Overhauling Air Traffic Control Involves 5,000 Locations And 600 Radar Systems: Here's What To Know

Authored by Jacob Burg via The Epoch Times,

The federal government is embarking on what Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has called “the most important infrastructure project that we’ve had in this country for decades.” It is attempting to modernize and upgrade the nation’s entire air traffic control system within a timeline of roughly three- and-a-half to four years.

Multiple aviation experts, ranging from former pilots and controllers to professors and an aviation lawyer, say the changes are needed and long overdue.

The entire project is projected to cost at least $32.5 billion, according to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), with the initial $12.5 billion downpayment funded by President Donald Trump’s spending bill in July 2025. Duffy has asked Congress for an additional $20 billion to complete the project by the end of the president’s term.

This is what the FAA has said it plans to do in this multi-year modernization project, which portions of the project experts say are most critical, some of the obstacles the federal government might face, and background on the company chosen to lead the endeavor.

What to Expect

The FAA’s plan to “deliver Americans a state-of-the-art air traffic control system” will involve replacing telecommunication lines, radar systems, software, hardware, and other core U.S. aviation infrastructure.

The agency said it will replace copper lines with fiber optics—a project that Duffy recently said is already more than 30 percent complete—and will swap outdated communication hardware with wireless and satellite technology.

These changes will be made at nearly 5,000 locations, alongside implementing more than 25,000 new radios and 462 new digital voice switches, according to an FAA fact sheet.

An air traffic controller monitors screens beside a digital Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) clock inside the control tower at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) on Sept. 4, 2013. Reed Saxon/File/AP Photo

The agency said more than 600 radar systems that “have gone past their life cycle” will be replaced. Some U.S. radar systems, particularly ground-based radar, date back to between the 1940s and the 1970s.

“The primary radar system—that goes back to World War II, and that’s still in use. And that’s basically detecting that there is something in the air. You can’t always tell what it is,” said Margaret Wallace, a former military air traffic controller and an assistant professor of aviation management at Florida Institute of Technology.

In the decades since World War II, the FAA has “added layers of technology … and if a lower level has an issue, then that’s going to create issues in all the other layers of technology,” Wallace told The Epoch Times.

Additionally, the FAA is increasing the number of airports that deploy the “Surface Awareness Initiative” (SAI). SAI is a ground-based monitoring system that allows air traffic controllers to see all aircraft traversing runways, taxiways, and other surface movement areas at airports.

As of March 2025, SAI was operational at 18 airports. The FAA aimed to install it at 50 airports by the end of 2025 and a total of 200 airports overall. An FAA spokesman told The Epoch Times on Jan. 6 that the system has now been installed at 52 air traffic control towers.

Modernizing air traffic control will also involve building a new consolidated air route traffic control center for the first time in six decades and replacing multiple control towers and one Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON) facility.

TRACON facilities manage air traffic for several airports in specific regions, such as the New York City or Tampa metropolitan areas.

Air traffic controllers monitor aircraft activity at Philadelphia International Airport on Nov. 11, 2025. John Fredricks/The Epoch Times

Desperately Needed

U.S. airspace is in desperate need of upgrades, multiple aviation experts said.

“The basic radar technology obviously needs to be upgraded and have better detection systems. With all the GPS [global positioning system] and everything we have, I think it would be reasonable to use that as a secondary technology as well,” said Wallace, who teaches classes on air traffic control and airport management.

She described how other countries have upgraded the way their air traffic control infrastructures identify aircraft and communicate across multiple systems within their airspace, leading to improved reliability throughout.

The United States still uses analog frequency radios, similar to the AM/FM radios found in cars, which—unlike radios in airport control towers—have already been outpaced by digital devices such as smartphones that utilize new technology, Wallace said.

Some of these radios have created headaches for pilots flying into busy airspaces, according to Shawn Pruchnicki, a safety expert, former pilot, and aviation professor at Ohio State University.

“The number one problem that I think if you ask any pilot, and probably the majority of controllers, would tell you, is that we have this single channel for communications that only one person can talk at a time. I don’t know how you get around that,” Pruchnicki told The Epoch Times.

Sometimes pilots will be handed off to a new radio frequency from a previous one, and “then all of a sudden … you listen, and it’s just like this constant barrage of air traffic control clearances. It’s like this person’s not even taking a breath, and you’re just like, ‘Oh, dear God … this airspace, apparently, is out of control.’”

Even though the controllers in the tower can see and direct the planes without constant communication with pilots, Pruchnicki said there are times when a pilot needs to check in with the tower, especially if there’s an emergency, and it can “become problematic” if there are too many pilots waiting to speak on congested radio channels.

An air traffic controller stands beneath a radar screen in the control tower at Washington’s Reagan National Airport. The FAA said more than 600 radar systems that “have gone past their life cycle” will be replaced. Charles Dharapak/File/AP Photo

Making these upgrades throughout the U.S. airspace requires an entire overhaul, including rebuilding whole facilities to make way for modernized hardware and software, Wallace said.

“Because you can’t just say, ‘oh, let’s flip the switch, and we’re going to use this today,’” she said.

There’s also the need to balance the need for  change with the caution to maintain safety within a system as complex and critical as aviation, according to Shem Malmquist, who has worked in aviation for nearly 40 years, including as a commercial pilot, professor, and safety consultant.

“Whether it’s politics or whatever, you have some people that want to push forward and come up with the new ideas and constantly change things. And then you have the other, that’s the conservative side, saying, ‘No, no, wait, wait, wait; we know this other thing is working. Let’s not change too quickly,’” he told The Epoch Times.

“Those two working together creates a balance, and the same thing is true on development of safety-critical systems. You want that balance.”

Compressed Timeline

Although the upgrades are necessary, some aviation experts are concerned about the three-and-a-half to four-year timeline.

“I think it’s probably aggressive,” Greg Reigel, an aviation lawyer and private pilot, told The Epoch Times.

Reigel said the project is essentially one of the most ambitious and wide-reaching infrastructure projects in American history.

“I think it’s a good thing. I think they’re on the right track,” he said.

”I just hope that they’re doing this the right way, and that safety is first and foremost, and they’re not getting outside political or financial pressure with respect to deadlines or going live” with upgraded hardware and software, Reigel said.

Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy speaks at a press conference at the U.S. Capitol on Oct. 23, 2025. Duffy recently said the FAA has replaced more than 30 percent of its copper lines with fiber optics. Eric Lee/Getty Images

Wallace said it’s not a “realistic timeline” to do a “full overhaul” of U.S. air traffic control.

“We can get some facilities started, but even when we get them up and built and everything, we still have to have a test period.”

When a new facility is built to replace an old one, it takes time to transition workers from one building to another. Throwing human factors into the mix complicates it further, Wallace said.

“It’s great to have all this new technology, but how do humans adapt to it? So they work with certain systems now; there’s going to be a big training process.” she added.

Malmquist said that any changes to a system as complex as U.S. airspace are going to require careful consideration, “management of change procedure,” and documentation of all alterations to air traffic control infrastructure and why they were replaced or modified.

“When you make a change, you can go back and trace back and say, ‘Is this going to affect these other things, but then how they’re going to interact in unexpected ways?’” he added.

Peraton to Lead Upgrade Project

The federal government on Dec. 4, 2025, announced that it had chosen Peraton, a national security and technology firm that contracts with the Department of Defense, to be the “prime integrator” of the air traffic control modernization project.

As prime integrator, Peraton’s main initiative will be managing the modernization project and making sure it is delivered on time without major disruptions to U.S. airspace, the FAA said in a fact sheet the same day.

A computer screen displays real-time air traffic over North America in the control tower at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago on Feb. 11, 2015. The FAA said it plans to replace outdated communications hardware with wireless and satellite systems at nearly 5,000 sites, along with more than 25,000 new radios and 462 digital voice switches. M. Spencer Green/File/AP Photo

Several aviation experts told The Epoch Times that they had not heard of Peraton before seeing the FAA’s announcement. The company was spun out of another defense contractor, the former Harris Corporation. Veritas Capital bought Harris Corporation’s government IT services division in 2017 and renamed it Peraton.

In a September 2025 statement, Peraton said it “brings to the table a holistic approach, unhindered by a failed history of FAA supplier performance and technical bias in serving as a pure-play systems integrator.”

Peraton did not respond to a request for comment by publication time.

Harris Corporation had a decades-long history of involvement in the aviation industry, with a 2016 annual report listing air traffic control management as one of the company’s four key business components.

In 2002, Harris Corporation partnered with Lockheed Martin to develop technology for air traffic management and communications.

In 2009, the Harris Corporation acquired SolaCom Technologies, Inc., a privately held air traffic control company that was based in Quebec, Canada, at the time.

The FAA awarded Harris a 15-year, $291 million contract in 2012 to provide a new communications system for air traffic control as part of the agency’s previous “NextGen” initiative.

NextGen was similar to the Trump administration’s current plan to upgrade U.S. air traffic control nationwide, but with a key difference: it had a timeline of more than 20 years, with 2025 being the initial target date for deployment. A 2024 Department of Transportation report indicated that the project had stalled, with some portions being delayed until at least 2030.

Tyler Durden Sun, 01/11/2026 - 22:10

Fed Subpoenaed As DOJ Launches Criminal Probe Into Jerome Powell, Who Vows To "Stand Firm"

Not content with launching a dizzying cascade of international conflicts, Trump just lobbed a nuke at the Fed. 

While Trump's vendetta against the Fed's Lisa Cook set for a January showdown before the Supreme Court, the Trump admin dramatically raised the stakes on Sunday when the NYT first reported, and minutes later Fed Chair Jerome Powell confirmed that the US central bank had been served grand jury subpoenas from the Justice Department threatening a criminal indictment, in what Bloomberg said was a dramatic escalation of the Trump administration’s attacks on the Fed.

As the NYT first reported, the US attorney’s office in the District of Columbia has opened a criminal investigation into Powell over the central bank’s renovation of its Washington headquarters and whether the Fed Chair lied to Congress about the scope of the project. The inquiry, which includes an analysis of Powell’s public statements and an examination of spending records, was approved in November by Jeanine Pirro, a longtime ally of President Trump who was appointed to run the office last year, the NYT sources said.

