SBA, USDA To Combat 'Regulatory Abuse' Lawfare Aimed At Farmers And Ranchers

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times,

The Small Business Administration (SBA) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) have signed a memorandum to counter lawfare targeting rural communities, ranchers, farmers, and small businesses.

Ranchers work to evacuate cattle as the Gifford Fire burns nearby in Los Padres National Forest, Calif., on Aug. 4, 2025. AP Photo/Noah Berger

Lawfare refers to the strategic use of legal proceedings to hinder targets. The SBA's agreement with the USDA gives producers a "direct line to report the regulations and rules driving up costs and impacting productivity," the agency said in a July 2 statement.

It also enables the SBA and the USDA to "identify broader patterns of regulatory abuse to advance lasting deregulatory reform."

The USDA will run a centralized portal that will receive lawfare complaints involving federal agencies, which will be shared with the SBA's Office of the National Ombudsman. Any complaint involving the USDA will be handled by the department, while other complaints will be referred by the SBA to the appropriate agencies.

Under the agreement, the SBA is authorized to analyze complaint data to identify recurring lawfare practices, enforcement, or regulatory issues that are assessed as abusive or disproportionate. This is expected to provide insight that would guide deregulatory action for broader reforms.

In a July 2 X post, SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler said the agreement between the USDA and the SBA lets "producers get back to what they do best: feeding, clothing, and fueling America."

"Family farms should not have to spend time and resources they don't have fighting crushing regulations or costly legal battles waged by radical anti-ag 'environmentalists,' whether they are inside or outside the government," she said.

In its statement, the SBA said the memorandum is in line with a January 2025 executive order signed by President Donald Trump, "Unleashing Prosperity Through Deregulation."

Trump said in the order that the "ever-expanding morass" of complicated federal regulations was creating "substantial restraint" on economic growth and hampering the country's global competitiveness.

For each new regulation issued by any agency, Trump ordered that at least 10 previous regulations be identified for elimination.

Commenting on the memorandum, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said: "This partnership with the SBA creates clear pathways for redress, ensures fairness in enforcement, and demonstrates that Washington stands with, not against, the hardworking Americans who sustain our country.

"Through the USDA Lawfare Portal and interagency collaboration, we are delivering real protection under the Farmer and Rancher Freedom Framework."

The Farmer and Rancher Freedom Framework is a plan aimed at protecting and preserving American agriculture while ending "onerous regulations" and the weaponization of government against ranchers and farmers, according to a Feb. 11 statement from the USDA.

The plan seeks to defend farmers and ranchers from politically motivated enforcement actions, protect agricultural lands from unnecessary federal projects, and remove burdensome rules that stifle productivity.

It also seeks to reform environmental laws to strike a balance between conservation and common sense.

Deregulatory Actions

The action against lawfare is one of the latest relief efforts aimed at farmers undertaken by the Trump administration.

On Feb. 2, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued guidance to manufacturers of farm equipment, clarifying that American farmers have the right to repair their own equipment.

The guidance said that manufacturers can no longer use the Clean Air Act to justify limiting farmers' access to repair tools or software.

"EPA is proud to set the record straight and protect farmers. For far too long, manufacturers have wrongly used the Clean Air Act to monopolize the repair markets, hurting our farmers," said EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin.

However, American manufacturers have opposed the right-to-repair rules. In a Sept. 22, 2025, statement, the Association of Equipment Manufacturers said that more than 50 companies met with lawmakers and congressional staff to push back against right-to-repair mandates.

They warned that legislation advancing such requirements stands to "hurt innovation, raise costs, and risk exposing sensitive trade secrets to competitors or foreign adversaries."

Meanwhile, on March 27, the EPA announced another rule aimed at benefiting farmers, removing the Diesel Exhaust Fluid (DEF) sensor system requirement for all diesel equipment. DEF is a solution injected into the exhaust systems of diesel vehicles to reduce nitrogen oxide emissions.

The EPA said there have been concerns among farmers and other diesel vehicle or equipment operators about DEF system failures.

Shutdowns and speed losses caused by such failures compromise the safety and productivity of operators, which are "unacceptable and problematic," the agency said, adding that removing the DEF sensor system requirement is expected to save farmers and truckers more than $13 billion annually.

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/06/2026 - 18:25

On The War For The Soul Of Our Nation...

Authored by James Howard Kusntler,

Werewolves Of London

“To use language to obscure reality is to show ‘indifference regarding the truth’ - to lie to the public and cease to treat our fellow citizens as equals.”

