital wallets and decentralized financial services. The detour through commercial banks would become obsolete.

As the banking sector loses its role as intermediary, especially small-scale retail clients will be the first to switch from traditional checking accounts to central bank-backed alternatives. Branches—once pillars of customer loyalty and cash access—will become redundant. The digital euro acts as an accelerant for the already fragile infrastructure of retail banking.

We’ll have to get used to it: the local bank branch, once a staple of every high street, may soon be a relic of the past.

* * * 

Thomas Kolbe, born in 1978 in Neuss/ Germany, is a graduate economist. For over 25 years, he has worked as a journalist and media producer for clients from various industries and business associations. As a publicist, he focuses on economic processes and observes geopolitical events from the perspective of the capital markets. His publications follow a philosophy that focuses on the individual and their right to self-determination.

Watch: 

*  *  *

Updated (1140ET): The hits keep on coming out of the Supreme Court, as a second Friday opinion just backed religious parents opposed to LGBTQ+ schoolbooks, also in a 6-3 vote along ideological lines…

The case, Mahmoud v. Taylor, challenged Montgomery County Public Schools’ refusal to notify parents or allow exemptions when LGBTQ+ content was included in early-grade curricula. The decision overturns lower court rulings and is expected to have significant implications for how public schools nationwide handle religious objections to inclusive educational materials.

The case, Mahmoud v. Taylor, raised the question of whether Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) infringed upon the parents’ right under the First Amendment to exercise their religion when it included storybooks with LGBTQ+ characters in its curriculum without allowing families to opt out based on religious beliefs. The high court’s opinion will directly impact MCPS policies and is likely to have far-reaching effects on public schools nationwide. –Bethesda Magazine 

Justice Alito wrote in the ruling: “Parents challenging the Board’s introduction of the “LGBTQ+-inclusive” storybooks, along with its decision to withhold opt outs, are entitled to a preliminary injunction...Without an injunction, the parents will continue to suffer an unconstitutional burden on their religious exercise, and such a burden unquestionably constitutes irreparable injury.” (via Curits Houck). 

BREAKING: Supreme Court gives religious parents opt-out from LGBTQ books

6-3 with liberals in dissent, Alito has the opinionhttps://t.co/FRuWV1KGEV @CourthouseNews pic.twitter.com/IcFnL409p8

— Kelsey Reichmann (@KelseyReichmann) June 27, 2025

Earlier, the Court blocked the ability for activist judges to unilaterally block a president’s executive orders – narrowing down injunctive relief to those who filed the lawsuit, not the entire nation. 

And of course, Trump is doing a victory lap…

Bad day so far for the left…

*  *  *

The Supreme Court on Friday allowed President Trump’s executive order restricting birthright citizenship to go into effect in some areas of the country – blocking judges’ ability to halt the president’s policies nationwide.

The order, signed Trump’s first day in office, curbs birthright citizenship for children born on US soil if they don’t have at least one parent with permanent legal status – which quickly became a legal question surrounding the 14th Amendment’s Citizenship Clause. 

Supreme Court, by a 6-3 vote, rules nationwide injunctions exceed the power of individual federal court judges (the case is about birthright citizenship but the Court didn’t decide the merits of that).

Barrett wrote the majority opinion. Sotomayor, Kagan and KBJ dissent. https://t.co/Wtbzz4X1Ao

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) June 27, 2025

The 6-3 ruling along ideological lines found that three federal district judges went too far in issuing nationwide injunctions against Trump’s order. The decision hobbles a key tool used by venue-shopping Democrats and the activist judges that have been blocking Trump’s path since January – with every court having found the legality of Trump’s EO ‘likely’ unconstitutional. 

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was specifically called out for being retarded…

That said, it doesn’t definitively resolve whether Trump’s restrictions on birthright citizenship are constitutional – a question which could end up in front of the Supremes down the road. It does, howeever, narrow the lower court rulings to only block Trump’s order as applied to the 22 Democratic-led states, expectant mothers and immigration organizations that are suing. 

In her majority opinion for the Supreme Court nuking universal injunctions, Amy Coney Barrett also juked Kentanji Brown Jackson from orbit.

“We will not dwell on Justice Jackson’s argument, which is at odds with more than two centuries worth of precedent, not to mention the… pic.twitter.com/je6FsoXxCi

— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) June 27, 2025

Furthermore, Justices Alito and Thomas note that the Supreme Court ‘completely punted on the issue of third-party class certifications, which will be the gimmick now used to get around the universal injunction ban,” according to The Federalist‘s Sean Davis.

In a concurring opinion, Alito and Thomas note that the Supreme Court completely punted on the issue of third-party class certifications, which will be the gimmick now used to get around the universal injunction ban. pic.twitter.com/6zX6EV4Zbf

— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) June 27, 2025

The cases will now return to lower courts where they will play out as Trump’s order partially goes into effect. Once the appeals courts issue their final rulings, the parties could bring the case back to the SCOTUS. 

Read the ruling below:

A Pulitzer-Prize winning Washington Post journalist was arrested and charged with possession of child porn, DC US Attorney Jeanine Pirro announced Friday. 

Thomas Pham LeGro, 48, was arrested on Thursday after FBI agents discovered 11 videos of child sexual abuse material on his work laptop during a raid, Pirro’s office says, adding that they also found fractured pieces of a hard drive in his hallway, and seized several electronic devices.

After examining LeGro’s work laptop, the FBI says it found a “folder that contained 11 videos depicting child sexual abuse material.”

Award-Winning Journalist Arrested and Charged with Possession of Child Pornography

🔗https://t.co/fLjXZGyCO2@USAttyPirro @FBIWFO pic.twitter.com/jYz4IRjc4z

— U.S. Attorney DC (@USAO_DC) June 27, 2025

LeGro, a veteran journalist who worked at WaPo for 18 years, made his first appearance in District Court of Washington DC on Friday, and has a detention hearing scheduled for next Wednesday, the NY Post reports. He faces a maximum of 20 years in prison if convicted.

A heavily redacted FBI affidavit against LeGro claims the reporter was linked to multiple E-Gold accounts in 2005 and 2006.  

E-Gold was a digital payment service that ceased operations after the feds accused the company in 2007 of laundering money for child pornographers.

The affidavit notes that the FBI received court approval to monitor LeGro’s internet account in May. -NY Post

LeGro worked for the Post‘s sports department between 2000-2006, left to work as a reporter and producer for “PBS NewsHour”, and then returned to WaPo in 2013. At WaPo, he was part of a team of reporters who won a Pulitzer Prize in 2017 for coverage of former Alabama Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore – who was the victim of a disinformation campaign funded by LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman.

The Post was threatened by Moore with a lawsuit after the outlet claimed that he romantically pursued a 14-year-old girl when he was in his 30s – an allegation he vehemently denied. 

According to the NY Post, LeGro has been placed on leave.