Attorney General Pam Bondi has directed US attorneys offices to look into cases of potential taxpayer abuse, said one of the NYT sources. In comments broadcast by NBC, Trump said that the DOJ's Fed subpoenas "nothing to do with interest rates" and denied any involvement in the legal matter.

The investigation escalates Trump’s long-running feud with Powell, whom the president has continually attacked for resisting his demands to slash interest rates significantly (and, in retrospect, Trump was right as the Fed did in fact cut rates at its last 3 meetings having belatedly observed the dramatic deterioration in the labor market without an offsetting surge in inflation). The president has threatened to fire the Fed chair - whom he nominated for the position in 2017 - and raised the prospect of a lawsuit against him related to the $2.5 billion renovation, citing “incompetence.”

In a striking public response to the NYT report, Powell - who has historically ignored public commentary on Trump's public assaults - issued a forceful written and video statement released Sunday evening using the Federal Reserve's official account on X, in which he said the action was related to his June congressional testimony on ongoing renovations of the Fed’s headquarters. But he said "this unprecedented action should be seen in the broader context of the administration’s threats and ongoing pressure." The Fed Chair then continued:

"This new threat is not about my testimony last June or about the renovation of the Federal Reserve buildings. It is not about Congress’s oversight role; the Fed through testimony and other public disclosures made every effort to keep Congress informed about the renovation project. Those are pretexts."

“The threat of criminal charges is a consequence of the Federal Reserve setting interest rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the public, rather than following the preferences of the president. This is about whether the Fed will be able to continue to set interest rates based on evidence and economic conditions — or whether instead monetary policy will be directed by political pressure or intimidation.”

“I have deep respect for the rule of law and for accountability in our democracy. No one—certainly not the chair of the Federal Reserve—is above the law. But this unprecedented action should be seen in the broader context of the administration’s threats and ongoing pressure,” 

"Public service sometimes requires standing firm in the face of threats. I will continue to do the job the Senate confirmed me to do with integrity and a commitment to serving the American people."

Video message from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell: https://t.co/5dfrkByGyX pic.twitter.com/O4ecNaYaGH

— Federal Reserve (@federalreserve) January 12, 2026

In the statement, Powell said he intends to continue doing his job “with integrity and a commitment to serving the American people.” He did not discuss the fact that his delayed actions during the covid crisis sparked the biggest bout of runaway inflation in 40 years, presided over the biggest insider trading scandal at the Fed which led to multiple resignations at the central bank, and was explicitly political by cutting rates in September 2024, two months before the November election, in a bid to sway the vote for Kamala Harris. 

Ironically, this latest dramatic escalation in the war between the White House and the Marriner Eccles building which are located less than a mile apart, takes place even as Powell has been doing what Trump has wanted all along: cutting rates. The president has repeatedly called for aggressive rate cuts and repeatedly mused about firing Powell. In another extraordinary step, Trump also sought to fire Fed Governor Lisa Cook. The Supreme Court is set to take up the Cook case later this month.

While the Fed last month cut their benchmark rate to a target range of 3.5% to 3.75%, the third consecutive quarter-point cut, after holding rates steady through much of 2025 when inflation was supposedly about to surge, yet never did while shelter inflation sank to multi-year lows, officials have signaled they’re in no rush to lower rates again until they have more data on inflation and jobs.

since a few ppl don't get it
- he has been a failure post covid, and is yet unaccustomed to any scrutiny, now playing a hero
- lawfare has been a fact of American politics since at least Obama; 10x'ed under Biden > if you were not protesting back then, sorry

— Barbarian Capital (@BarbarianCap) January 12, 2026

Policymakers meet next in  just over two weeks, on Jan. 27-28, with futures trading shows a minimal chance of a move at that gathering.

Powell’s term as chair will expire in May. His underlying seat on the Fed’s Board of Governor’s doesn’t end until 2028. He hasn’t indicated whether he intends to depart in May or stay on at the central bank.

Earlier this weekend, Trump said he has already picked his nominee to replace Powell. He has not named Powell’s successor, but Kevin Hassett, the director of the National Economic Council, is a front-runner.

In response to news of the investigation, Republican Senator Thom Tillis, a member of the Senate Banking Committee which oversees the Fed, came to the Fed’s defense on Sunday night. In a statement he said he would “oppose the confirmation of any nominee for the Fed — including the upcoming Fed chair vacancy — until this legal matter is fully resolved."

“If there were any remaining doubt whether advisers within the Trump administration are actively pushing to end the independence of the Federal Reserve, there should now be none. It is now the independence and credibility of the Department of Justice that are in question,” Tillis said.

The Trump administration last summer ramped up scrutiny over the Fed’s renovation of two historic buildings and rising costs associated with the project. Fed budget documents show cost estimates for the project had risen to $2.5 billion in 2025, compared with $1.9 billion in 2023. In testimony last June, Powell broadly disputed media reports, and criticisms from administration officials and some congressional Republicans, that the project had extravagant design features, such as a VIP dining room and roof terrace gardens, Bloomberg reported.

Powell also said during the testimony that the project’s plans had “continued to evolve” and that some earlier features “are no longer in the plans.”

Office of Management Director Russ Vought referenced the testimony in a letter he sent to Powell last July asking for details on the renovation. Bill Pulte, director of the Federal Housing Finance Administration and a fierce critic of Powell, has alleged that Powell lied about the specifics of the project during the hearing and suggested the matter could amount to sufficient legal “cause” to justify removing the Fed chief from his role. At the time, Republican Representative Anna Paulina Luna also asked the DOJ to consider investigating and prosecuting Powell for allegedly lying under oath in his testimony.

Amid the controversy, Trump toured the renovation site and signaled the project was not reason enough to fire Powell. Months later, on Dec. 29, Trump said he was considering a “gross incompetence” lawsuit against Powell related to the project.

Under the law that created the Fed, the president can remove members of the Board of Governors only for cause, generally interpreted to mean inefficiency, malfeasance in office or neglect of duty.

“It sounds like Trumpian vengeance and pressuring him to leave in May,” said Mark Spindel, author of The Myth of Independence: How Congress Governs the Federal Reserve, said in reaction to the subpoenas. “If Powell hung around on the board, that complicates Trump’s majority — he needs the seats.”

Ironically, by escalation the Fed against Powell, Trump may have made Powell's decision to stick around and mess with the president's plans for a ultradovish Fed, problematic.

Or maybe not and it's all for show: according to the latest Polymarket odds, the probability of Powell being federally charged by June 30 - a date that is beyond Powell's chairman tenure - is only 18%.

The US dollar weakened on news of the probe, falling against all its major counterparts, while gold extended gains to a record high and bitcoin jumped. Futures on the S&P 500 Index fell 0.3%.

Tyler Durden Sun, 01/11/2026 - 22:05

Trump Urges Cuba To Strike Deal With US "Before It's Too Late" After Oil, Money Cut Off From Venezuela

U.S. President Donald Trump on Jan. 11 told Cuba that it should forge a deal with the United States now that Washington has pushed Venezuela to cut off its supply of oil and money to the communist-run island.

After the U.S. military captured Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro on Jan. 3, interim Venezuelan leader Delcy Rodríguez has redirected oil deliveries to the United States.

Cutting off Venezuelan oil supply to Cuba, which has historically relied on support from Caracas, would apply significant pressure to the Caribbean country, which has been under communist control since Fidel Castro’s 1959 revolution.

"Cuba lived, for many years, on large amounts of OIL and MONEY from Venezuela. In return, Cuba provided ‘Security Services’ for the last two Venezuelan dictators, BUT NOT ANYMORE!” Trump wrote on social media, referring to the Cuban security forces who were killed during the operation to capture Maduro and bring him to the United States to face a federal indictment.

The U.S. president said Venezuela no longer needs protection from Cuban security forces now that it has the United States, “the most powerful military in the world,” to protect its officials.

“THERE WILL BE NO MORE OIL OR MONEY GOING TO CUBA—ZERO! I strongly suggest they make a deal, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE,” Trump said.

Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, leader of the Cuban regime, responded to Trump in a series of social media posts on Jan. 10, saying the communist nation is “ready to defend the Homeland to the last drop of blood.”

“Those who blame the [communist] Revolution for the severe economic shortages we suffer should hold their tongues in shame,” he said.

As Jacob Burg reports for The Epoch Times, assessments by the U.S. Intelligence Community paint a grim picture inside the communist nation, with Cuba’s tourism and agriculture industries significantly affected by routine blackouts, trade sanctions, and a host of other problems.

The island’s tourism industry has seen a decline since the COVID-19 pandemic, and its economy has retracted alongside Venezuela’s over the past decade. U.S. embargos have also added to Cuba’s domestic concerns.

Between January 2025 and November 2025, Caracas sent an average of 27,000 barrels per day to Cuba, accounting for roughly 50 percent of the island’s oil deficit, or a quarter of Cuba’s total energy demand, according to the Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA’s shipping data and reports.

Cuba also receives oil shipments from Russia, which will likely become one of the island’s sole remaining suppliers if Washington’s oil embargo continues.

Mexico has also supplied Cuba with oil, although Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said on Jan. 7 that recent oil exports to the island are not higher than what they have been historically.

Pressure on Cuba increased after the United States seized two additional Venezuelan-linked oil tankers on Jan. 7.

Trump recently told reporters on Air Force One that he thinks that “Cuba looks like it is ready to fall.”

“I don’t know if they’re going to hold out, but Cuba now has no income,” he said. “They got all their income from Venezuela, from the Venezuelan oil.”

Richard Feinberg, a professor emeritus at the University of California–San Diego, who has served in several high-ranking U.S. national security roles, told Reuters that Cuba’s economic conditions are “certainly very bad.”

“When a population is really hungry, what it does is, your day-to-day is just about survival. You don’t think about politics, all you think about is putting bread on the table for your family,” Feinberg said. “On the other hand, people can become so desperate that they lose their fear, and they take to the streets.”