 - Justice Clarence Thomas

Now that the grand 250th USA birthday party is over - the speeches, the shrieking warplanes, the dazzling fireworks, the speeches and strawberry shortcake - there is only one way this thing can go. What thing? The war for the soul of the nation. Some mysterious somebody is behind the surging “Democratic-Socialist” craze. Somebody is paying for it. It’s a last-ditch drive to marshal the disaffected, under-employed young voters, choking on their college loans, deranged by anomie, and get them marching in solidarity with X-million illegal aliens to act-out an election jihad so as to squeeze out House and Senate majorities and, ultimately, wreck the nation.

That mysterious background “somebody” is not so mysterious. It just doesn’t self-identify under a banner, but you can easily tell who they are: the, the slippery closet-Marxist Barack Obama and, behind him, the American Deep State nomenklatura desperate to stay out of prison, along with the unelected EU Commission led by the grandmotherly sadist Ursula von der Leyen (plus the banksters behind her). Some call them “globalists.” They are a loose coalition of convenience against the populist threat of Mr. Trump in America and similar populist movements in Europe: AfD in Germany, the two parties of Nigel Farage and Rupert Lowe in the UK, and LePen’s Nationalist Rally in France.

The EU, with its front-men Macron, Merz, and whoever will replace Starmer this month, is currently preoccupied with its stupid effort to provoke Russia into a wider war, using their proxy, Ukraine. Mr. Putin, still advancing through the Donbas, refuses to get drawn-in deeper with the EU despite the drone and missile sorties lately banging-up his oil depots. Mr. Putin is actually a defender of Western Civ — yes, ironic, isn’t it, considering what his country escaped out of in 1991 — but it’s so. Russia has become our natural ally in this struggle as the EU goes all werewolf on both Russia and us. File under strange-but-true.

Contrary to Deep State propaganda, and the IRGC’s bullshit, Mr. Trump has the Iran situation in-hand. We have bigly reduced Iran’s capacity to make trouble in the world and our satellites watch everything they do now, so there will be no Iranian military re-build, no matter how the MOU talks go. They still do have the option of dropping their jihad fixation and acting like a normal nation, but we’ll just have to stand by on that.

What has to happen now in the USA is a summer of accountability. Perp walks. Indictments. Preparation for trials. Many of you are discouraged about this, I know, but please put those black pills back in the medicine chest. Accountability is coming. The mills of the law grind slowly, and its especially difficult since the Deep State has corrupted select precincts of the law, such as the US District Court for the District of Columbia, where rogue judges Boasberg, Chutkan, Sullivan, Howell, Meta, Reyes, Cooper, et al., have made an industry of paralyzing Mr. Trump’s executive branch.

Nevertheless, accountability might also be coming for Chief Justice John Roberts, who wrote the dodgy majority opinion on the SCOTUS’s June 30 “Birth Citizenship” decision (Trump v. Barbara), an epic fail for Justice Roberts (joined by Amy Coney Barrett and the three DEI gals). The 14th Amendment was written to mitigate the disruptions of the Civil War. Section One is clearly aimed at defining the full citizenship of former slaves, and that’s all, not the offspring of casual visitors and border-jumpers. There was considerable clarifying debate on the record about all that in June, 1866, with skeletons still being cleared off the battlefields. The 2026 decision looks like a debacle for reasons also obvious.

The Chief and his harem

What motivated Mr. Roberts to do such a harm? Perhaps he’s just an idiot, but there’s more lurking there.

It’s widely known that the Chief Justice made at least one week-long visit to Norm Eisen, after Eisen had been appointed Ambassador to Prague (2011) by his law school classmate, President Barack Obama. In these final years of Obama-in-office, Norm Eisen was busy plotting so-called Color Revolution in Europe, which climaxed in the 2014 Maidan operation in Ukraine. The purpose was to make Ukraine as a proxy to weaken Russia, and would come to entail massive money-laundering and the setting up of bio-weapons labs there. This was also the period when then-Veep Joe Biden was given the “Ukraine Portfolio” and was busiest with his own grifting enterprise, through son Hunter.

Norm Eisen went on to become the chief lawfare ninja coordinating against the Trump administration with his field captains: Marc Elias, Mary McCord, Andrew Weissmann, and others. All have been involved in suspiciously seditious activities through both Trump terms. What was the Chief Justice confabbing about with Norm Eisen in Prague then? About vagaries of US / EU legal cooperation? Or were they deliberating on tactics for dealing with Barack Obama’s as-then-undeclared successor? Or possibly on bringing color revolution to the US, if Barack Obama’s posterity declared it necessary?

