For a brief window this week, President Donald Trump was out of the running for a Nobel Peace Prize, after a Ukrainian lawmaker withdrew his nomination on Monday for not ending the war there, and before Rep. Buddy Carter, R-Ga., nominated him on Tuesday for the ceasefire between Israel and Iran.
You can imagine the guffaws and hair-pulling from the Trump-is-Hitler crowd at the thought that anyone would see him as a suitable candidate for this prize.
But as much as we’d love to watch their heads explode as he walked up to accept the award, we think Trump should take himself out of the running.
Sure, he probably did more for world peace when he bombed Iran’s nuclear sites than any president since Ronald Reagan did when he left Michael Gorbachev high and dry at Reykjavík and sparked the end of the Soviet Union.
But why in the world would Trump want to join the ranks of other Nobel Peace Prize winners?
This is an award that was given to Yasser Arafat, a man once described as the “Father of Modern Terrorism” and who, two years after taking home the prize money, declared that:
“We plan to eliminate the State of Israel and establish a purely Palestinian state. We will make life unbearable for Jews by psychological warfare and population explosion … We Palestinians will take over everything.”
It was given to Jimmy Carter, now the second-worst president in U.S. history after Joe Biden, whose weakness led to the Iranian revolution, a year-long hostage crisis, and Soviet Union advances around the world.
And does Trump really want to share an honor bestowed on Al Gore, whose only real claim to fame is getting fabulously rich by spreading lies and misinformation about “global warming”?
He’d also be joining the likes of Rigoberta Menchú, whose autobiography was later attacked as fraudulent and who the Center for the Study of Popular Culture described as a “Marxist terrorist now exposed as an intellectual hoax.”
But more embarrassing than all of these (as well as other dubious winners such as Le Duc Tho, Henry Kissinger, the European Union, Mikhail Gorbachev – not Reagan – etc.) is that Trump would be accepting a prize that was given to Barack Obama nine months into his presidency on the basis of …. absolutely nothing.
Like Carter before him and Biden after him, Obama showed the dangers to peace from weakness. On his watch, Russia invaded Crimea, ISIS ran wild, and Iran used his sweetheart deal to advance its nuclear ambitions. And it was this “champion of peace” who would go on to authorize more than 560 missile attacks in Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen, one of which killed a U.S. citizen, for which he apologized. Others hit a wedding party and a funeral.
Human Rights Watch concluded that two Obama-authorized attacks “were in clear violation of international humanitarian law – the laws of war – because they struck only civilians or used indiscriminate weapons.” Four others “may have violated the laws of war because the individual attacked was not a lawful military target or the attack caused disproportionate civilian harm.”
Nobel-Peace-Prize-winning Obama would later be accused by Cornell West and others of being a war criminal.
Why would anyone want to be associated with this crowd?
If Trump were to turn down the award and call the Nobel Prize committee out for its wretched history of lionizing leftist terrorists, liars, and imbeciles, he’d do even more to advance world peace than any of its recipients.
Wall Street Panics As Socialist Set To Take Over New York, REITs Tumble At The Idiocy Of It All
On Wednesday morning, ground zero of global capitalism woke in a cold sweat from a nightmare that had previously made its way across the world countless times, leaving a trail of destruction in its wake… only to find out it was all too real: Wall Street will soon have a socialist mayor…. or as Trump put it, a “communist lunatic.”
Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani’s stunning win over former Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the New York City Democratic primary for mayor shocked Wall Street, and pretty much everyone else including those Gen Zers who voted for him, who were then shocked to learn what socialism means after googling the term.
People in New York started Googling what Socialism was after the polls closed
And with Polymarket putting the socialist’s odds of winning the final vote at 73%, Wall Street’s panic is completely justified.
As the WSJ reports, some of the world’s most influential and powerful financiers were left grasping to understand what Mamdani’s victory would mean for their industry, and whether when they would leave the city.
“It’s officially hot commie summer,” Dan Loeb, chief executive of hedge fund Third Point, and a major Cuomo backer, wrote on X.
Mamdani’s campaign was, up until a few weeks ago, a long shot. On Polymarket, which successfully predicted the outcome of the 2024 presidential election, Cuomo had odds as high as 92.5% on May 27. Negative ads against Mamdani paid for by Wall Street-funded super political-action committees, as well as also-ran candidate Whitney Tilson, himself a failed investor and now selling get rich quick scams on CNBC and anyone else who will accept his ads, blanketed airwaves and filled residents’ mailboxes.