Tyler Durden Sun, 01/11/2026 - 21:35

Great Balls Of Fire

Authored by Waters, Ellwanger & Calvin via RealClearHistory,

America’s foremost heroes are cowboys, soldiers, and innovators. They imposed order on the Wild West. They showed courage on countless battlefields and saved civilization in the Second World War. Armed with a vision for the future and their own two hands, they overpowered a dark and forbidding wilderness to create our modern world. We memorialize their great deeds because strong men inspire strong reactions.

In 1841, Americans were aghast when sculptor Horatio Greenough unveiled the naked splendor of his 12-ton Enthroned Washington, a marble tribute to the Nation’s father and first president. Wearing sandals and only a toga draped over his lap, the sculpture of George Washington caused a stir among members of Congress, who were unable to look past Washington’s exposed nipples, washboard abs, and belly button to see the magic infused into his Zeus-like image. They moved the monument from the Capitol rotunda to the Capitol grounds, where it withstood the wind and rain for 65 years before finding a permanent home within the collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Ross Calvin believes times have changed. He wants to install a 350-foot statue of Prometheus, the Greek titan, on top of Alcatraz Island in the San Francisco Bay. Like the scandalized critics of Horatio Greenough, Calvin’s detractors are numerous. They call his Great Colossus of Prometheus a mix of phallicism and fascism. They claim his vision is too grandiose, too audacious, too difficult to achieve. They have counter-proposed a statue dedicated to Lady Justice as a substitute for Calvin’s monument to chauvinism. But the Denver-based crypto entrepreneur believes President Trump’s America is ready for a powerful, public expression of beauty—one that will serve as a bright, blazing beacon to our latent creative spirit, and stimulate a new generation to dare greatly.

“For the last 100 years, we’ve been living in highly mythological times,” Calvin says in a sprawling interview over several days. “The public has had its creativity so beaten out of them we can barely see it.” He takes inspiration from the story of Prometheus, who took fire from the gods and gave it to mankind so they could survive and flourish in their own civilization. “Prometheus makes man persevering, creative, truth-seeking and forward-moving,” Calvin says. He sees Prometheus as a symbol of America’s regenerative destiny.

Calvin is a rarity in today’s world. He is unapologetically patriotic, provocative, and, like the leading heroes in American history, constantly searching for new frontiers. He grew up playing the piano but insisted on learning the instrument by composing and practicing his own music rather than the work of someone else. Imprinting everything we do with a “powerful, chauvinistic confidence” is the heart of the American project, he says. If we fail to uphold this duty, we forfeit our destiny to the “worldviews of the Chinese Communist Party and bureaucrats in the European Union.” What follows is part three of our conversation. Here are parts one and two. 

Your Great Colossus of Prometheus is a pipe dream driven by the whim of one man, Ross Calvin, hellbent on planting his "Lad Licentious" on top of a national park, fixing a monumental eyesore onto the iconic skyline of San Francisco. Defend yourself.

This type of grandiosity is a virtue and modest by comparison to greater men who have achieved far greater things. We know instinctively that the statue’s message calls forth something else which makes us uncomfortable and afraid, so we cower by shooting the messenger. Prometheus represents the fundamental power one recognizes when he looks up at the sky and finds it empty, empty of gods, and knows the full existential weight and responsibility falls on his shoulders. When there is no sky to look up to, it is within us that the universe must be born. The stark, vivid immediacy to find oneself alone in the cosmos is of incredible, brilliant freedom. He sees himself as living within the future. And he knows it falls to him to imprint on this lonely world a sense of meaning. This is the true heart of American Manifest Destiny. It is our job to make this spirit come to life in stone and bronze and futuristic metals. To call it forward out of the hearts of every onlooker.

And so, you will destroy the historic Alcatraz Island along your way, is that what you want?

The current premises of Alcatraz is sacred to nobody. Its dilapidated ruins interest no one, and it would be language fraud to glorify the current state of Alcatraz under the rubric of a “national park.” The site is visited by only about 7 percent of annual tourist traffic to San Francisco—93 percent of tourists ignore Alcatraz.

You claim that a propaganda complex – supported by the political Left and Right – has covered our eyes and plugged our ears for decades, stuffing the cultural void with smug, branded, machine-made artifacts that inspire no one. Explain how this works.

From the Left there is a putrid, sickly warm milk effect on art. There is a foppish tenor to the managerial worldview of the propaganda producer which reflexively fears grit and self-owned determination—a need for all the universe to be a soft-spoken mother. The propaganda complex fundamentally serves effeminate fops living in the ambrosia bosom of the state.

Outside of Maoism of 2020, there is not yet a jackboot approach to desecration of art. There is a reflexive soft cancellation instead. Expressions of dynamism and heroic potency in art are immediately suspect, and the creation of anything serious, powerful, or heroic is labeled as “fascist.” There is a deep, unconsidered anxiety about all forms of confidence. All work must be deliberately understated and stripped of force in order to gain acceptance in the Davos-styled establishment circuit. Only the egalitarian aesthetic slop bucket of formless mass, devoid of hierarchical arrangement and technical skill does not trigger. Even discipline in execution and mastery is an anathema to the equality mongers – they do not fall into the standardized semantics of the Davos-mindset. These tropes and mental artifacts recirculate into “what everyone agrees.” All of these qualities are foreclosed in a subconscious collusive allegiance to establishment left.

Take Hollywood, for example, which was the engine of cultural and religious narrative for a century—it’s synonymous with philistinism. Movie studios famously have such large capital accounts that the only productions their business model allows them to make our giant-budget, safe-bet regurgitations: the Marvel series and endless big budget remakes. In music studios it's the same problem where the mathematically measurable IQ of music across the spectrum has plummeted. No longer are they capable of producing a Sting or a Bruce Springsteen or a Pink Floyd or a Jimi Hendrix, self-contained original artists who, yes, produce their own material for generations. These media corporations are essentially hostile to the humanities, fine arts, culture, and spiritual development.

And the Right has been no less feeble in its efforts to create or sponsor real art that shocks and inspires. Is that your conclusion or do you believe there will be a renaissance? 

I believe the Right often sees traditional aesthetics as a kind of bunker under which to hide from space invaders. And it's not a verdict on the beauty of classical aesthetics in the least. It is that the RETVRN faction is not asserting anything of its own. Instead, it's hoping the gravitas of history will carry the day without the responsibility to enroll Americans into anything in particular. And they are political statements almost in their entirety actually. Original artists have their own ethos that is pre-political. Even though this faction is more political than original artists tend to be, they are utterly lazy about identifying the actual cultural and political problems at stake in the country and our civilization.

The president’s executive order to turn all federal buildings into a classical style, for example, is completely desirable but also milquetoast and feeble when it comes to the magnitude of California's, and therefore America’s, cultural challenges. Likewise, suggestions I’ve gotten for a statue of Jesus or Justice show no appreciation for how long the war has already progressed and how far away the battlefield really is. The traditional aesthetics for Right wing art mirror the useless, scripted failure to motivate of a Paul Ryan or Mitt Romney—they are platitudes.

In my opinion, authentic art should be superordinate over politics. But obviously it still has to resonate enough with the patronage to find support. For art to be truly political, patronage networks must have a great deal of political refinement as well. On the Right this refinement is lacking even if the erudition around the subject of classical liberalism and its mirror in neoclassical aesthetics is quite developed. The era of Vance, Hegseth and Gabbard might mark the step-shift moment in political refinement to support art not cadenced by the platitudes of the baby boomer gerontocracy. Combined with Gen Z nationalism, this next 15 years could be the years of greatest vitality in “Right wing political art” in a century, but it won’t look like anything that has come before and likely will not seem Right wing at all.

You want the artist to be a hero of natural selection who uses his superior creative force to topple the politically-manipulated, statist establishment. How will you, Ross Calvin, accomplish this task by reigniting the flame of manifest destiny in the Great Colossus of Prometheus? 

This project will be a beacon to popularize a way of thinking about one’s latent, natural creative power—a framework, a lexicon, a mythology and accompanying aesthetics for this can impress on individuals something deep they will not forget. I believe the more complete formation of this psyche is antidote to the slave morality which besets our culture. While it might be modest and inchoate in the beginning, it compounds quickly because great works of beauty created with a pathos toward and admiration for all Americans, made in the public trust, supersede the inferiority of politics. This monument is dedicated to the flame of triumphant beauty in the heart of every American.

Who gave you permission to launch this project? Did the president?

If you want to be a leading American, nobody on the planet can give you permission.

In my life experience, humans largely act in “Epimethean” ways. They defer to others. Almost nothing is the product of a board or a team. Team members defer to the principal. American culture is less this way than all others, but is far from free of this behavior, and in my experience, it has gotten worse over the last 20 years. The ability for multiple principals to act autonomously in development of the same goal is a definitive feature of Western culture. We are losing this.

More critically, our most powerful cultural monuments aren’t statues, republican institutions, or the artifact of money. They are the psychospiritual and mythopoetic power of our youth. I believe this is our highest technology, the most fearsome implement in the arsenal of the West. Our enemies (Zeus-worshiping Bolsheviks) obviously want us to decommission it. They will shoot the messenger all day: “Ross Calvin is some guy with an eyesore vanity project, etc.”

But I also think the coming age of the rediscovery of this arsenal will be a profound time of rightful celebration. This sense of optimism and forward moving confidence is what we’ve forgotten in our culture. Rather than a defining natural property of Man, today we treat it like hubris. We are superstitious against our own agency. They don’t want you to understand. They want you to believe that you have to ask their permission in order to claim your humanity. Martin Luther tore that down. Michelangelo tore that down. Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine tore that down. Bach tore that down. Jesus tore that down. Plato tore that down.

And Prometheus tore that down …

Yes.

And as to the greatness of Man’s nature, you can’t tear this down.

John J. Waters is author of the postwar novel River City One (Simon and Schuster, 2023). Adam Ellwanger is a professor at University of Houston – Downtown, where he teaches rhetoric and writing. Follow him at @1HereticalTruth on X.