Consider the strange situation that one Sheldon Snook was appointed Special Assistant to Roberts in 2014. Snook is married to lawfare ninja Mary McCord, who served as Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the National Security Division, DOJ (2014–2016) and Assistant Attorney General for National Security, DOJ (2016–2017). She was involved in the initiation of the RussiaGate operation and in 2019 was appointed Special Counsel to Jerrold Nadler’s House Judiciary Committee during the 2019 impeachment inquiry into President Trump — the impeachment that was all about Ukraine. . . and what might have been going on there under Obama, especially Joe Biden shenanigans.

Consider, too, that a scandal has just emerged involving CJ Robert’s wife, Jane, and the enormous commissions she received working at the DC law firm Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, and then the legal recruiting outfit Major, Lindsey & Africa (through 2019), and then legal another recruiting firm, Macrae, for placing eminent attorneys into law firms with active Supreme Court case practices. Her income from all this recruiting surpassed $10-million. CJ Roberts did not recuse himself from the cases involving these relationships. This is a still-developing story. . . .

And, of course, an investigation of California Governor Gavin Newsom begun, irony-of-ironies, by the Biden DOJ, has just blossomed into a florid scandal involving shell companies set up by Gov. Newsom’s busy wife, Jennifer, through which millions of dollars were laundered under various fake social and health service initiativs. Newsom appointee Alexis Podesta “wore a wire” during the period and is cooperating in the case. Buh-bye presidential hopes, Guv, and don’t let the cell door whack your ass on the way in.

These are just a few possible appetizers. The main course is coming up.

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/06/2026 - 16:20

On The War For The Soul Of Our Nation...

Authored by James Howard Kusntler,

Werewolves Of London

“To use language to obscure reality is to show ‘indifference regarding the truth’ - to lie to the public and cease to treat our fellow citizens as equals.”

 - Justice Clarence Thomas

Now that the grand 250th USA birthday party is over - the speeches, the shrieking warplanes, the dazzling fireworks, the speeches and strawberry shortcake - there is only one way this thing can go. What thing? The war for the soul of the nation. Some mysterious somebody is behind the surging “Democratic-Socialist” craze. Somebody is paying for it. It’s a last-ditch drive to marshal the disaffected, under-employed young voters, choking on their college loans, deranged by anomie, and get them marching in solidarity with X-million illegal aliens to act-out an election jihad so as to squeeze out House and Senate majorities and, ultimately, wreck the nation.

That mysterious background “somebody” is not so mysterious. It just doesn’t self-identify under a banner, but you can easily tell who they are: the, the slippery closet-Marxist Barack Obama and, behind him, the American Deep State nomenklatura desperate to stay out of prison, along with the unelected EU Commission led by the grandmotherly sadist Ursula von der Leyen (plus the banksters behind her). Some call them “globalists.” They are a loose coalition of convenience against the populist threat of Mr. Trump in America and similar populist movements in Europe: AfD in Germany, the two parties of Nigel Farage and Rupert Lowe in the UK, and LePen’s Nationalist Rally in France.

The EU, with its front-men Macron, Merz, and whoever will replace Starmer this month, is currently preoccupied with its stupid effort to provoke Russia into a wider war, using their proxy, Ukraine. Mr. Putin, still advancing through the Donbas, refuses to get drawn-in deeper with the EU despite the drone and missile sorties lately banging-up his oil depots. Mr. Putin is actually a defender of Western Civ — yes, ironic, isn’t it, considering what his country escaped out of in 1991 — but it’s so. Russia has become our natural ally in this struggle as the EU goes all werewolf on both Russia and us. File under strange-but-true.

Contrary to Deep State propaganda, and the IRGC’s bullshit, Mr. Trump has the Iran situation in-hand. We have bigly reduced Iran’s capacity to make trouble in the world and our satellites watch everything they do now, so there will be no Iranian military re-build, no matter how the MOU talks go. They still do have the option of dropping their jihad fixation and acting like a normal nation, but we’ll just have to stand by on that.

What has to happen now in the USA is a summer of accountability. Perp walks. Indictments. Preparation for trials. Many of you are discouraged about this, I know, but please put those black pills back in the medicine chest. Accountability is coming. The mills of the law grind slowly, and its especially difficult since the Deep State has corrupted select precincts of the law, such as the US District Court for the District of Columbia, where rogue judges Boasberg, Chutkan, Sullivan, Howell, Meta, Reyes, Cooper, et al., have made an industry of paralyzing Mr. Trump’s executive branch.

Nevertheless, accountability might also be coming for Chief Justice John Roberts, who wrote the dodgy majority opinion on the SCOTUS’s June 30 “Birth Citizenship” decision (Trump v. Barbara), an epic fail for Justice Roberts (joined by Amy Coney Barrett and the three DEI gals). The 14th Amendment was written to mitigate the disruptions of the Civil War. Section One is clearly aimed at defining the full citizenship of former slaves, and that’s all, not the offspring of casual visitors and border-jumpers. There was considerable clarifying debate on the record about all that in June, 1866, with skeletons still being cleared off the battlefields. The 2026 decision looks like a debacle for reasons also obvious.

