Anduril Unveils Tiltrotor Killer Drone Straight Out Of ‘Terminator’
Palmer Luckey’s defense company Anduril Industries unveiled Thunder, an autonomous aircraft designed to deliver missiles, drones, electronic-warfare systems and cargo into heavily contested airspace.
“In this new era of maneuver warfare, we need eyes for what’s ahead and a shield for what we can’t afford to lose,” Anduril wrote in a tweet.
Thunder is a Group 5 autonomous attack rotorcraft, meaning it weighs more than 1,320 pounds, as shown in the UAS classification chart below, courtesy of Piper Sandler.
Anduril noted, “A first of its kind for attack aviation. A thunderous step forward for maneuver dominance.”
Thunder’s modular payload bays can carry configurations including 10 air-to-ground missiles, 16 Altius-600 launched effects, or 76 70mm rockets, plus 12 counter-drone interceptors.
Pairing three Thunders with a single Apache helicopter could triple the formation’s available munitions without putting additional human pilots at risk.
Anduril added, “Mass is only achievable if the platform delivering it is producible and affordable. The common dual-use baseline behind Thunder drives the economies of scale, expanded demand, and broad supply chains critical to drive down costs and de-risk the pathway to large-scale production.”
X users are pointing out that Anduril just made the “tilt rotor version of the Terminator Hunter Killer drone.“
So you made the tilt rotor version of the Terminator Hunter Killer drone. I guess I need to brush up on my counter Terminator skills because that reality is happening. What could possibly go wrong. pic.twitter.com/hFdmaXETj2
Questions persist over what it means for drivers to have the right to repair their cars and trucks after President Donald Trump’s recent memorandum, which aims to open up access to aftermarket vehicle repairs.
The June 29 memorandum impacts a slice of the controversy between auto makers, car owners, and independent workshops over who can technically and legally conduct certain auto maintenance and repair jobs. The memo specifically targets emissions components that are strictly regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the federal Clean Air Act.
Automotive and legal experts who spoke to The Epoch Times explained what types of repairs the memorandum impacts, what this means for vehicle owners, and some of the potential consequences for the industry as a whole.
“What Trump’s trying to do here is figure out, is there an alternative to let people basically work on their cars if it’s something relating to emissions?” Joe Luppino-Esposito, federal policy director of the Pacific Legal Foundation, told The Epoch Times.
Narrow Slice Of Vehicle Regulations
Rather than establishing a national right-to-repair policy for a wide variety of aftermarket vehicle parts, the memorandum specifically homes in on components used in automotive emissions systems.
The Clean Air Act prohibits drivers from tampering with emissions systems, including intentionally removing or bypassing a catalytic converter on a vehicle that was originally equipped with one.
Additionally, if an independent repair shop wants to use a non-original equipment manufacturer part in a vehicle’s emissions system, the mechanic must receive legal certification from the California Air Resources Board (CARB).
The California board is currently the only organization allowed to certify aftermarket parts under the Clean Air Act’s guidelines. In many cases, the certification process can take more than a year.
Armen Hareyan, founder and editor-in-chief of the automotive industry media platform Torque News, explained that the California board is essentially the “only widely recognized way” to prove an aftermarket emissions component adheres to the Clean Air Act.
This creates a bottleneck for certifications as the board is a “state agency with limited staff handling applications from manufacturers across the entire country, not just California,” Hareyan told The Epoch Times.
“That backlog has created supply shortages, driven up costs, and slowed down innovation, while also limiting how many affordable parts consumers can actually buy,” he said.
“For a small aftermarket parts company, waiting over a year and paying for testing before you can legally sell a single unit is a real barrier to entering the market,” Hareyan added.
The memorandum directs the EPA to issue guidance within 30 days on what actions vehicle owners can take regarding emissions repairs or modifications while staying consistent with the Clean Air Act.
Luppino-Esposito said the memorandum may result in federal guidance that allows vehicle owners some leeway with “fine-tuning” or improving their exhaust or emissions systems, for example, in ways that wouldn’t violate federal law but might otherwise be restricted unless working with a dealership under the current certification process.
Existing ‘Right To Repair’ Laws
Some states have existing laws that provide drivers with broader right-to-repair access.
Massachusetts and Maine are the only two states that currently have comprehensive right-to-repair laws for car owners.
Under a law enacted in 2012, Massachusetts allows car owners and independent mechanics to have access to the same diagnostic data and repair information as dealers, including wireless telematics data.
Maine voters approved a similar law in 2023 that mandates standardized access to diagnostic systems and establishes a system for allowing vehicle-generated data to be shared through a secure platform authorized by owners.