Tyler Durden Sun, 01/11/2026 - 21:00

K-Shaped Economy Is Here To Stay As Goldman's Consumer Dashboard Shows Growing Divide

Higher-income consumers and asset owners have watched their wealth surge as stocks climb, fueled by the AI bubble, while housing markets levitate. Lower- and middle-income households, especially those without equity or home ownership, are facing a dangerous cocktail of sticky inflation, sluggish wage growth, and elevated borrowing costs. The result is a widening divide in the consumer economy, which economists describe as a “K-shaped economy.”

Goldman has been bullish on the consumer for 2026, with Bonnie Herzog, managing director and senior consumer analyst, recently telling clients it's time to buy nicotine, energy drink, candy, and beauty stocks. A separate Goldman note by Managing Director Kate McShane noted an "outperforming" middle class but a persisting K-shaped economy.

Given the widening divide, Goldman analyst Joseph Briggs recently told clients that the consumer is being propped up by fiscal stimulus, tax cuts, and solid household wealth even as the labor market cools. He said spending should stay resilient this year, but the softness in jobs and pockets of credit stress make the outlook increasingly bifurcated between higher-income and lower-income households.

Key details about the consumer that Briggs provided clients:

• Spending: The October retail sales report showed resilient spending growth, as monthly core retail sales increased by 0.8% in nominal terms and 0.7% in real terms, although headline retail sales were flat. The underlying spending trend also appears sturdy, with real consumer spending increasing by 2.4% on both 6-month annualized and year-over-year bases through September and by 3.5% in Q3 on a qoq annualized basis. Early holiday spending signals also appeared healthy and consistent with a 0.4% mom increase in core retail sales for November. We expect solid spending growth will extend into 2026 on the back of a sizable fiscal boost (which should add roughly $100bn to household tax refunds in 2026H1), and forecast 2.2% real spending growth in 2025 and 2026 (both on Q4/Q4 bases).

• Employment: The labor market continues to soften, as the unemployment rate increased to 4.56% in the November employment report. And while job growth rebounded to 64k in November following a 105k decline in October (due to a 162k drag from federal government payrolls as a result of the government's deferred resignation program), our estimate of the underlying pace of job growth remained subdued at 32k (vs. 70k GS breakeven estimate). We expect that a pickup in overall growth will lead the labor market to stabilize in 2026—we forecast that the unemployment rate will tick down to 4.5% in December 2025 and move sideways at this level through end-2026 on the back of a 64k/month average job growth pace—but see risks as skewed toward further labor market weakening.

• Income: Real disposable income grew by 1.5% on a year-over-year basis and 1.8% on a 3-month annualized basis through September. We expect year-over-year growth will pick up modestly to 1.7% through end-2025, before accelerating to 2.7% (Q4/Q4 basis) in 2026 on the back of a pickup in job growth, new tax cuts, and a fading inflation headwind from tariffs. We anticipate that new tax cuts included in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act will lead to outperformance among middle-income households in 2026, while cuts to Medicaid and SNAP benefits will disproportionately weigh on real income growth for households in the bottom income quintile.

• Wealth: Household balance sheets are very strong, and the net worth-to-disposable personal income ratio remains near its all-time high on the back of strong equity price gains. The saving rate declined to 4.0% in September (vs. 4.3% at end-2024 and 4.1% in August), but we expect it will rise back to around 5% by end-2026.

• Debt: Consumer credit growth remained soft in October (+2.2% yoy; +2.4% 6-month avg. annualized rate), although home equity loans continue to grow at a rapid pace (+6.7% 12-week annualized average). Household leverage and debt servicing costs remain low by historical standards. Delinquency rates appear to be stabilizing, but auto loan delinquencies (particularly on loans to subprime consumers and loans originated in 2022 and 2023) remain elevated.

• Consumer Confidence: The University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment index ticked up by 1.9pt to 52.9 in December, while the Conference Board's consumer confidence index declined by 3.8pt to 89.1. More timely measures of consumer sentiment have shown signs of improvement, however, with the daily consumer sentiment measure from Morning Consult fully reversing its decline during the government shutdown.

Consumer Dashboard Points to an Incrementally Softer Labor Market, Weaker Income Growth in 2025H2, and Low Sentiment, but Healthy Spending Growth and Very Strong Balance Sheets

Navigating the K-shaped economy will be complicated. See the notes above for Goldman's consumer stock picks.

Tyler Durden Sun, 01/11/2026 - 20:25

Trump Order Taking US Out Of UN Climate Orgs Caps Flood Of Corporate Exits

Authored by Kevin Stocklin via The Epoch Times,

President Donald Trump put another dent in the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) movement, withdrawing the United States from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and 65 other international organizations dedicated to climate and social justice.

Trump’s order caps a recent trend in which many corporations have also canceled their decades-long commitments to left-wing global alliances, undermining what had been a highly influential worldwide movement that once included the world’s largest nations and companies. 

According to a White House statement, Trump’s Jan. 7 executive order directs “all Executive Departments and Agencies to cease participating in and funding 35 non-United Nations (UN) organizations and 31 UN entities that operate contrary to U.S. national interests, security, economic prosperity, or sovereignty.”

On Jan. 8, the U.S. Treasury Department announced it would no longer provide funding to the Global Climate Fund, which financed many of the U.N.’s climate initiatives. The United States originally joined more than 190 other nations in the UNFCCC in 1992, when the U.S. Senate ratified the treaty. 

This was followed by the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, in which countries committed to CO2 limits and reduction targets, and the 2015 Paris Agreement, which accelerated national governments’ commitments and spending to reduce global temperatures. The U.S. Senate did not ratify either of these subsequent accords.

Corporate Alliances Proliferate

Thereafter, a number of net-zero corporate alliances emerged to align the private sector with climate initiatives. At its peak, this network included financial and corporate alliances, such as the Net Zero Banking Alliance, the Net Zero Insurance Alliance, the Net Zero Asset Managers initiative, and others.

These alliances operated under the umbrella of the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero, a U.N.-backed multi-trillion-dollar coalition. The Glasgow Alliance focused on financial institutions because they were not only financiers but also dominant shareholders of publicly traded corporations, and thus a critical means of leverage over the private sector.

Net Zero Asset Managers members, for example, included BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street, the world’s largest asset managers. These three firms alone are collectively the largest shareholders in more than 40 percent of publicly traded U.S. firms, and 88 percent of the S&P 500, according to a study by George Mason University business professors Sebahattin Demirkan and Ted Polat. 

Over the past several years, however, members have begun to exit these organizations amid a conservative backlash and allegations of conflicts of interest and collusion. Much of this backlash occurred in conservative U.S. states, where Republican lawmakers, treasurers, and attorneys general launched boycotts and antitrust investigations of banks and fund managers accused of colluding against oil, gas, and coal companies and of violating their fiduciary duties to investors. 

Vanguard quit Net Zero Asset Managers in 2022, and BlackRock quit in January 2025, after which the initiaitve announced it was suspending activities. In 2023, half of the Net Zero Insurance Alliance’s members quit en masse, facing risks of antitrust prosecution.

ESG Critics Cheer

Trump’s Jan. 7 order to withdraw the United States from the UNFCCC aligns the U.S. federal government with the U.S. private sector and comes as the Trump administration endeavors on many fronts to spur U.S. oil and gas production.

The move was applauded by many critics of the ESG industry, who claim that the net-zero movement has reduced living standards by driving up energy costs while failing to control the earth’s temperature. 

“President Trump at one stroke has removed the United States from a long list of harmful foreign entanglements, headlined by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,” Myron Ebell, chairman of the American Lands Council and former Trump Environmental Protection Agency transition team advisor, said in an email to The Epoch Times.

“Getting out of the UNFCCC is great news for Americans and can also be great news for people all over the world suffering from energy poverty policies if it hastens the collapse of the international climate racket.”

Sterling H. Burnett, director of climate and environmental policy at The Heartland Institute, called Trump’s order “the biggest single step taken by any administration in my lifetime to advance U.S. sovereignty, national interests, and Americans’ liberty.” 

“So many of the treaties and organizations benefit politically connected elites and unaccountable bureaucrats, and enriching corrupt political leaders, while delivering little or no benefit to average people, often keeping the poor in subservience and poverty,” Burnett said in an email to The Epoch Times.

“The UNFCCC was misguided from the start, established on the false premise that human fossil fuel development and use was causing catastrophic climate change, rather than being the boon for humanity that it has been.”

Climate Activists Respond

Advocates for net-zero policies were less complimentary.

“By choosing to run away from addressing some of the biggest environmental, economic, health, and security threats on the planet, the United States of America stands to lose a lot,” Yamide Dagnet, senior international vice president at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in a statement.

“With diminishing credibility and competitiveness in the industries of the future, the United States will be missing out on job creation and innovation, ceding scientific and technological leadership to other countries.”

Members of the House of Representatives Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition issued a statement that Trump’s order “sent a dangerous signal to the global community that America is withdrawing from its role as a world leader, leaving America weaker, poorer, and more unsafe than ever before.”

Trump’s order removes the world’s largest economy and oil and gas producer from the UNFCCC, and cuts off one of its major funding sources. 

Prior to Trump’s reelection in 2024, the United States had been paying 22 percent of the UNFCCC’s 75 million euros ($87.2 million) budget, which was increased to 81.6 million euros ($94.9 million) for 2026, but Trump halted these payments upon taking office in 2025.

In response, China increased its share from 15 to 20 percent, and Bloomberg Philanthropies, funded by billionaire Michael Bloomberg, stepped in to pay the amounts Trump cut off. 

Tyler Durden Sun, 01/11/2026 - 19:50

Weekend:
• Schedule for Week of January 11, 2026

Monday:
• No major economic releases scheduled.

From CNBC: Pre-Market Data and Bloomberg futures S&P 500 futures are down 16 and DOW futures are down 104 (fair value).

Oil prices were up over the last week with WTI futures at $59.37 per barrel and Brent at $63.60 per barrel. A year ago, WTI was at $77, and Brent was at $80 - so WTI oil prices are down about 24% year-over-year.

Here is a graph from Gasbuddy.com for nationwide gasoline prices. Nationally prices are at $2.74 per gallon. A year ago, prices were at $3.03 per gallon, so gasoline prices are down $0.29 year-over-year.