The Chief and his harem

What motivated Mr. Roberts to do such a harm? Perhaps he’s just an idiot, but there’s more lurking there.

It’s widely known that the Chief Justice made at least one week-long visit to Norm Eisen, after Eisen had been appointed Ambassador to Prague (2011) by his law school classmate, President Barack Obama. In these final years of Obama-in-office, Norm Eisen was busy plotting so-called Color Revolution in Europe, which climaxed in the 2014 Maidan operation in Ukraine. The purpose was to make Ukraine as a proxy to weaken Russia, and would come to entail massive money-laundering and the setting up of bio-weapons labs there. This was also the period when then-Veep Joe Biden was given the “Ukraine Portfolio” and was busiest with his own grifting enterprise, through son Hunter.

Norm Eisen went on to become the chief lawfare ninja coordinating against the Trump administration with his field captains: Marc Elias, Mary McCord, Andrew Weissmann, and others. All have been involved in suspiciously seditious activities through both Trump terms. What was the Chief Justice confabbing about with Norm Eisen in Prague then? About vagaries of US / EU legal cooperation? Or were they deliberating on tactics for dealing with Barack Obama’s as-then-undeclared successor? Or possibly on bringing color revolution to the US, if Barack Obama’s posterity declared it necessary?

Consider the strange situation that one Sheldon Snook was appointed Special Assistant to Roberts in 2014. Snook is married to lawfare ninja Mary McCord, who served as Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the National Security Division, DOJ (2014–2016) and Assistant Attorney General for National Security, DOJ (2016–2017). She was involved in the initiation of the RussiaGate operation and in 2019 was appointed Special Counsel to Jerrold Nadler’s House Judiciary Committee during the 2019 impeachment inquiry into President Trump — the impeachment that was all about Ukraine. . . and what might have been going on there under Obama, especially Joe Biden shenanigans.

Consider, too, that a scandal has just emerged involving CJ Robert’s wife, Jane, and the enormous commissions she received working at the DC law firm Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, and then the legal recruiting outfit Major, Lindsey & Africa (through 2019), and then legal another recruiting firm, Macrae, for placing eminent attorneys into law firms with active Supreme Court case practices. Her income from all this recruiting surpassed $10-million. CJ Roberts did not recuse himself from the cases involving these relationships. This is a still-developing story. . . .

And, of course, an investigation of California Governor Gavin Newsom begun, irony-of-ironies, by the Biden DOJ, has just blossomed into a florid scandal involving shell companies set up by Gov. Newsom’s busy wife, Jennifer, through which millions of dollars were laundered under various fake social and health service initiativs. Newsom appointee Alexis Podesta “wore a wire” during the period and is cooperating in the case. Buh-bye presidential hopes, Guv, and don’t let the cell door whack your ass on the way in.

These are just a few possible appetizers. The main course is coming up.

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/06/2026 - 16:20

Officials Tracking Growing Outbreak Of Legionnaires' Disease In New York

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

An outbreak of serious pneumonia is growing in New York, officials said on July 5.

Eighteen cases of Legionnaires’ disease have been confirmed in several Manhattan neighborhoods, the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene said late Sunday, up from 14 earlier in the day and 10 on Saturday.

The cases are clustered in three zip codes, 10028, 10128, and 10075, on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, the department said.

We’re investigating a cluster of Legionnaires’ disease on the Upper East Side (ZIP codes 10028 & 10128). If you live or work in this area or visited the area since late June and are experiencing flu-like symptoms, contact a healthcare provider immediately: https://t.co/0rXv78p1V1 pic.twitter.com/Z4i7iYnnaB

— nychealthy (@nycHealthy) July 3, 2026

Legionnaires’ disease is a form of pneumonia caused by Legionella bacteria, which grow in warm water. The disease shares symptoms with influenza, such as fever and chills, and can be fatal if left untreated.

No deaths have yet been reported with the current outbreak.

People who live in the zip codes, or who have recently visited the east side of Central Park, should monitor for symptoms, New York City Health Commissioner Dr. Alister Martin said in a statement.

People who experience symptoms should see a health care provider immediately.

Treatment for pneumonia typically includes antibiotics, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Certain individuals are more vulnerable to the disease, including individuals aged 50 and older and those who smoke or vape.

One way people can contract Legionnaires’ disease is by breathing in water vapor or mist containing Legionella bacteria. People cannot get the disease from other people.