Those two laws essentially give “car owners and independent shops the same access to diagnostic tools and data that dealerships get,” Hareyan said.
Five additional states have broader right-to-repair laws that do not extend to motor vehicles: California, Colorado, Minnesota, New York, and Oregon.
Colorado’s law applies to agricultural equipment, while the remaining four affect consumer electronics more narrowly. In California, manufacturers must give consumers access to parts, tools, and documentation for appliances and electronics, but not vehicles.
There’s also the separate federal-level REPAIR Act that was introduced to Congress early last year.
Still under consideration, the REPAIR Act would give vehicle owners “access to data relating to motor vehicles of the consumers and critical repair information and tools for such motor vehicles, to provide such consumers with choices for the maintenance, service, and repair of such vehicles,” according to the text of the bill.
Certification Monopoly
The memorandum also directs the EPA to “encourage the submission of, expeditiously consider, and act on any requests from organizations capable of testing aftermarket parts for conformance with the [Clean Air Act]” so that CARB is not the only organization issuing certifications.
It’s not clear how this would play out or which organizations could fill the gap.
Hareyan said the Specialty Equipment Market Association, which is the leading group representing the specialty automotive aftermarket parts industry, has been advocating for years to have additional boards conduct compliance certification under the Clean Air Act.
While the association could possibly step in to become an additional certifier, the memorandum just directs the EPA to “start accepting applications from anyone qualified,” Hareyan said.
“The honest answer is, we do not yet know who steps into that role, only that the door is now open,” he said.
Whichever organizations are considered for compliance certification, they must have a “proposed certification process for aftermarket-emissions parts [that meets] the requirements of the [Clean Air Act] and relevant EPA regulations,” the memorandum states.
Clarification Of Regulatory Policy
The last prong of the memorandum focuses on civil enforcement.
The document directs the EPA to “consider deprioritizing civil tampering enforcement actions against anyone who, in good faith, attempts to fix his or her own vehicle to its original configuration.”
However, this appears to be merely regulatory guidance and likely would not serve as a legal shield to those who attempt to modify their vehicle emissions systems without the proper certification approvals under the Clean Air Act.
Rather, that section is more about changing the government’s civil enforcement priorities, Luppino-Esposito said.
He compared it to the Obama-era Department of Justice changing its civil enforcement priorities over the prosecution of marijuana crimes, despite federal law remaining consistent.
“It’s definitely not going to be a shield to anybody,'” Luppino-Esposito added, referring to a potential vehicle owner modifying an emissions system before getting certification approval but otherwise following federal law.
Potential Unintended Consequences
What types of repairs the EPA will eventually allow following the 30-day guidance period is unclear, especially since any policy changes must still adhere to the Clean Air Act. Repealing or altering the federal law would require an act from Congress.
It also remains to be seen if the potential federal policy changes will significantly broaden what owners can do with their vehicles, beyond ending California’s effective monopoly on the certification process.
“Americans Deserve To Know”: State Dept. Report Details Cuban Espionage, Subversion, And Role In Rise Of Far Left
The State Department has released a new 100-page report, “Cuba: The Capital of 21st Century Communism,” which is likely to land as a bombshell for much of the public. However, for ZeroHedge readers who have been paying attention, its findings are far less surprising.
“For more than six decades, the Cuban regime has been the leading sponsor of radical leftism and Third Worldism in the United States. The State Department is exposing the full history of Cuban espionage and subversion in our country,” Secretary Marco Rubio wrote on X, adding, “The American people deserve to know.”
For more than six decades, the Cuban regime has been the leading sponsor of radical leftism and Third Worldism in the United States.
The State Department is exposing the full history of Cuban espionage and subversion in our country.
The report details Cuba’s historical support for guerrillas, terrorist organizations, and revolutionary movements across the Americas. It cites Havana’s relationships with the Weather Underground, Puerto Rican militant groups, Black Power organizations, and fugitives, including Assata Shakur.
It also highlights some of Cuba’s most alarming penetrations of the U.S. government, including former diplomat Victor Manuel Rocha, former Defense Intelligence Agency analyst Ana Belén Montes, and former State Department official Walter Kendall Myers.
According to the report, Cuban intelligence favors ideologically motivated recruits and develops assets over decades, often beginning with students at liberal universities.
Former Cuban intelligence agents cited in the report allege that roughly 90% of ICAP personnel are connected to Cuban intelligence operations.
Recall that six and a half months ago, we identified the ICAP as a central node in Cuba’s foreign subversion apparatus. We assessed that ICAP functions as the intake valve – political cover for intelligence operations designed to cultivate long-term assets rather than short-term spies.