Mamdani’s platform includes sharply increasing taxes on those making more than $1 million a year, making the city “more affordable” by freezing rents on rent-stabilized apartments, investing $70 billion in publicly subsidized housing (that’s $70 billion in other people’s money of course), providing free bus service and opening government-operated grocery stores (similar to the government operated grocery stores in 1985 USSR).
In his inimitable style, Matt Taibbi described Mamdani’s ascent as follows:
New York City’s mayoral race has been won by Zohran Mamdani, no Bernie Sanders-style imitator but the real thing — son of a famed socialist scholar and Marvel superhero to every Jacobin-reading, keffiyeh-wearing student activist huddled in Judean People’s Front-type confabs, between bell hooks readings and visits to Mom and Dad on the Upper West Side. In this country, it’s the most significant movement victory in a century, almost certainly presaging in the near future an epic clash at the summit of American politics between socialism and, well, anything else. As Michael Buffer would say, “Let’s get ready to rum-m-m-ble.”
As for his policies…
It’s a yummy pu-pu platter of rent freezes, free bus rides, free child care, and subsidized city-owned grocery stores that will “buy and sell at wholesale prices” and “centralize warehousing and distribution,” clamping down on those evil bodega owners and private supermarkets that force overpriced Fritos and soda on the poor. This will be the AOC theory of inflation caused by “price gouging” deployed in life, via a program to reverse ongoing harms of colonialism by liberating humans and non-human food animals from industry-driven food myths that compel us to harm our bodies, and — have you stabbed yourself in the face yet? ¡Viva la revolución!
Meanwhile, Cuomo’s lock on Wall Street was all but taken for granted. He had the loud backing from billionaire figures such as Bill Ackman, Loeb and former Mayor Michael Bloomberg. In the end, it wasn’t enough and on Tuesday night, Mamdani’s win became apparent immediately after polls closed: A nine-point lead in early votes held about steady as the day-of voting results came in. Cuomo conceded before the end of the night, leaving open questions of whether he will run in the general election in November.
But while trust fund socialists like this lot were delighted at the outcome – and why not, when NYC turns into a communist shithole they can just flee to their daddy’s mansion in Florida…
Young socialists go wild while celebrating Zohran Mamdani winning the NYC Mayoral Democratic Primary.
… Wall Street quickly started to worry: “There are a lot of warning signs flashing here. The next mayor here is going to have his hands full,” said Ed Skyler, a former deputy mayor under Bloomberg, who is now an executive at Citigroup.
Some financial executives spoke to the WSJ of backing Mayor Eric Adams, who is expected to run in November election under party lines he created: “Safe&Affordable” and “EndAntiSemitism.” Financial titans had found Adams an early improvement from his predecessor Bill de Blasio.
Corporate leaders held a flurry of private phone calls to plot how to fight back against Mamdani’s primary victory and discussed backing an outside group with the goal of raising around $20 million to oppose him, according to people familiar with the matter.
The calls also discussed efforts to coalesce behind Adams and working to keep Cuomo out of the race, the people said. They also discussed trying to get Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa, to drop out by getting the White House to offer him a job in the Trump administration, the people said.
Not everyone was downbeat about the primary results, though. On CNBC, Philippe Laffont, founder of hedge fund Coatue Management, said the city would likely continue to thrive, arguing that it withstood the tenure of disgraced corrupt socialist de Blasio, who embraced Marxist policies that many in the business community opposed.
“We had Mayor de Blasio for eight years, New York is really strong, I’m hopeful the same will happen,” he said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” “And there’s still an election.”
Still, Mamdani’s wide support exposed how Wall Street has changed in recent decades. There were more individual donors from major banks to Mamdani than there were to Cuomo, according to city campaign-finance records where donors listed their employers. But many of them were among the increasingly large ranks of tech staff and other non-finance employees (read: foreigners). The WSJ found that three Goldman Sachs software engineers were listed as donating directly to Mamdani, for instance (most of them probably from India). Only one financier at Goldman publicly gave directly to Cuomo, according to the records.
Other bankers who quietly supported Mamdani wouldn’t talk to the Journal on the record. One tried to use a fake name.
The level of support for Cuomo among the moneyed set was so high that viral TikTok videos skewered the phenomenon in recent weeks, as Election Day neared. “You seem like such an alpha,” a woman says in one video to her fictional date with a finance bro. “So, you’re voting for Cuomo, right?”
But even with high support, Cuomo’s campaign lacked the kind of enthusiasm that rocketed Mamdani to his primary win, even among bankers and traders. “Confidence is a great trait, but it didn’t get his supporters out to vote,” Skyler said.