AOC Joins Top Dems In Abrupt Pivot Against 'Antisemitism'

A synchronized burst of pro-Israel social media messaging from the Democratic Party's most ardent foot soldiers is raising eyebrows, as even their most progressive members are taking on 'antisemitism'.

For example, here's AOC - a vocal critic of Israel, slamming Hamas supporters protesting in a Jewish neighborhood as a "disgusting and antisemitic thing to do."

Hey so marching into a predominantly Jewish neighborhood and leading with a chant saying “we support Hamas” is a disgusting and antisemitic thing to do.

Pretty basic! https://t.co/Zx4wJPCPfP

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) January 10, 2026

Other notables include NY AG Letitia James, NY Gov. Kathy Hochul, NY Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, and others.

"Guys, something is happening," X user Clandestine wrote in a post, accompanied by screenshots of some of the highest-ranking Democratic lawmakers from the land making the pivot from pro-Islam to pro-Judaism and anti-Hamas. As Clandestine noted, "They are getting in front of something."

"All the pro-Islam Democrats are all the sudden, in unison, posting pro-Judaism and anti-Hamas posts, after their followers have been screaming "free Palestine" all day every day for years," they continued.

Guys, something is happening.

All the pro-Islam Democrats are all the sudden, in unison, posting pro-Judaism and anti-Hamas posts, after their followers have been screaming “free Palestine” all day every day for years.

They are getting in front of something. https://t.co/r3o2HyX2Hb pic.twitter.com/gYnorvuaId

— Clandestine (@WarClandestine) January 10, 2026

"My first thought was that they know some form of terrorist attack or riots in the Jewish community are coming, and they are trying to disassociate before the violence. Or maybe it's just polling related. Or maybe related to Iran. I have no idea. But they are up to something," they wrote in a separate post.

My first thought was that they know some form of terrorist attack or riots in the Jewish community are coming, and they are trying to disassociate before the violence.

Or maybe it’s just polling related.

Or maybe related to Iran.

I have no idea. But they are up to something.

— Clandestine (@WarClandestine) January 10, 2026

Another X user by the handle Saggezza Eterna pointed out, "The synchronized messaging from the Democrat hierarchy signals abject panic. They realize their alignment with the mob has become a political suicide pact for 2026. They are desperately sanitizing their record. However, attacking Tucker Carlson constitutes a massive strategic error. You are validating the establishment's attempt to purge the only effective anti-war voice on our side. Do not let them manipulate you into fratricide. Focus your fire. The enemy is the machine portrayed in those screenshots. Tucker is the one dismantling it."

The synchronized messaging from the Democrat hierarchy signals abject panic. They realize their alignment with the mob has become a political suicide pact for 2026. They are desperately sanitizing their record. However, attacking Tucker Carlson constitutes a massive strategic…

— Saggezza Eterna (@FinalTelegraph) January 10, 2026

Maybe one just has to follow the money?

My guess is that Jewish donors are not enthusiastic to fill the coffers of the NY State Dem apparatus.

It’s very funny.

Dems have to try to placate the rabid 3rd worldist activists they fear without alienating affluent Jewish donors.

Lol. Good luck. I wish them well. pic.twitter.com/Yf95T0bvWt

— Coddled Affluent Professional (@feelsdesperate) January 11, 2026

Recall, Asra Nomani, now at Fox News, warned last year about "The Woke Army will take the Islamic Republic of Iran's war to America's streets."

Democrats in 2026...

BREAKING: Masked Islamists went to a Jewish neighborhood in Queens, NYC to protest outside of a synagogue while chanting “we are Hamas.”

These are Zohran Mamdani’s people, he encouraged and emboldened this.pic.twitter.com/UkMqTH1iFK

— Eyal Yakoby (@EYakoby) January 9, 2026

Protest tonight at a synagogue in NY: "Say it loud and clear … We support Hamas here!"

Mamdani's base

pic.twitter.com/wQzTKE1CwZ

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) January 9, 2026

ASTROTURF: White liberal women paid to protest in support of Islam, Palestine, and Hamas are now counter protesting Iranians fighting to oust the Ayatollah and his regime. Critical thinking is a lost art among the left.
pic.twitter.com/C46v81o67D

— @amuse (@amuse) January 11, 2026

Whatever is coming down the pipe. Democrats are clearly getting ahead of something, as their pro-Islam, anti-American agenda seems it will be optically displeasing to the American people.

Tyler Durden Sun, 01/11/2026 - 19:15

US Warns Americans To Leave Venezuela Immediately

Authored by Troy Myers via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

American citizens are advised to leave Venezuela as soon as possible due to the “fluid” security situation in the South American country, a U.S. Department of State Consular Affairs X post stated.

The U.S. embassy in Caracas on Jan. 9, 2026. Federico Parra/AFP via Getty Images

This warning comes a week after American military forces conducted a mission in the capital city of Caracas to capture Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. The pair has since pleaded not guilty in a New York courtroom to a range of federal charges, including narco-terrorism.

Although international flights to and from Venezuela have resumed, the United States is warning all Americans in the country to take precautions, be aware of their surroundings, and remain vigilant when traveling by road.

“There are reports of groups of armed militias, known as colectivos, setting up roadblocks and searching vehicles for evidence of U.S. citizenship or support for the United States,” the advisory said.

Citizens still in the country should frequently check flight information in order to leave the country as quickly as possible, establish multiple ways to communicate with friends or family outside of Venezuela, and prepare contingency plans for emergency situations if they choose to stay, the warning said Friday.

The United States stated it remains unable to provide any emergency help to Americans in Venezuela.

The South American country is listed at a “Level 4: Do Not Travel,” the highest advisory. This rating is because of “severe risks to Americans, including wrongful detention, torture in detention, terrorism, kidnapping, arbitrary enforcement of local laws, crime, civil unrest, and poor health infrastructure,” according to the State Department.

The United States has warned against travel to Venezuela since 2019. In March of that year, the State Department suspended operations and withdrew all diplomatic personnel from the embassy in the capital city of Caracas.

Since President Donald Trump took office a year ago, he has ramped up the pressure on drug cartels and the socialist regime in Venezuela. As part of Operation Southern Spear, which began in September 2025, the United States has launched dozens of strikes against boats U.S. officials said were confirmed to be transporting drugs in the Pacific Ocean and Caribbean.

Over 100 alleged narco-terrorists have been killed in the initiative to halt illegal drug trafficking to the United States, according to U.S. officials.

On Jan. 3, Operation Absolute Resolve—a calculated, overnight raid on Venezuela’s capital city—resulted in Maduro and his wife’s capture with no American casualties.

Trump also ordered sanctions on oil tankers arriving and departing from Venezuela as part of the pressure campaign against the former leader’s regime. On Friday, the U.S. seized an oil tanker in the Caribbean Sea.

Venezuela possesses the largest oil reserves in the world. Only days after Maduro’s capture, Trump announced the United States would receive between 30 and 50 million barrels of sanctioned oil.

“This Oil will be sold at its Market Price, and that money will be controlled by me, as President of the United States of America, to ensure it is used to benefit the people of Venezuela and the United States!” Trump posted on Truth Social.

The president told Energy Secretary Chris Wright to execute this plan right away. Trump also said oil companies will invest at least $100 billion in Venezuela to rebuild its oil infrastructure to boost production.

Earlier Friday, before the travel advisory was issued, the United States and Venezuela said they are pursuing the possibility of reestablishing diplomatic relations. An American delegation visited the South American country to evaluate possibly reopening the U.S. Embassy in Caracas. The embassy has been closed since 2019 after the United States refused to recognize Maduro as the legitimate leader of Venezuela amid allegations of election fraud in the country.

Tyler Durden Sun, 01/11/2026 - 18:05

Former Special Counsel Jack Smith Confirms His Utter Contempt For The First Amendment Before Congress

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

For years, some of us have argued that President Donald Trump’s January 6th speech was protected under the First Amendment and that any prosecution would collapse under governing precedent, including Brandenburg v. Ohio.  I was regularly attacked as an apologist for my criticism of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s “war on free speech.” I wrote about his history of ignoring such constitutional protections in his efforts to prosecute targets at any cost.

I also wrote how Smith’s second indictment (which the Post supported) was a direct assault on the First Amendment.

Now, years later, the Washington Post has acknowledged that Trump’s speech was protected and that Smith “would have blown a hole in the First Amendment.”

In this appearance before Congress, Smith’s contempt for the First Amendment was on full display. During his testimony, he was asked by Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) whether Trump was entitled to First Amendment protections for his speech.

Smith replied:

“Absolutely not. If they are made to target a lawful government function and they are made with knowing falsity, no, they are not. That was my point about fraud not being protected by the First Amendment.”

The comment is entirely and shockingly wrong.

Smith shows a complete lack of understanding of the First Amendment and Supreme Court precedent.

First, the Supreme Court has held that knowingly false statements are protected under the First Amendment. The Supreme Court struck down the Stolen Valor Act. In United States v. Alvarez, the Court held 6-3 that it is unconstitutional to criminalize lies — in that case involving “stolen valor” claims. Likewise, spewing hate-filled lies is protected. In Snyder v. Phelps, also in 2011, the Court said the hateful protests of Westboro Baptist Church were protected.

Second, calling such claims “fraud” does not convert protected speech into criminal speech. Trump was speaking at a rally about his belief that the election was stolen and should not be certified. Many citizens supported that view. It was clearly protected political speech.

As I discuss in The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage,” Smith’s prosecution was on a collision course with controlling Supreme Court precedent.

In Brandenburg v. Ohio, the Supreme Court ruled in 1969 that even calling for violence is protected under the First Amendment unless there is a threat of “imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.” Smith would have lost, but he has a history of ignoring such constitutional protections. That was the case when his conviction of former Virginia Governor Robert F. McDonnell was unanimously reversed as overextending another law.

Trump was never charged with inciting the riot despite pledges of Democratic D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine to investigate Trump for that crime.

The reason is simple. It was not criminal incitement and Trump’s speech was protected under the First Amendment.