And even created this graphic:
The DSA appears to be a “partner” of now-sanctioned ICAP.
It should now make sense why DSA leaders are promoting “destroying America from within,” and that the way to do it appears to be through subversion networks empowering overeducated, useful liberal idiots.
About two weeks ago, Mark Penn, the former Clinton adviser and White House pollster, used a Wall Street Journal op-ed to sound the alarm over the rise of DSA.
Penn warned: “Lawmakers, law-enforcement agencies and journalists should investigate the DSA to see if it is being funded by foreign governments and interests.”
Only last week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent addressed 65 nations in Washington, declaring and posturing that the fight has begun on the radical left that seeks to destroy the West.
NEW: Secretary of State Marco Rubio calls for the civilized world to unite against an “encroaching darkness,” urging nations to defend what they have built and fight back against those who seek to destroy it.
More importantly, the report shows that the State Department’s counterintelligence focus is dramatically shifting toward suspected foreign subversion networks that could be embedded in dark-money-funded NGOs and far-left groups.
One of the State Department’s assessments is that people should not confuse Cuba’s economic collapse with its ability to run foreign subversion operations. The report describes the island as a node where Russian, Chinese, and Iranian interests converge with intelligence and activist networks operating inside the U.S.
Below is my column in The Hill on the latest spin from the left to convince Americans to abandon core constitutional institutions and values as part of a radical agenda in the upcoming elections. Those who defend our traditions, on the 250th anniversary of our Republic, are now being accused of being “nostalgic” rather than progressive. It is a nostalgia that will take on a truly tragic element if professors, pundits and politicians are successful in this effort.
It appears that the Madisonian democracy has joined shackets and combat boots as embarrassingly outdated for many on the left. In calling for radical changes to our constitutional system, leading Democrats are now calling the lingering loyalty to our traditions as mere “nostalgia.” To be nostalgic in today’s parlance is to be a dupe of the oligarchs and an enemy to reform.
“Nostalgia” has become the new coded term for reactionaries among Democratic figures, who are trying to convince Americans to accept radical changes to our republic after 250 years.
Kamala Harris recently insisted that opposition to ideas like packing the Supreme Court is mere “nostalgia” for a system that is no longer working. “I would caution us against talking about rebuilding with any sense of nostalgia about how things work, because even before, they weren’t working so well for a lot of folks,” she said. That “nostalgia,” according to Harris, is preventing us from doing things like packing the Supreme Court with an instant liberal majority.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) last week also declared that “nostalgia is not working” and, while refusing to embrace socialism, added that “capitalism as we know it doesn’t work.”
Morris Katz, a political strategist for Zohran Mamdani, spoke to CNN’s Dana Bash about looking beyond the label of democratic socialism and instead simply to accept that “our government does not work.” They are joining socialists who have long promised revolutionary changes without “introspection, nostalgia or regret.”
It is an all-too-familiar pitch. Sixty years ago, a call to break free of “old ideas, old culture, old customs, and old habits” revolutionized a nation. That call was heard in a Chinese paper that would help lay the foundation for Mao Zedong’s bloody Cultural Revolution. Marxists had long rejected calls to preserve institutions and citizens’ rights as “nostalgia” and “sentimentality,” standing in the way of needed progress.
For the Democratic Socialist of America organization, nostalgia stands in the way of getting rid of the Senate, presidency, and the Supreme Court to fundamentally change the republic.
That is not an easy task for a people who have benefited from the oldest and most prosperous democracy for 250 years. They have to be very angry or very afraid to take such a radical course.
The Soviets understood that about the U.S. After Yuri Bezmenov, a KGB agent working in the media, defected in 1970, he revealed the four stages by which the Soviets hoped to bring about revolutionary change in the U.S. It began with undermining our institutions and values, with the help of journalists and academics.
With establishment figures lining up behind radical changes, including packing the Supreme Court, the public is hearing a constant drumbeat of how our system is broken.
Even Democratic judges are joining the chorus. Indeed, some appear to be auditioning for the slots promised by Democratic leaders to take over the court with a reliable liberal majority.
This week, the Hawaii Supreme Court issued an unhinged diatribe against the U.S. Supreme Court that abandoned any semblance of judicial restraint or decorum. It declared the majority as effectively racists, saying that “The Roberts Court sees only white.” It portrayed the court as a rogue institution that “overrides what Congress passed. It overrides what the people chose. All to serve its own ends.”
It is an opinion that would make an MS NOW host blush. But it follows a pattern on the left to get people to turn against our institutions and even against the Constitution itself.