Wednesday, bankers and traders were trying to figure out the repercussions of a Mamdani mayoralty, should he win the general election.
Some voiced concern about Mamdani’s plan to freeze the rent of millions of New Yorkers who live in rent stabilized apartments, saying it would deter new investment in housing, reduce supply and push up prices for everyone else.
“I can’t believe I even need to say this, but socialism doesn’t work,” said Anthony Pompliano, CEO of Professional Capital Management, a bitcoin-focused financial services company. “It has failed in every American city it was tried.”
Then, there were renewed questions about whether the recent exodus from Wall Street to other states such as Florida and Texas would accelerate under Mamdani. Some executives cited concerns about taxes and crime under a potential Mamdani administration. Sander Gerber, chief executive of investment firm Hudson Bay Capital, said he fielded texts from some of his 170 employees who said they were “thinking of leaving.”
Just when you thought Palm Beach real estate couldn’t go any higher… https://t.co/FAUcV2OrYD
In a midday note from Goldman’s trading desk, the bank noted that its NYC Office REITs basket tumbled 430bps amid the “big focus on the back of Mayoral Candidate Zohran Mamdani winning last night. Lot of inbounds on what this potential administration means for NYC exposed REITs, particularly across Office and Apartment REITs with exposure to NYC.”
Some developers and landlords said they are already making plans to exit New York and focus on more business-friendly markets like Miami, Dallas or Nashville.
“I’m depressed and sad,” said Ricky Sandler, who runs Eminence Capital, a Midtown Manhattan hedge fund, which employs 55 people. “If Mamdani becomes mayor, I will likely move my business and family out of New York.”
Last but not least, this tweet from Tyler Winklevoss lays it out best: it’s time to let New York burn.
A lot of people have asked me if I will get involved in the NYC mayor race by supporting a candidate that can defeat Zohran Mamdani. TBH, I’m torn and undecided. Like every other city run by democrats, NYC is a broken kleptocracy. Taxes are astronomical and services are pathetic…
According to leaked documents, British and American academics advised the U.S. National Security Council to encourage Ukraine to adopt ISIS-style drone tactics against Russian railways.
In a report published by investigative journalist Kit Klarenberg for The Grayzone on Monday, Project Alchemy, a secret academic-intelligence cell whose mission was “to keep Ukraine fighting” by imposing “strategic dilemmas, costs and frictions upon Russia” was revealed as the network allegedly behind these plans.
The academic recommendations were delivered to Colonel Tim Wright, who served as the Biden administration’s Director for Russia at the National Security Council from August 2021 to July 2022. The proposals came from three key drone experts within a broader Ukraine Working Group composed of “approximately 60 experts hailing from states throughout NATO” who sought to “assist Ukraine’s defense (short of deploying combat forces).”
Zachary Kallenborn from George Mason University’s Schar School advocated for “two-stage attacks like ISIS did frequently” on Russian railways, recommending Ukraine “break the track, and wait for the engineers to come to fix it, then use the drone to kill them.”
An unnamed Durham University researcher identified as “M.E.D.” cited Islamic State’s “innovative” use of drones as documented in a July 2018 West Point paper, suggesting commercial drones could be “modified via a simple drop mechanism… to serve as effective munitions delivery platforms.”
Dominika Kunertova, formerly of ETH Zurich’s Center for Security Studies and currently directing drone warfare research at the Atlantic Council, recommended targeting “anything that uses” railroads as opposed to the infrastructure itself.
These academic blueprints proved prophetic when Ukraine launched Operation Spider Web late last month conducting bold drone attacks inside Russia that killed seven people and injured more than 30, including two children.
The timing proved particularly significant as these attacks took place “on the eve of scheduled negotiations between Russia and Ukraine.”
Ukrainian forces subsequently destroyed a Russian fuel train late last month using a DJI Mavic III drone, one of the specific models Kallenborn had recommended for modification.
The attacks continued through this month with Operation Spiderweb 2.0, demonstrating how the “British-born strategy has heavily influenced the thinking of Kiev’s increasingly desperate military.”
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 networkassisting 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.”
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.
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.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
“Modern-Day Monopoly”: GOP Senator Sounds Alarm On Mega Corporations Hijacking US’ Beef Supply
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.
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.
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.”
Iran Confirms Death Of ‘War-Time Chief Of Staff’ After Israeli Attacks
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.
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
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.
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.
“Substantially In Excess Of $50,000”: Hunter Biden’s Law Firm Sues Him Over Unpaid Legal Bills
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 lawyersfor 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.