The probable source of the bacteria is a water cooling tower in the area, according to health officials.

The systems, usually located on top of buildings, control the temperature of cooling systems, such as refrigeration and spray mist systems, which contain the bacteria.

The city’s health department is testing all the cooling towers in the area.

“This is not an issue with any building’s plumbing system. It is safe for you to drink water, bathe, shower, cook, and use your air conditioner,” health officials said in a notice to residents.

“Continuing to use your air conditioner is especially important when the city is experiencing extreme heat and temperatures reach dangerously high levels.”

There have been outbreaks of Legionnaires’ disease in the past from plumbing systems in buildings, but there are no signs that this is the case with the current situation, according to officials.

Officials first reported the cluster of cases on July 2. They said at the time that any owners of buildings where cooling towers tested positive for the Legionella bacteria would be directed to carry out full remediation.

A Legionnaires’ disease cluster in central Harlem, also in Manhattan, sickened 114 people in 2025 and left seven dead.

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/06/2026 - 15:45

Officials Tracking Growing Outbreak Of Legionnaires' Disease In New York

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

An outbreak of serious pneumonia is growing in New York, officials said on July 5.

Eighteen cases of Legionnaires’ disease have been confirmed in several Manhattan neighborhoods, the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene said late Sunday, up from 14 earlier in the day and 10 on Saturday.

The cases are clustered in three zip codes, 10028, 10128, and 10075, on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, the department said.

We’re investigating a cluster of Legionnaires’ disease on the Upper East Side (ZIP codes 10028 & 10128). If you live or work in this area or visited the area since late June and are experiencing flu-like symptoms, contact a healthcare provider immediately: https://t.co/0rXv78p1V1 pic.twitter.com/Z4i7iYnnaB

— nychealthy (@nycHealthy) July 3, 2026

Legionnaires’ disease is a form of pneumonia caused by Legionella bacteria, which grow in warm water. The disease shares symptoms with influenza, such as fever and chills, and can be fatal if left untreated.

No deaths have yet been reported with the current outbreak.

People who live in the zip codes, or who have recently visited the east side of Central Park, should monitor for symptoms, New York City Health Commissioner Dr. Alister Martin said in a statement.

People who experience symptoms should see a health care provider immediately.

Treatment for pneumonia typically includes antibiotics, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Certain individuals are more vulnerable to the disease, including individuals aged 50 and older and those who smoke or vape.

One way people can contract Legionnaires’ disease is by breathing in water vapor or mist containing Legionella bacteria. People cannot get the disease from other people.

The probable source of the bacteria is a water cooling tower in the area, according to health officials.

The systems, usually located on top of buildings, control the temperature of cooling systems, such as refrigeration and spray mist systems, which contain the bacteria.

The city’s health department is testing all the cooling towers in the area.

“This is not an issue with any building’s plumbing system. It is safe for you to drink water, bathe, shower, cook, and use your air conditioner,” health officials said in a notice to residents.

“Continuing to use your air conditioner is especially important when the city is experiencing extreme heat and temperatures reach dangerously high levels.”

There have been outbreaks of Legionnaires’ disease in the past from plumbing systems in buildings, but there are no signs that this is the case with the current situation, according to officials.

Officials first reported the cluster of cases on July 2. They said at the time that any owners of buildings where cooling towers tested positive for the Legionella bacteria would be directed to carry out full remediation.

A Legionnaires’ disease cluster in central Harlem, also in Manhattan, sickened 114 people in 2025 and left seven dead.

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/06/2026 - 15:45

"Arms Race Has Started": War Unicorns Enter M&A Phase As Ondas Snaps Up Kamikaze Drone Maker DZYNE

The writing is on the wall: defense-tech unicorns, particularly those focused on loitering munitions, autonomous drones, and counter-UAS systems, are positioned for years of growth as warfare changes forever. 

These "war unicorns," as we call them, are increasingly ripe for M&A as larger players race to consolidate across drones and counter-drone systems. The latest example is Nasdaq-listed defense and industrial technology firm Ondas Holdings moving to acquire DZYNE Technologies, a maker of drones, loitering-munition-type systems, and counter-drone technology.  

Ondas Drone Box 

Bloomberg reports private equity firm Highlander Partners will receive $200 million in cash and about $675 million in Ondas stock. Those shares will be locked up for six months.

"The arms race has started," Ondas CEO Eric Brock said in a Bloomberg TV interview. "Over the last 20 plus years we have de-industrialized in the United States. That means the supply chain has moved to China."

The deal expands Ondas' portfolio beyond the civilian drone market into systems developed for military surveillance and reconnaissance, as well as smaller kamikaze drones.