Nevertheless, the Post and other papers ran the same experts, who assured the public that no such protections existed. For example, Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe has made a litany of such claims, including his declaration that President Donald Trump could be charged (“without any doubt, beyond a reasonable doubt, beyond any doubt”)  with the attempted murder of former Vice President Michael Pence.

The Post has now recognized that Trump does indeed enjoy First Amendment protections and that Smith was a constitutional menace. The change reflects a commendable shift in the Post’s editorial staff under owner Jeff Bezos and his new team at the paper.

The Post wrote:

Political speech — including speech about elections, no matter how odious — is strongly protected by the First Amendment. It’s not unusual for politicians to take factual liberties. The main check on such misdirection is public scrutiny, not criminal prosecution.

Of course fraud is a crime. But that almost always involves dissembling for money, not political advantage. Smith’s attempt to distinguish speech that targets ‘a lawful government function’ doesn’t work. Most political speech is aimed at influencing government functions.

Smith might think his First Amendment exception applies only to brazen and destructive falsehoods like the ones Trump told after losing the 2020 election. But once an exception is created to the First Amendment, it will inevitably be exploited by prosecutors with different priorities. Imagine what kind of oppositional speech the Trump Justice Department would claim belongs in Smith’s unprotected category.

Smith also said he makes ‘no apologies’ for the gag order he tried to impose on Trump during the prosecution. The decision to criminally charge a leading presidential candidate meant the charges would feature in the 2024 campaign. Yet Smith fought to broadly limit Trump’s ability to criticize him or the prosecution in general, claiming such statements would interfere with the legal process.

Bravo.

This is precisely the argument that some of us have been making for years, while being relentlessly pursued by the media.

This is not meant as a criticism of the Post. At least the Post is now making a serious attempt to restore objectivity and accuracy to its coverage and editorials. As for Smith, his testimony confirms the worst assessments of his view of free speech. The only thing more chilling than his lack of knowledge of constitutional doctrine is his contempt for constitutional values.

Tyler Durden Sun, 01/11/2026 - 17:30

The Democrats' "Affordability" Ploy To Avoid Accountability

Authored by Thaddeus McCotter via American Greatness,

Imagine someone is walking through a museum filled with fragile antiquities. And they happen to be indiscriminately swinging a sledgehammer. And with every fragile antiquity they shatter, they pocket the price of the destroyed historical treasure.

When their selfish, remunerative spree of wanton destruction concludes, one might expect the culprit to drop their hammer and skedaddle from the scene of the crime. Nope. Instead, they stand around carping that the museum’s new curators are not cleaning up the mess you made fast enough. Why? Because they are hoping to get another shot with the sledgehammer at the remaining precious items still on display.

The fragile antiquities would be the American economy itself. They would be Democrats. The sledgehammer would be their trillion-dollar spending spree, which they would undertake while holding the congressional majority under the Biden administration. With every exorbitant spending bill they passed, their political cronies and ideological fellow travelers received taxpayer money, much of the largesse being funneled back into electing Democrats. The result was the Democrats’ inflation-driven economic carnage that harmed every taxpaying American’s pocketbook that the party had drained to do it in the first place.

Consequently, the best new museum curators would be the Trump administration. One can therefore understand the irritation of the president and Congressional Republicans with the Democrats’ disingenuous dithyrambs to “affordability.”

Hence, President Trump has called the Democrats’ laments regarding the “affordability” issue a “hoax” and a “scam”; however, in the context he describes, he is decrying the party’s disingenuous messaging ploy.

There is absolutely, unequivocally, an affordability crisis in our country. Americans, notably young Americans, are confronted with inflation and the erosion of the economic opportunities necessary for prosperity. Few dispute this dire situation. What the left disputes is that the affordability crisis is the product of the Democrats’ “scarcity economy,” one built upon their venal, spendthrift stewardship of the public purse, radical “green” ideology, and zero-sum redistributionist policies. Escalating costs to restrict economic activity, such as new housing, to “save the planet” and increase public dependence upon government spending are not bugs in the Democrats’ system; they are the key features.

On their part, President Trump, his administration, and Congressional Republicans have made headway against the inflation and economic stagnation the Democrats caused. But it is vexing to have to untangle the Democrats’ fiscal and economic messes, all the while having to counter that party’s misinformation and disinformation on who created the problem. After all, who would want to be toiling away, broom and dustpan in hand, cleaning up the shards of items you cherished and hoping to super glue them back together, all the while being criticized and lied about by the very vandals who destroyed them?

In sum, the Democrats’ finger-pointing about affordability is designed to avoid the public holding them accountable for causing the problem. If you think the demands to make more affordable the necessary staples of life that these swamp-dwelling Democrats have skyrocketed constitute the acme of hypocrisy, you would be surprised.

Just look at any large urban area, say New York City, where a new Democrat with a sledgehammer is complaining that the last Democrat did not clean up—or is it create?—the party’s mess fast enough. Now that is some shameless shit.

Temerity.

So, who guards the museum and its priceless relics from sledgehammer-wielding Democrats sacking the premises in the first place? The electorate, of course. And, sadly, electoral results often prove the Democrats’ ostensibly risible blame game winds up succeeding. Thus, when cleaning up the Democrats’ continual messes, one must also continually message as to who made the mess.

Tyler Durden Sun, 01/11/2026 - 16:20

MTG Denies 'Dangerous Lie' That She Tipped Off Code Pink To Trump's Location

Former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene hit back against an Axios report that the White House told the Secret Service she may have tipped off Code Pink protesters about Trump's unscheduled visit to a DC restaurant she recommended, leading to an activist ambush that went viral on social media.  

"Only the WH set up President Trump’s reservation at Joe’s, NOT ME!! I had ZERO knowledge of when his reservation was! The only people who could have tipped off Code Pink was the restaurant or the WH!" MTG wrote on X following the report, calling it " an ABSOLUTE LIE, A DANGEROUS LIE," and insisting "I would NEVER do that." 

According to Axios, Greene had recommended "Joe's Seafood", a restaurant in Washington D.C., to the commander-in-chief as a last minute dinner location for his team. 

Upon Trump's arrival, a “chaotic confrontation” occurred between Code Pink protesters and Trump, which officials say “embarrassed the president and intensified concerns in the White House about his safety.”

REPORT: The White House told Secret Service that MTG may have tipped off protesters about his surprise visit to Joe's Seafood back in September, according to Axios.

Viral footage shows Trump being confronted by Code Pink protesters who called him 'Hitler.'

In response to Axios,… pic.twitter.com/iRFT6H1kEy

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) January 9, 2026

The White House claims that after recommending the president go to Joe’s, Greene repeatedly called Trump staffers the day of the dinner to confirm he was going. After Trump heard about Greene’s outreach, he called her shortly before leaving the White House and confirmed his planned visit, the sources said. Greene, who was a regular at the restaurant, didn’t show up at the location when Trump and other officials were there, which struck some Trump aides as odd.

So, someone's lying...

The incident with Code Pink took place just one day before the assassination of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk. With two separate attempts on Trump's life previous to his re-election, which the Secret Service notably botched both times - not to mention an endless array of violent actions on the part of progressive protesters in recent months, left-wing activists coming within proximity to Trump has become a national security concern.   

White House aides pointed out that Greene has publicly touted her friendship with Code Pink co-founder Medea Benjamin in the past, writing on X Dec. 10:

“I have enjoyed a friendship with Medea for a few years now even though politics says that’s not allowed.” 

“Marjorie is closer with the hosts of ‘The View’ than the president,” a former senior administration official said of Greene.

The Rift

After spending 2016 - 2023 as one of Trump's most loyal defenders, Greene became increasingly vocal in late 2023 over blank-check foreign aid, including the Ukraine war, and Israel-related packages (particularly when tied to Ukraine funding) - however she didn't take shots at Trump himself until she signed a discharge petition to force the release of the Epstein files, something Trump had promised to do on the campaign trail only to become defensive with reporters when asked about it in early 2025. 

In October, she slammed part of Trump's second-term agenda - such as his $40 billion bailout of Argentina - as "America Last," telling Axios "It's a revolving door at the White House of foreign leaders when Americans are, you know, screaming from their lungs," though she praised Trump multiple times throughout the interview as having done "a great job in a lot of places."

In November, Trump lashed out at MTG and Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) for joining the Democrats to force a floor vote on the Epstein Files release - officially announcing he was withdrawing his "support and endorsement" of Greene. Trump claimed that Greene's complaints about his policies spring from when Trump sent her a poll "stating that she should not run" for governor or the Senate, adding that he's heard Greene is "upset that I don't return her phone calls anymore." The president said he stands ready to give the "right" Republican primary challenger of Greene his "Complete and Unyielding Support." 

In December 2025 Greene explicitly accused Trump of putting Israel's interests over those of the United States, suggesting he has 'served pro-Israel and establishment interests' at the expense of domestic priorities. 

"For an America First president, the number one focus should have been domestic policy, and it wasn’t," she told CBS's '60 Minutes," adding that Trump "has served Israel’s interest, even attacking Iran," and slammed what she called his service to "Big Pharma" and "crypto donors."

Greene also became one of the very few Republicans to publicly describe Israel's conduct in Gaza as "genocide," and proposed an amendment in the House to end US funding of Israel's Iron Dome missile defense system - while also arguing that AIPAC should be legally required to register as a foreign agent because she believes it steers US policy in ways that aren't aligned with 'America First.'

Since breaking with Trump, Greene has given several interviews with left-wing news outlets, including The View, CNN, NPR, Meet the Press, and the NY Times - all of which were happy to have her attack their mortal enemy.

Greene visited “The View” in November amid the spat with Trump. Lou Rocco/ABC

Indeed, MTG has become quite cozy with far-left media outlets and the militant progressive coven at The View in the runup to her departure from Congress - in some cases apologizing to them for her "toxic" rhetoric in the past. 

Tyler Durden Sun, 01/11/2026 - 15:45

US, Partners Launch New Strikes On ISIS Targets In Syria

Authored by Ryan Morgan via The Epoch Times,

U.S. and partner forces conducted a series of airstrikes on terrorist group ISIS targets throughout Syria on Jan. 10, the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) announced.