Others are telling the public that they are being repressed by the Constitution, which must be scrapped. In a New York Times op-ed — “The Constitution Is Broken and Should Not Be Reclaimed” — law professors Ryan Doerfler of Harvard and Samuel Moyn of Yale called for the nation to “reclaim America from constitutionalism.”
In yet another New York Times editorial, Jennifer Szalai denounced “Constitution worship” and claimed that “Americans have long assumed that the Constitution could save us. A growing chorus now wonders whether we need to be saved from it.”
Berkeley Dean Erwin Chemerinsky insists that it is time to trash the Constitution in favor of “radical changes.”
These voices are seeking to remove all of the moderating elements of our system —the safety features that have produced the world’s most successful and stable republic. They are the very constitutional elements protecting us from the tyranny of the majority, protecting us from ourselves.
Without those protections, we will unleash the self-destructive forces that have been tearing apart other democratic systems since Athens. It is our constitution that spared us from that fate. As James Madison observed, “Had every Athenian citizen been a Socrates, every Athenian assembly would still have been a mob.”
Of course, history has shown that such radical proposals ultimately produce not democracy, but what the Framers called mobocracy. If we let that happen, many Americans will indeed look back at the last 250 years with a tragic sense of nostalgia.
Federal Prosecutors Probe Guggenheim, Billionaire Dem Donor Walter’s Insurers
Federal investigators are taking a closer look at billionaire Mark Walter’s financial empire, with criminal and regulatory inquiries now spanning Guggenheim Partners and two life insurance companies under his control, according to Bloomberg.
The investigation, which began last year, initially focused on Guggenheim’s $362 billion asset management business before expanding to Delaware Life Insurance Co. and Clear Spring Life and Annuity Co., according to people familiar with the matter.
Bloomberg writes that both insurers revealed in recent regulatory filings that they were served with grand jury subpoenas in February.
Prosecutors are examining whether the companies properly disclosed private credit investments tied to affiliated businesses within Walter’s network. The companies also said the Justice Department’s investigation is proceeding alongside a separate SEC probe.
People familiar with the matter said the FBI seized at least one mobile phone under a search warrant last September, although it isn’t clear which part of the broader investigation the device was connected to. No allegations have been filed, and investigations of this type can conclude without criminal charges or civil enforcement.
Following the subpoenas, the insurers launched an internal review that identified financial reporting “errors.” Delaware Life subsequently revised its disclosures, revealing roughly $16 billion in additional affiliated private credit investments. The change increased related-party holdings to at least $17 billion, representing about 39% of invested assets, versus roughly $1.4 billion, or 3%, previously reported.
The disclosure led S&P Global Ratings to revise Delaware Life’s outlook from stable to negative, while leaving its A- financial strength rating unchanged.
“TWG is aware of and cooperating with the investigation,” the company said. Group 1001, the parent of Delaware Life and Clear Spring, also said:
“Our capital position and liquidity remain strong, and our financial strength ratings are unchanged.”
Finally, we note that Walter has historically supported Democratic candidates and causes through his campaign contributions. Walter’s personal contributions include supportto the Democratic National Committee and to Barack Obama’s reelection campaign in 2011.
President Donald Trump has ordered federal officials to review conduct related to climate guidance included in a scientific reference manual for federal judges, which he described as politically biased and based on discredited science.
“These Manuals have been totally discredited,” Trump said in a June 19 post on Truth Social.
He was referring to a February decision by the U.S. federal judiciary to withdraw the climate science chapter of the newest edition of its “Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence.”
The manual is published by the judiciary’s research arm, the Federal Judicial Center, in cooperation with the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, which includes the National Academy of Sciences. The National Academy of Sciences is an independent nonprofit organization chartered by Congress in 1863 that receives federal funding to provide scientific advice to the government.
The manual, in its fourth edition, was released in December.
Judges rely on the manual “in identifying issues commonly in dispute and to help judges reach an informed and reasoned assessment of those issues based on expert evidence that is faithful to the law and within the boundaries of scientifically sound knowledge,” according to the Federal Judicial Center’s website.
The guidance is not binding but can help federal judges and others in handling complex scientific and technical evidence.
“Our Nation’s Federal Judges deserve Facts and Science, not Political Fraud and False Science on Climate,” Trump wrote. “Our Taxpayers should not be funding Climate Fraud, and Judges should never have relied upon it.”
The president said the manual would be reviewed by federal suspension and agency debarment officials for political bias.
Political Bias
The decision to withdraw the chapter titled “Reference Guide on Climate Science” was in response to complaints by 27 Republican state attorneys general, who argued the guidance was not “independent” or “impartial” as it declared that “only one preferred view is ‘within the boundaries of scientifically sound knowledge.'”
