An F-35 fighter jet, the plane Lockheed Martin marketed as a ghost, was struck by an Iranian missile and forced into an emergency landing this morning. Hours earlier, Secretary Pete Hegseth told America the military was winning decisively and Iran's air force had been flattened. Ghosts don't make emergency landings.

Today's show connects that moment to something much larger: historian John Bagot Glubb's seven stages of imperial collapse, and the case that America is living inside stages six and seven right now.

Also on the show: Jerome Powell confirmed what you already feel in your power bill. The AI data center boom is pushing inflation up and working people are subsidizing it. The Trump administration turned the July 4th 250th anniversary into a pay-for-play operation where a speaking slot on the National Mall costs two and a half million dollars. John Fetterman handed Mark Wayne Mullen the keys to DHS. And union leadership in this country, including Culinary 226 here in Las Vegas, has the power to change everything overnight and is choosing not to use it.

The people on the roof of the Empire State Building thought the aliens came to save them. Don't be on the roof.