The series of airstrikes began around 12:30 p.m. ET, CENTCOM said in a press statement around three hours after the strikes.

“The strikes today targeted ISIS throughout Syria as part of our ongoing commitment to root out Islamic terrorism against our warfighters, prevent future attacks, and protect American and partner forces in the region,” the press statement added.

“U.S. and coalition forces remain resolute in pursuing terrorists who seek to harm the United States.

Footage shared by CENTCOM showed F-15 and A-10 jet aircraft taking off from an unspecified location, along with footage of strikes on purported targets.

CENTCOM did not specify which partner forces assisted in the Jan. 10 strikes throughout Syria.

Saturday’s strikes are part of a continuing retaliatory bombing that began after two U.S. soldiers and a U.S. civilian interpreter were killed in an ambush attack in Palmyra, Syria, on Dec. 13. Three more American troops were injured in the attack.

ISIS claimed ultimate responsibility for the Dec. 13 shooting, and Syria’s Interior Ministry has said the suspect was a member of Syrian security forces who harbored ISIS sympathies. Syria’s Interior Ministry said it had arrested five more suspects in connection with the Dec. 13 attack.

Since sweeping into Damascus and driving off then-Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in December of 2024, Syria’s de facto interim government has been largely comprised of Sunni Islamist militants from Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham, which began as a Syrian branch of Al Qaeda.

The U.S. bombing campaign came in response to the Dec. 13 shooting and is known as Operation Hawkeye Strike. The first round of strikes in the campaign began on Dec. 19, when U.S. and Jordanian forces employed dozens of fighter aircraft, attack helicopters, and artillery pieces firing more than 100 munitions, and struck more than 70 ISIS targets across central Syria.

Between Dec. 20 and 29, U.S. and partner forces conducted 11 more missions under Operation Hawkeye Strike, in which they reported killing seven ISIS suspects and capturing several others.

“Our message remains strong: if you harm our warfighters, we will find you and kill you anywhere in the world, no matter how hard you try to evade justice,” CENTCOM’s Saturday press statement concluded.

The U.S. military officially began striking ISIS targets in Syria in 2014 and has maintained a continuing troop presence within the country for the past decade. This counter-ISIS mission has coincided with the Syrian civil war, as Assad fought to retain power until rebel forces drove him out in December of 2024.

Tyler Durden Sun, 01/11/2026 - 15:10

MN Lawmakers Say Fraud Whistleblowers Were Threatened With Retaliation

Officials within the administration of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz actively enabled at least some of the state’s estimated $9 billion in social services fraud by suppressing fraud reports, retaliating against whistleblowers and changing protocols to mask criminal behavior according to Republican lawmakers who testified before Congress this week.  

The representatives also asserted that whistleblowers (and potential whistleblowers) have been threatened with retaliation from MN Democrats who would make sure whistleblowers lost their jobs, their homes, they’d be blacklisted from new jobs and their "children would be tracked". 

Minnesota Rep Marion Rarick says if any whistleblowers came forward to expose fraud, Democrats would make sure they lost their jobs, their homes, they’d be blacklisted from new jobs and they would TRACK THEIR CHILDREN

Democrats would try and take away kids for exposing fraud… pic.twitter.com/vyoBYeFyVh

— Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) January 9, 2026

State Reps. Walter Hudson, Marion Rarick, and Kristin Robbins are members of their legislature’s committee on fraud prevention, which has been investigating some of the same instances of fraud that have captured the national spotlight in the past month.

All three of them were invited to testify at the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform’s first of at least two scheduled hearings on the rampant social services fraud that led Walz to withdraw his bid for reelection in 2026.  

Rarick in particular spoke about the pressure and opposition whistleblowers faced. According to Rarick, what was once a group of about 480 disenchanted current and former state Department of Health Services employees has grown to over 1,000 people across multiple state agencies. Those DHS employees started an account on X called "Minnesota Staff Fraud Reporting Commentary", and many have been more than willing to talk with the fraud prevention committee about what they have found and experienced.

“In our face to face meetings with a group of whistleblowers, they revealed that retaliation now includes threats of being fired with cause, which means you do not get unemployment insurance in the state of Minnesota, being blacklisted from all state agencies…and then there was a veiled threat of the use of military intelligence against them,” Rarick said.

The revelations are tied to a program which imported around 100,000 Somali refugees into Minnesota since the 1990s, though the majority (around 54,000) arrived in the US during the Obama Administration from 2009 to 2016.  Around 81% of Somali migrants are on some form of welfare and they are greatly over-represented in government subsidized business startups connect to potential fraud. 

How were these migrants from a third world country able to successfully establish so many front businesses and siphon billions of dollars in taxpayer funds?  They had help from Democrat officials according to whistleblowers.  This would explain why investigations into migrant racketeering consistently fizzled and why Democrat appointed judges dismissed multiple fraud cases involving Somalis. 

The latest surge in far-left protests in Minneapolis almost appears tailor made to distract from the issue of fraud, making the issue about the lawful shooting of an NGO trained activist rather than the theft of billions of dollars with the aid of Democrats. 

It is likely that migrant fraud enabled by Dems helped to feed political coffers and election campaigns.  There is a good reason why Tim Walz dropped out of the governors race and essentially inciting civil unrest in the state.  There is a good reason why Dems are behaving so hysterically when it comes to an official federal investigation.  This is what leftists do when they get caught - They try to create chaos and muddy the waters.      

Tyler Durden Sun, 01/11/2026 - 14:35

Fast And Furious 47: The Midterm Elections Are Driving Everything

By Peter Tchir of Academy Securities

Fast And Furious 47

The Fast and Furious franchise is on its 10th or 11th movie. The U.S. government is on its 47th President.

In an interesting “mash-up,” we have entered into the arena of Fast and Furious 47.

I don’t think we have ever seen the generation of so many headlines, on so many subjects, so quickly from any world leader, as we’ve seen since the start of this year!

Aside from the “obvious” headlines on Venezuela, which after Friday’s press conference looks more and more like colonization, we have a raft of geopolitical headlines.

• Seizing Russian-flagged crude carriers.
• Threats on Cuba, Iran, and Syria (U.S. strikes against ISIS targets once again on Saturday) to name a few. With the events that occurred in Venezuela, these need to be taken very seriously.
• Some sort of peace negotiations continue with Russia and Ukraine.
• Some sort of plans for rebuilding Gaza (hearing about a ski resort?).

If you missed this week’s Academy Webinar, I highly recommend watching it as Rachel Washburn does an amazing job moderating the conversation with General Ashley (Army), General Bellon (Marine Corps) who was in charge of U.S. Marine Corps Forces South (in South and Central America), Linda Weissgold (Former CIA Deputy Director for Analysis), and myself.

Then on the economic front, we had:

• Venezuela and its oil – there are a lot of potential economic outcomes from the intervention in Venezuela. It remains to be seen how this plays out, and even after the press conference with oil heavyweights on Friday, there seems to be some disagreement on how attractive the prospects of investing in Venezuelan oil are.
• The U.S. invested $2.7 billion in companies involved in uranium enrichment. The ProSec drumbeat continues to create investment opportunities.
• Defense stocks were hit when the President suggested restricting compensation and dividend payouts for companies that are behind their targets for delivery. Then they rose when the President suggested the military budget should be increased from $1 trillion to $1.5 trillion (somehow bonds barely reacted).
• Housing had its own mixed bag of headlines. $200 billion to buy mortgages caused mortgage spreads to tighten. The President also tossed out the idea of restricting home purchases to individuals rather than entities designed to buy up housing.
• Closing out the week was the “announcement” that credit card interest rates should be capped at 10%. On one hand, I’ve never figured out how cutting rates by a few bps here and there moves the needle for people at the lowest income rungs, especially the ones struggling with debt. On the other hand (I can play “economist” periodically), the rates are designed so that the card issuers can provide credit to as many people as possible while compensating for their potential credit losses (capping rates will likely constrain credit issuance to the riskiest borrowers).

I’m sure I missed a bunch of other important and potentially market-moving events.

Midterm Elections are Driving Everything

The President is well aware of the importance of winning the midterm elections. He realized that a President without the House of Representatives and Senate on his side, is not in an enviable position.

Look for him to implement policy after policy after policy attempting to secure victory in the midterm elections for Republicans.

• Success in foreign policy will be a key element. From bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities, to capturing Maduro, look for a lot more to occur on this front.
• Affordability is another key issue. The steps on credit cards, housing, and mortgage rates seem to try to address that. Look for more.
• Drugs and immigration will remain front and center. It seems impossible to envision a path that does not include turning our attention, and likely full might, on the Mexican cartels.
• Transactional. Being transactional is not necessarily bad, and in many cases can be good, and certainly more effective than the policy of admonishing and haranguing, which did seem to be how we treated many developing or emerging nations.

If you had “colonization” on your bingo card for the year, you can stop reading now. You were way more prepared than I was. Maybe it is a stretch to call the intentions with Venezuela a form of “colonization,” but at the moment, it doesn’t seem like too much of a stretch.

Even dialing it back, who really had a successful overnight raid to infiltrate Venezuela, to arrest Maduro, and then bring him (and his wife) to the U.S. to face charges as part of their January 2026 outlook? It is interesting to note that given the clear superiority of our military, in terms of equipment, training, and execution, the admin is keen to use it to our advantage, as demonstrated by the recent and effective actions in Iran and Venezuela.

The point we are trying to make is twofold:

1. Expect a LOT more announcements on many more subjects than you thought were possible even in your wildest imagination.
2. Let your imagination “run wild” with what could come up as potential policy, because for this admin, “out of the box” is the norm and not trying to get ahead of it could cost you.

Anticipating moves and preparing for them will help you make better investment and corporate decisions.

Out of the Box on Interest Rates

On Friday, in Jobs, Housing, and Tariffs, we tried to hammer home the need to take the government’s goals on short-term rates, the 10-year Treasury yield, and mortgage yields seriously.

Back in August, we “thought out loud” about some potential steps to Lowering Yields Across the Curve. At this stage, my only regret is that we didn’t think outside the box enough!