In their Jan. 29 letter, the attorneys general – led by West Virginia Attorney General JB McCuskey – argued the chapter “places the judiciary firmly on one side of some of the most hotly disputed questions in current litigation: climate-related science and ‘attribution.'”
They said the authors, Jessica Wentz and Radley Horton, limited their expert consultations to those who aligned with their conception of consensus, citing experts from the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) but not experts from the U.S. Department of Energy.
“By predetermining scientific underpinnings, the Manual effectively prejudges federalism questions that should be resolved through litigation. That sounds nothing like a ‘dispassionate guide,'” they said.
“If the Center can predetermine scientific questions in climate cases, what prevents it from doing the same for pharmaceutical liability, election disputes, or Second Amendment cases? The precedent is dangerous regardless of one’s views on climate change.”
They also said that the section was “rife with methodology issues,” that the authors and Columbia University were supportive of climate-related litigation, and that the chapter “seems intended to ensure that the judiciary will continue to accept their views uncritically.”
Trump said in his post that the manuals “were used by Judges to decide massive ‘Climate Change’ Cases, and have created huge losses across our Country.”
Wentz and Horton told the federal judiciary in a Feb. 25 letter defending their chapter: “The anthropogenic origin of climate change is the only scientific finding on climate change that the chapter presents as a ‘settled’ fact. The chapter does not suggest that other aspects of climate science have been ‘unequivocally’ established.”
They said the chapter acknowledges that there are varying degrees of “scientific uncertainty and confidence with regards to the detection attribution, and projection of different types of climate impacts.”
It does not “take a position as to whether specific impacts or injuries (of the sort that would be at issue in a lawsuit) are definitively attributable climate change,” they added.
The manual “explains scientific approaches and explores scientific uncertainties and limits,” Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan wrote in the foreword. “It aids in assessing the uses – and the misuses – of scientific and other technical evidence. … Yet case in and case out, the instruction that the manual offers in scientific principles and methods can improve the quality of judicial decision making.”
The National Academy of Sciences did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Trump’s statements and the announced review.
A federal judge ruled on Friday that a former FEMA chief financial officer was illegally fired by the Trump administration over what it claimed were millions spent by the agency on luxury hotels for illegal immigrants in New York City.
Mary Comans’s termination in February 2025 amidd allegations of misused funds had been amplified by then-head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) Elon Musk and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Biden-appointed District Judge Michael Nachmanoff decided she is entitled to a name-clearing hearing over the issue.
Nachmanoff, of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, ordered that lawyers for Comans and the Trump administration confer and within 14 days submit a joint proposal outlining a process for the hearing.
The judge indicated that discovery and a full evidentiary hearing before a federal magistrate judge would be appropriate to address previous statements made by Musk, the Trump administration, and Comans’s allegations of her politically motivated termination without due process.
Lawyers from the progressive nonprofit Democracy Defenders Fund and four other firms who represent Comans called Nachmanoff’s ruling a “landmark” win in a statement.
“Mary Comans is a career public servant who had the courage to challenge the Trump regime’s unlawful termination,” attorney Craig Becker of Democracy Defenders Fund said. “Today’s decision is a resounding victory for the rule of law and our vital civil service. It sends a clear message that no administration is above the law, no public servant should be punished for doing their job with integrity, and no president can erase decades of civil service protections.”
Comans and her attorneys argued she was fired without due process, in violation of the Constitution, depriving her of both property and liberty.
They alleged that her notice of termination stated no official reason and was also in violation of the Civil Service Reform Act, which provides protection for federal employees.
“This is a reminder that our federal courts remain an essential check on executive abuse of power, and we will continue our fight to remedy the full scope of the harm that the president has done to our civil service,” Becker said.
President Donald Trump has fired many government employees during his second term in office. The administration has said Trump’s constitutional ability to fire federal workers cannot be constrained.
In Comans’s firing, the Trump administration said it was allowed to terminate her employment with FEMA under Article II of the Constitution, which endows a president with executive power.
DHS accused Comans and three other FEMA officials of authorizing a $59 million payment to fund housing for illegal immigrants in luxury hotels in New York City.
Homeland Security said the former CFO and others circumvented “leadership to unilaterally make egregious payments.”
The nearly $60 million payment was uncovered by DOGE.
“That money is meant for American disaster relief and instead is being spent on high-end hotels for illegals!” Musk wrote on X at the time.
The Supreme Court ruled last month on the president’s firing power. It could play a role in the upcoming hearing between Comans and the Trump administration.