DZYNE BlitzBox Drone 

The American company Dzyne has introduced the BlitzBox system, a container for covertly launching a swarm of attack drones. On the outside, it looks like an ordinary cargo box, but inside, it can hold up to 100 Blitz drones, ready to launch in minutes.#DroneWars #UAS #UAV pic.twitter.com/w9aRaZYrCZ

— Drone Wars (@Drone_Wars_) May 27, 2026

Ondas said DZYNE is expected to generate $191 million in revenue this year and $300 million in 2027.

Recently, Needham analyst Austin Bohlig told clients of a potential drone procurement supercycle, as the US military prepares to spend billions of dollars on these low-cost systems.

Read the report:

• Congress Moves To Boost Drone Funding As "War Unicorns" See Possible Procurement Supercycle

Related:

• JPM Call With Axon Reveals Race To Fortify U.S. Data Centers Against Kamikaze Drone Swarms
• Goldman Sits Down With Anduril As 'War Unicorns' Reshape Defense Tech
• "Flying Beer Cooler": Pentagon's Next Kamikaze Drone Ushers In Era Of Cheap Mass-Produced Airpower

Separate, but more on war technology coverage:

• Ukraine Plans To Hyper-Innovate Humanoid Robot Soldiers

The Ondas-DZYNE deal further suggests that defense startups focusing on drones and counter-UAS are prime M&A targets for larger companies.

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/06/2026 - 15:25

"Arms Race Has Started": War Unicorns Enter M&A Phase As Ondas Snaps Up Kamikaze Drone Maker DZYNE

The writing is on the wall: defense-tech unicorns, particularly those focused on loitering munitions, autonomous drones, and counter-UAS systems, are positioned for years of growth as warfare changes forever. 

These "war unicorns," as we call them, are increasingly ripe for M&A as larger players race to consolidate across drones and counter-drone systems. The latest example is Nasdaq-listed defense and industrial technology firm Ondas Holdings moving to acquire DZYNE Technologies, a maker of drones, loitering-munition-type systems, and counter-drone technology.  

Ondas Drone Box 

Bloomberg reports private equity firm Highlander Partners will receive $200 million in cash and about $675 million in Ondas stock. Those shares will be locked up for six months.

"The arms race has started," Ondas CEO Eric Brock said in a Bloomberg TV interview. "Over the last 20 plus years we have de-industrialized in the United States. That means the supply chain has moved to China."

The deal expands Ondas' portfolio beyond the civilian drone market into systems developed for military surveillance and reconnaissance, as well as smaller kamikaze drones.

DZYNE BlitzBox Drone 

The American company Dzyne has introduced the BlitzBox system, a container for covertly launching a swarm of attack drones. On the outside, it looks like an ordinary cargo box, but inside, it can hold up to 100 Blitz drones, ready to launch in minutes.#DroneWars #UAS #UAV pic.twitter.com/w9aRaZYrCZ

— Drone Wars (@Drone_Wars_) May 27, 2026

Ondas said DZYNE is expected to generate $191 million in revenue this year and $300 million in 2027.

Recently, Needham analyst Austin Bohlig told clients of a potential drone procurement supercycle, as the US military prepares to spend billions of dollars on these low-cost systems.

Read the report:

• Congress Moves To Boost Drone Funding As "War Unicorns" See Possible Procurement Supercycle

Related:

• JPM Call With Axon Reveals Race To Fortify U.S. Data Centers Against Kamikaze Drone Swarms
• Goldman Sits Down With Anduril As 'War Unicorns' Reshape Defense Tech
• "Flying Beer Cooler": Pentagon's Next Kamikaze Drone Ushers In Era Of Cheap Mass-Produced Airpower

Separate, but more on war technology coverage:

• Ukraine Plans To Hyper-Innovate Humanoid Robot Soldiers

The Ondas-DZYNE deal further suggests that defense startups focusing on drones and counter-UAS are prime M&A targets for larger companies.

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/06/2026 - 15:25

When The Monetary Laws Of Physics Change

Authored by Mark Jeftovic via BombThrower.com,

“You just wait until the next bear market…”

Last month, I talked about how many of the legendary investors I’ve long followed as well as many of my contemporary financial commentators (speaking specifically of the contrarian ilk), are almost unanimous in the opinion that the AI trade is well into bubble territory and stocks in general are overvalued. Hell, even I think that and I’m personally “all in” on AI and have a fair bit of equities exposure to it (not a tonne, but it’s there, and the biggest winners in the TSC portfolio lately have all been AI stocks and HPC stocks).