The justices on June 29 both expanded and limited Trump’s ability to fire heads of federal agencies.
One case before the high court was a victory for Trump, with the justices allowing him to fire a member of the Federal Trade Commission. But in another case, the Supreme Court blocked the president’s firing of a Federal Reserve board member, sending the issue back to lower courts.
FEMA is an agency within Homeland Security, which falls under the executive branch of the federal government.
Neither the Department of Justice, FEMA, nor DHS responded to requests for comment before publication.
The average weekly rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage is at its highest level in nearly a year, contributing to elevated housing costs and dampening buyer interest.
For the most recent week, the mortgage rate was at 6.55 percent, according to a July 16 statement by Freddie Mac. This is the highest level since the week ending Aug. 27, 2025, when the rate was at 6.56 percent. Since mid-May, rates have consistently hovered around 6.5 percent.
Rates have risen consecutively over the past two weeks, from 6.43 percent for the week ending July 1 to 6.55 percent currently.
Meanwhile, pending home sales in the country declined 2.2 percent for the four weeks ending July 12 compared to the four-week period ending July 5, according to a statement from real estate brokerage Redfin.
First-time homebuyers are facing a “tough time” breaking into the housing market, Christine Kooiker, a Redfin Premier agent in Grand Rapids, Michigan, said in the statement.
“High mortgage rates mean that even homes in the most affordable price point – under $350,000 in the Grand Rapids area – are a stretch for a lot of buyers, and they’re hard to find and competitive,” Kooiker said.
Many buyers are “sitting on the sidelines, too, because they’re locked into low mortgage rates or can’t find a new home they love.”
Similar findings were made by the National Association of Realtors (NAR), which, in a July 16 statement, reported a 5.4 percent month-over-month dip in pending sales in June.
The decrease was most pronounced in the Midwest, followed by the West, South, and Northeast.
“The highest mortgage rates in nearly a year and the record-high national median home price together are contributing to a tepid housing market that is especially difficult for first-time homebuyers,” NAR Chief Economist Dr. Lawrence Yun said in the statement.
Housing Affordability
Lawmakers have taken action to ease the burdens on prospective homebuyers and make housing more affordable for Americans.
On July 11, the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act became law. The legislation aims to ensure housing affordability through various measures, such as rolling back permits and regulations, and offering financial support to homebuyers, builders, and state and local governments.
The bill was passed by the House and Senate last month. However, President Donald Trump refused to sign the bill until the election integrity bill, the SAVE America Act, was passed by Congress.
According to Article I of the U.S. Constitution, if a bill is not returned by the president within 10 days after being presented, it shall become law. Trump’s deadline to veto the bill was July 10.
The bill “will cut red tape, lower costs, and boost the supply of housing,” Rep. Sam Liccardo (D-Calif.) said in a July 13 statement.
“We need to build on this momentum and keep rolling up our sleeves to tackle the housing crisis confronting far too many American families.”
Meanwhile, builder confidence in the market for newly built single-family homes declined in July from the previous month, according to a July 16 statement from the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB).
The NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index was at 36 in July, the 15th straight month it has remained below the 40 level. This is the longest stretch of monthly values below 40 since 2012.
NAHB chief economist Robert Dietz cited housing affordability as the “primary challenge” facing the home building industry.
NAHB chairman Bill Owens said that many potential buyers continue to hesitate to purchase homes as they wait for mortgage rates to come down and for more clarity on inflation and the economic outlook.
While the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act has some important provisions addressing obstacles faced by buyers and builders, “these reforms will take time to implement,” Owens said.
Assholes who wear Vineyard Vines all summer on Wall Street have once again put those Wharton PhD’s to good use by again “discovering” that assets so toxic and illiquid they make drinking cement taste like Fiji water apparently become safe when you rearrange them, rename them, and place an insurance company between the losses and the people buying them. Sound familiar?
According to Bloomberg, UBS and other firms have been exploring structures that package stakes in private-credit funds into bonds. Because perpetual private-credit vehicles do not fit neatly into conventional ratings models, bankers are looking to add insurance “wrappers” that allow portions of the deals to inherit the insurer’s stronger credit profile. The resulting paper can then be marketed as investment grade, even though the assets underneath remain opaque, illiquid private-market investments.
This is apparently considered innovation. I just hear Anthony Bourdain explaining CDOs during The Big Short over and over again.
An insurer guarantees a tranche against losses, the tranche receives a better rating, and other insurers can buy it while setting aside dramatically less capital. In the example described, an A2-rated tranche could require less than 1% in regulatory capital, compared with a charge that could reach 30% for a direct investment in a private-credit fund.
Nothing says “rock-solid asset” quite like needing several lawyers, a ratings agency, an insurance guarantee and a regulatory-capital loophole to explain why it is safe.
The comparison with 2008 is not merely rhetorical. Before the financial crisis, Wall Street packaged mortgages into residential mortgage-backed securities and collateralized debt obligations. Those securities were divided into tranches, and ratings agencies assigned extremely high grades to senior portions based on assumptions that nationwide housing losses would remain limited and geographically dispersed.
Then Wall Street added another layer of genius: credit-default swaps.
Insurer AIG’s Financial Products division sold enormous amounts of CDS protection on mortgage-related securities. These contracts operated much like insurance, promising payment if the protected securities suffered specified credit losses. AIG collected fees up front and initially posted little collateral because everyone treated the company’s high credit rating as a substitute for cash.
The crucial clarification is that AIG’s traditional state-regulated insurance subsidiaries were not simply writing ordinary homeowners policies and accidentally destroying civilization. The catastrophe grew largely inside AIG Financial Products, an inadequately regulated derivatives business that used the broader AIG organization’s pristine rating to guarantee complex financial bets.
But that rating was the magic wand.
As mortgage values deteriorated and AIG was downgraded, its counterparties demanded tens of billions of dollars in collateral. AIG did not have enough readily available cash to meet those calls. Suddenly, the institution that had promised to insure everyone else’s balance sheet needed the federal government to insure its own. The same rating that had made the contracts appear safe became the trigger for the liquidity crisis once it disappeared.
On September 16, 2008, the Federal Reserve authorized an initial loan of up to $85 billion to keep AIG from collapsing. The government received a 79.9% equity interest in exchange. The support was later expanded and restructured through Treasury investments, additional facilities and special vehicles created to remove mortgage securities and CDO exposures from AIG’s balance sheet.
Total commitments commonly associated with the rescue eventually reached roughly $180 billion. The CFTC later described the intervention as about $600 for every American alive at the time.
AIG had more than $1 trillion in consolidated assets in mid-2008 and sat at the center of a sprawling network involving major banks, retirement plans, commercial-paper markets, municipalities and other insurers. Federal Reserve officials concluded that a disorderly failure could have caused severe losses across financial institutions and further reduced the availability of credit to households and businesses.
In other words, AIG did not merely make bad investments. It sold protection so broadly that its own failure threatened to detonate the institutions that believed they were protected. The insurer had become the bomb.
And now, less than two decades later, Wall Street is again using insurance guarantees to turn difficult-to-rate credit exposure into highly rated securities.
What could possibly go wrong besides the exact thing that already went wrong?
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The modern structures are not identical to AIG’s CDS book. Today’s private-credit wrappers may be smaller, more collateralized and subject to different contractual and regulatory safeguards. There is no evidence that the current market has already created an AIG-sized hole.
But the rhyme is deafening. The underlying private credit assets are dogshit, as I’ve written about on this blog non-stop. The engineering is complicated. Ratings play a central role. Capital requirements become lighter after the transaction is rearranged. Risk migrates from the original lender to insurers, annuity providers, pensions and other institutions promising money to ordinary people decades from now.
The fund-finance market is estimated at somewhere between $1 trillion and $1.75 trillion, up from only a few hundred billion roughly a decade ago. That puts its expansion in the same broad neighborhood as the pre-2008 boom in structured subprime finance.
Private-credit managers need liquidity because exits have slowed, old investments remain stuck, and some borrowers are repaying existing loans with still more debt. Meanwhile, insurers and annuity companies are hungry for yield and attracted to structures that turn higher-risk fund exposure into favorably treated investment-grade paper.
It is a beautiful ecosystem. Private funds need money. Insurers need yield. Banks need fees. Ratings agencies need business. Regulators need to remain comatose. Everyone gets exactly what they want until the whole thing winds up bending over the average taxpayer, saver or retail investor somehow.
One particularly obvious danger is concentration. When an insurer wraps multiple securities, every buyer begins relying on the same corporate balance sheet. A downgrade of that insurer could cause many wrapped tranches to be downgraded simultaneously, potentially triggering forced selling across portfolios at precisely the moment markets are least able to absorb it. It’s like a high school test where everyone copies off of the same person who fails the test, causing the rest of the class to.
The structures also make it increasingly difficult for regulators to trace where the final losses reside. Researchers have warned that repackaging risk adds “structural complexity and opacity” and can amplify contagion when one link fails, as the Bloomberg report notes.