Angela sent me this Diary of a CEO interview with Jeremy Grantham – another legend – and she said it was scary. At his peak he managed something like $165B AUM, but he’s down to $80B or $90B now (he also says the only reason he’s still counted as a billionaire today, personally, is because they include the money he’s given away. Grantham has donated over 90% of his net worth to the Grantham Foundation, which invests and incubates primarily green-tech innovation to combat climate change.

Although Thomas Braziel, whose name you might recognize as a notable distressed asset investor who specializes in crypto i.e. Mt Gox claims, FTX, put out an interesting analysis of Grantham’s green tech foundation’s filings – and surmised that what he’s saying on the talk-show circuit isn’t lining up with where he’s actually allocating the foundation’s …money  )

Via: GMO Q4 2025 Letter

Grantham occupies an exalted perch in the pantheon of institutional investors, so when he opines on something, it tends to get picked up on, which one may find somewhat quizzical, given his lifetime batting average isn’t really in the same league as the likes of Buffett, Munger, Klarman, et al.

His lifetime average returns? The closest analog could be the lifetime average of the GMO Global Asset Allocation Composite, which he co-founded.

Their number? 8.43%. And 0.8% of that was because of a one-time litigation settlement received in 2024

Warren Buffett’s lifetime batting average is pushing 20% (19.8%).

The S&P itself, 10%.

In case you’re wondering how somebody became a billionaire by lagging the major index by 200bp over their entire career, it’s because Grantham is proficient at one thing in particular: not losing money.

The TL;DR from the DOAC interview? A lot of people are about to lose a lot of money.

When Stephen Bartlett told him he was invested in SpaceX, Grantham dead-panned, “Good luck with that”.

Bitcoin? “It’s a zero”.

The interview went a bit viral and I saw a lot of “Billionaire says Bitcoin is worthless” headlines in the mainstream financial press. Grantham has since been on a punditry tour (perhaps in promotion of his latest book, “The Making of a Permabear” – yes, really); and the soundbites that are being repeatedly teased out from them are his “Bitcoin is a zero” sermons, in one case getting into a somewhat heated exchange with Joe Kernen on CNBC – where Kernen, incredibly, makes some of my points far less diplomatically than I have here.

At least it’s not just Bitcoiners getting into scraps! pic.twitter.com/pfJyXM3ZFc

— JOEY (@JoeyTweeets) June 26, 2026

After Grantham trotted out the usual “no use case”, “there’s no there there”, “it’s a bubble”, Kernen straight-armed Grantham in the face with his underperformance over the past two decades,

“You’ve done a great disservice to anybody who’s listened to you over the last twenty years”.

Grantham’s response and attempt at a defence, combined with something else he said in the DOAC interview, are all leading up to my point here, while being 100% oblivious to it:

To Joe Kernen: he said “We’ve been in a bull market since 2009, let’s see how all this stuff holds up when the next bear market hits”

To Steven Bartlett: he cautioned how Amazon sold off a staggering 92% during the Dotcom bust.

During the drive to Hamilton for a board meeting, I listened to this short Alex Hormozi clip and his analogy (which he cribbed from Brian Johnson) hit me full force and I finally had a working metaphor that explained what I’ve been trying to articulate about these living legends of finance.

That they’re underestimating the significance of fiat debasement is true, but it doesn’t really explode in your brain as much as make your eyes glaze over.

The analogy is fish are swimming around in water.

Some of them become experts at swimming. They train their entire lives, they practice every day, they study the expert swimmers of yore, and they analyze nearly every aspect of the water they inhabit: it’s PH levels, alkaline, currents, flow – everything.

They know how a slight variance in one factor impacts the others – they know “which way the current is going”.

But over time, the water heats up; they may pick up on this, but they’re never quite prepared for what it means beyond a certain point.

When that point arrives, the water evaporates – and now it’s gas. Steam.

Setting aside for our purposes how this would fry the fish, imagine they’re still alive, but now they’re trying to apply everything they know about swimming in water to this new environment, which is gaseous, not liquid.

They would be flailing and flapping around like the proverbial “fish out of water”.

What happened?

They were never wrong about their fluid dynamics.

The physics changed and they had no model for the new reality.

Hormozi’s short clip was applying this metaphor to AI – which is certainly among the key drivers of the “monetary physics change” that we are now undergoing.

But the point of no return, when the phase shift started, was – I believe, and as Raoul Pal has always said – the Global Financial Crisis of 2007-2009.

That was when the water started turning to gas.

Grantham’s own yardstick measures the current bull market from then – when the central banks stepped in, when The Big Print started and when interest rate suppression and credit expansion became permanent features of the global monetary system (I would argue that the process started in 1980-82, and the GFC was a major tipping point).

Yes, Amazon came off 92% when the dotCom bubble burst. But anybody who had bought, even at the high right before that, is now up about 4,642.7 %

On the new Sovereign Capitalist site, we can model all this out interactively (see below).

Run the interactive widget here

On its surface, Grantham’s fixation on loss avoidance serves a purpose (recall Buffett’s top rules of investing: number one is “Don’t lose money”, number two is “See Rule number one”).

If I ever experienced a staggeringly huge life-changing windfall in one moment, I would carve out a “retire your bloodline”-type allocation and hand it to a guy like Grantham (more likely it would be Vito Maida  over at Patient Capital, here in Canada).

But being good at preserving capital has its own opportunity cost, which is far more pronounced now that we’ve traversed the inflection point into the Exponential Age.

The world has transitioned from flat to hyper-cubed – the architecture is completely different now, and the linear measuring stick known as fiat money is ill equipped for the task of describing it.

To Grantham’s point “you just wait until the next bear market”, there won’t be a next bear market, not until we change that measuring stick.

Until the monetary regime change happens – that “change in physics” – any drawdown, no matter how deep, will be papered over with incessant Big Prints until the system itself completes its metamorphosis.

Today’s post was an excerpt from The Sovereign Capitalist my recently relaunched premium service. This goes beyond a dashboard, it’s more of an operating system for high agency net-producers.  All members get access to the full pre-release version of my new book: The Blueprint – Survive & Thrive in an Overclocked Timeline.

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/06/2026 - 15:05

Hormuz In The Rearview As Asia-US Ocean Container Rates Soar Past $7,900

By Stuart Chirls of AmericanShipper

The container shipping market is being driven by geopolitics, rates, and network reshuffling, but freight-rate volatility and adjustments by carriers to protect schedules and pricing has supplanted Middle East disruptions as top-level concerns.

Asia-U.S. West Coast prices increased 8% to $6,175 per forty foot equivalent unit (FEU), according to Freightos, a data contributor to SONAR ocean market data.

Prices for Asia-U.S. East Coast transportation also rose 8%, to $7,998 per FEU.

SONAR‘s Ocean Supply/Demand Index reflects the surge in trans-Pacific demand, having recovered to year-ago levels

Iran has escalated steps to assert sole authority over vessel traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, writes Freightos Research Head Judah Levine, in a note to clients, even as it negotiates with the United States over terms of a final peace deal.

"Oil volumes out of the Gulf states are rebounding, though marine traffic was paused … following Iranian strikes on transiting vessels and sites in Bahrain and Kuwait,” Levine said. 

The United Nations abandoned ship evacuations after Tehran attacked a Mediterranean Shipping Co. vessel transiting a non-approved route.

As crude oil flows from the Persian Gulf resume, surging peak season demand – and not oil prices – are driving elevated container rates.

“The early start to this year’s peak has sent rates spiking on the main east-west lanes since mid-May,” Levine said, “with carriers shifting capacity from secondary lanes to service this demand, contributing to rate increases on secondary trades too.”

Zim recently launched a new Asia–East Coast South America service, while Hapag-Lloyd updated service rotations. Broader growth across fleets and new vessel orders with shipyards continues, suggesting carriers are still trying to balance network expansion with an increasingly uneven demand amid geopolitical events.

Since mid-May trans-Pacific prices to the U.S. West Coast have climbed 120%, and by 85% to East Coast gateways. By comparison, Asia-North Europe rates are up 70% in that time, and 85% to the Mediterranean.

In a remarkable show of importer confidence in projected consumer spending, “[t]rans-Pacific East Coast rates are now $1,000/FEU higher than last year’s frontloading-driven summer high,” wrote Levine, “with West Coast prices just above their 2025 peak. Europe and Mediterranean rates are $1,300- and $3,000/ per FEU above their 2025 peak season highs, respectively.

The National Retail Federation said 32% of surveyed consumers had started their back-to-school shopping in June, up from 26% in 2025, an indicator for retail spending later in the year.

The surge is delaying traffic at major hubs in South Asia, the Far East and Europe, shrinking available capacity and contributing to upward pressure on rates, Levine said.

The early rush is likely underpinned by an array of factors, from frontloading ahead of carrier fuel surcharges and manufacturer price increases, as well as approaching U.S. tariff deadlines.

“If enough shippers are indeed pulling peak season volumes forward, we could expect the early start to mean an early peak season unwind as well, possibly some time in July,” Levine said.

Volume strength may stretch on a little longer than many shippers may have preferred due to delays at congested ports, he added. “Carriers are set to introduce more rate increases to start July, so the degree of success carriers have with these price hikes should reflect where the market is in terms of this year’s peak-season peak.”

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/06/2026 - 14:25