Once again, Wall Street is not eliminating risk. It is relocating it, obscuring it and reducing the amount of capital held against it. And once again, the entire arrangement is encouraged by the understanding that the Federal Reserve will respond to a sufficiently large accident with emergency lending, asset purchases, liquidity facilities and whatever alphabet soup is necessary to keep asset prices from discovering consequences.
This is the lesson Wall Street learned from 2008: not that leverage and opacity are dangerous, but that they should be spread widely enough to qualify for federal protection.
Make a reckless bet by yourself and you go bankrupt. Make the same bet through enough banks, insurers, pensions and retirement accounts and you become systemically important.
The Fed has spent years turning moral hazard from an embarrassing side effect into a rational business model. Every rescue lowers the perceived cost of the next gamble. Every emergency facility teaches markets that liquidity risk is temporary. Every rapid intervention tells executives that the real objective is not avoiding catastrophe, but making sure a catastrophe would be too politically expensive to tolerate.
So the structures get larger. The collateral gets murkier. The ratings get friendlier. The capital cushions get thinner. The chains of counterparties get longer.
Then everyone acts stunned when one downgrade causes twelve institutions to discover they were all holding the same risk.
We are not preventing the next crash. We are steadily assembling the mother of all crashes while congratulating ourselves for distributing the explosives more efficiently. And when it finally happens, the people who designed it will explain that nobody could possibly have seen it coming.
Except, of course, anyone who remembers 2008…or who is unlucky enough to sit next to me at an airport bar when I have 3 hours to kill and feel talkative.
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Judge Slaps A 14-Day Timeout On Paramount-Warner Bros. Mega-Merger
A federal judge just threw a wrench into one of the biggest media shake-ups in years. On Monday, U.S. District Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin (Biden) temporarily blocked Paramount Skydance’s $110 billion takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery, giving a coalition of 12 state attorneys general a short-term win in their fight to kill the deal.
The temporary restraining order lasts 14 days – half the 28 days the states had requested – and prevents Paramount from closing the transaction that would combine two historic Hollywood studios, two major streaming services (Paramount+ and Max), and significant news assets under David Ellison, son of Oracle billionaire Larry Ellison.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta, leading the charge, argues the merger would “extinguish competition” in key areas: wide theatrical film releases, big blockbuster distribution, and the market for basic cable channels. The states put numbers on it, alleging the combined company would control 27 percent of wide-release theatrical distribution, 30 percent of anticipated blockbusters, and 27 percent of the basic cable bundle. In plain terms, they say it would mean higher prices, lower quality, and less choice for theaters, cable providers, and viewers everywhere. The states claim it violates Section 7 of the Clayton Antitrust Act, the classic law aimed at stopping deals that substantially lessen competition. All 12 attorneys general are Democrats.
Paramount is firing back hard. The company calls the lawsuit one of the weakest merger challenges in modern antitrust history, notes it already has DOJ clearance plus approvals from places like Australia and China, and vows to fight vigorously. They argue the states are ignoring the brutal competitive realities of today’s media landscape, where streaming giants, tech platforms, and cord-cutting have upended everything.
The DOJ signoff came after its antitrust division closed an eight-month review that examined more than two million documents – concluding the deal could strengthen competition across streaming, traditional television, and theatrical distribution. State attorneys general retain independent authority to sue regardless.
There’s real urgency for Paramount: they’re on the hook for a “ticking fee” of 25 cents per Warner Bros. share every quarter if the deal doesn’t close by September 30. That works out to roughly $7 million a day, or more than $600 million per quarter – serious money.
Paramount side: 114-year-old studio, Paramount+, CBS, MTV, Nickelodeon, and more.
Warner side: 116-year-old studio, HBO, CNN, plus iconic franchises like Batman and Superman.
If it goes through, David Ellison would control an entertainment behemoth spanning film, TV, streaming, and news.
This state lawsuit is the biggest threat so far, but it’s not the only one. The EU is reviewing it, the UK culture secretary is considering intervention over media concentration worries, the Writers Guild has its own antitrust suit over wages and jobs, and consumers have challenged the streaming combination (though that effort was denied an injunction).
There’s also a political undercurrent. Larry Ellison has been an ally of President Trump, who has publicly pushed for new ownership of CNN and recently praised the family. David Ellison has already started shaking things up at CBS News, bringing in Bari Weiss to revamp “60 Minutes” and the evening broadcast.
For now, the merger is in limbo.Expect intense legal wrangling over the next couple of weeks as Paramount pushes to get it back on track and the states try to build their case for a longer block. In an industry already disrupted by streaming wars and cord-cutting, this battle is about who gets to dominate the next era of Hollywood and media.