My view on rates is:

• We are not pricing in enough cuts quickly enough. 2 cuts by June rather than 1 is at least my “base” case if not my “worst” case. With Fed Funds effective sitting right around 3.65%, I don’t see how we get to the end of the summer (and the heart of the election campaign) with rates higher than 2.875%. This is not an “economist” view based on “economic” data. It is a view that the admin wants it there and fighting that desire seems to be a recipe for disaster.
  • Also, there is so much wiggle room around things like the Neutral rate. For all those arguing that 3 cuts wouldn’t make sense, let’s not pretend that setting rates is a science. It is as much guesswork as science.
• 10s will get below 4%. Sooner than later.
• Mortgage yields will grind lower as spreads tighten (and the 10-year Treasury yield moves lower). 3.75% as a target in Q1 seems high, but that is gradually where I think we will come out.
• On Friday we suggested we were finally ready for 2s vs 30s to flatten. It didn’t do much until about 10am when it went from 135 to close at 128. Look for more flattening, which might make 3.75% too high of a target on 10s.

This is not necessarily the monetary policy I would want to enact. A lot can happen in the economic data to change this outlook (certainly true with the Fast and Furious 47 theme). But at the moment, I’m fighting the market, not the admin (which I think includes the Fed, or will include the Fed more than it has historically).

A "Fun" Fast and Furious Story

I was having a conversation a few years ago with an extremely good financial journalist. We were talking about “trades we missed.” You know the sort of thing you had conviction in but took off too early, got stopped out, or just didn’t have the will to push management to put it on. It was a fun and cathartic conversation. 

But he had a story that outdid them all.

A journalist had been assigned by some paper/magazine (I want to say Vanity Fair or The NY Times) to explore “Street racing in Los Angeles.” It was outside the usual beat of this journalist but they went ahead and wrote a feature article about street racing in LA.

According to legend, this overworked and underpaid (only modestly successful) journalist was offered an “immense” amount of money (or what seemed like an immense amount of money at the time) to option the movie rights to their work. At the time, presumably the mid-1990s, $50k for an “option” to do movies about street racing in LA seemed like a great deal.

Fast forward to 2001, when Fast and Furious came out and became a surprise hit, that author had some serious regrets. As the franchise grew to a level very few franchises grow to (think James Bond, Star Wars, Friday the 13th), one can only imagine the thoughts going through that person’s mind.

Not sure this has much to do with today’s T-Report (other than that we all miss investments, in part because we don’t believe enough in them), but I did think it makes for an interesting interlude, before the final segment of today’s T-Report.

ProSec Needs You!

The title of this section should probably read You Need ProSec but that doesn’t go as well with the picture that we have included. We already included a “smattering” of ProSec related news in this report. Venezuela, oil, and the uranium investment. The scope of ProSec is broad enough that it encompasses so much more.

We were just discussing how difficult it was to get traction with our theme of National Production for National Security and Resiliency. After a year of trying to get traction with anything from “Refine, Baby, Refine” to National Production for National Security, we settled on ProSec as an easy way to capture our theme. It was back in August that we officially Launched ProSec.

Since August we have used ProSec in the title of 6 T-Reports and incorporated it into countless others. We have lost count of how many times we’ve used it in the media, but finally, Lisa Abramowitz at Bloomberg can keep a straight face when she mentions ProSec. It has been actually used in some reporting on how to invest under this administration. The grammar police say that I should remove “actually” but I think the use of “actually” connotates some level of surprise, which is relevant in this case. While JPM doesn’t officially call the $1.5 trillion earmarked for certain types of investments ProSec, it certainly seems to fit that quite well.

It also doesn’t hurt that two individual stock tickers we mentioned in ProSec 2026 have done extremely well. INTC is up 23% YTD, and BC is up 18% YTD. Pretty healthy increases. Across the board, many of the ProSec sectors and potential stocks (or ETFs) are outperforming the broad market (1.8% on the S&P 500 and 2.8% on the Nasdaq). Our “rotation” theme is also working out well, with the Russell 2000 up almost 6%.

Continuing to build out a portfolio of ProSec linked names should continue to work well.

• A mix of “National Champions” with smaller, very domestic-focused companies should do well. Also, companies integral to the build-out phase, will do very well.
• Processors, refiners, and finished goods manufacturers will likely outperform those further down the supply chain. Yes, the entire chain will do well, but expect benefits to accrue disproportionately to companies that reduce our dependency on China the most. While less dependency on everyone is part of the admin’s goal, those that can address China the best will do the best.
• While the following chart is almost embarrassingly bad, even by T-Report charting skills, I think it is a great way to filter companies in (or out of) the ProSec narrative.

You Need ProSec

Whether you are part of forming government policy (at any level of government, domestic or international), are an investor, or directing the future of your company, thinking about Production for Security and Resiliency is likely to become a large part of your analysis going forward. Might as well start embracing it now, if you haven’t already.

Holy Corporate Bond Market!

The corporate bond calendar started the year at a record setting pace. I’m not sure how people in the bond market had time to breathe this week – between the headlines and the onslaught of new issues!

Not only was the supply absorbed easily (deals were oversubscribed, came with little or no concession, and still traded tighter) but also spreads in the secondary market tightened (based on the CDX IG CDS Index and the Bloomberg Corporate Bond Option Adjusted Spread).

Look for credit to continue to be stable and maybe grind a bit tighter.

Still waiting to see how the year evolves for the funding needs of data centers, AI, and energy generation. I suspect for companies that explain their plans, and communicate that they will be cautious on spending if the results don’t warrant spending, the markets will be very receptive.

Those markets will likely include public credit in your own name, private credit (on a project finance basis), and possibly even some larger deals that fall squarely into the “traditional” realm of structured products.

Bottom Line

Two biggest threats to risk markets:

• China decides to respond to more aggressive U.S. actions across the globe by constraining shipments of rare earths and critical minerals. That is their primarily leverage. If they do use that leverage, it will come at the expense of their ability to legally procure U.S. AI and chip technology. I’m watching for any sign that China starts to “slow play” their approval of export licenses and/or the slowing of any contracted shipments.
• Our own politics become so divisive that things cannot get done. Seems like a low risk, but we have seen some movement across party lines in some votes this past week. Keep an eye on that as a risk to the current path, which has been benefitting ProSec.

The “surprise” that could propel risk markets much higher:

• The bond market drifts towards our outlook on rates.

Part of me wishes the current pace of headlines cannot continue, but:

1. I do think the current pace of headlines will continue as Fast and Furious 47 is a real thing.
2. I probably must admit that I enjoy the pace of headlines and the excitement and opportunities they bring to the markets.

Good luck and thanks again for all your help in 2025 and everything you have done to help us get 2026 going in the right direction for Academy!

Tyler Durden Sun, 01/11/2026 - 14:00

CES Came And Went. Here's What Stood Out.

CES, short for the Consumer Electronics Show, wrapped up late last week in Las Vegas. It is the world's largest technology trade show, offering attendees a peek into the future. This year's event marked a shift away from gimmicky uses of artificial intelligence toward products that deliver real-world productivity gains, alongside a series of key comments from industry leaders on the state of AI.

Consumer tech publication Tom's Guide had journalists walking CES last week who focused on finding products with practical uses of AI, including a fridge that reads food labels and manages groceries, a wearable device that records and summarizes your day while tracking emotions, and Lenovo's Qira, an AI companion that anticipates user needs.

Alongside increasingly smart software, CES also delivered notable hardware, including an ultra-thin TV, a gaming laptop with a rollable screen that expands, and a wild robot vacuum that can climb stairs and clean more intelligently.

Last Monday, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang delivered a CES keynote on booming memory demand driven by AI. The comments sent memory stock prices like SanDisk's through the roof.

Goldman analyst Peter Bartlett told clients on Saturday that "CES came and went (AI commentary still robust), global Memory stocks resumed their torrid moves higher."

Bartlett noted:

Memory madness… The global memory complex took another violent leg higher last week. Ongoing positive supply/demand datapoints + comments from Jensen @ CES highlighting the massive "unserved" demand for memory in the AI industry fueled the explosive move higher. From a flows perspective, our institutional activity skewed better to buy across this group, but my suspicion is the global retail trading community has had a hand in this move as well.

After Tom's Guide evaluated dozens of companies, we took it a step further and focused on just a few of the most promising concepts or new products:

Lenovo Legion Pro Rollable

If there's one thing that's inevitable, it's Lenovo introducing a fun rollable display concept at CES. But what I didn't expect was a rollable prototype that I actually pray that the company makes. And that's exactly what we have in the Lenovo Legion Pro Rollable. Simply put, it would be the perfect bridge between my home gaming setup of an ultrawide monitor and my gaming laptop — a display that can extend from the 16-inch 16:9 panel all the way up to 24:9 at a impressive 24 inches at a 240Hz refresh rate. Whatever genre of game you're playing, you've got exactly the right screen aspect ratio to play it with. — Jason England

Asus ROG Swift OLED PG34WCDN

Upon first glance of the Asus ROG Swift OLED PG34WCDN (it's a mouthful, I know), I was immediately blown away by the visuals. I mean, there's the clarity of the best gaming monitors, but then there's this 34-inch QD-OLED display with next-gen RGB Stripe Pixel OLED technology boasting a 1800R WQHD (3440 x 1440) curved panel. The results? Crystal-clear visuals with draw-dropping colors and true blacks.

We've seen monitors reach well over a 360Hz refresh rate and a 0.03 response time, but Asus claims this is the world's first RGB OLED gaming monitor on the market. It offers a 40% uplift in perceived blacks thanks to the ROG BlackShield film, along with richer colors, making the ROG Swift OLED PG34WCDN a monitor for gamers and creatives to keep an eye on for 2026. — Darragh Murphy

Best 2-in-1 Laptop: Asus Zenbook Duo

The Asus Zenbook Duo finally did the thing I always wanted it to do. The redesign makes this 2-in-1 truly shine by eliminating the distracting lip between those two 14-inch OLED panels. On top of that, the battery is now shared between both sides for better weight distribution; the aluminum chassis is slimmer and sleeker; and this comes strapped with our best of show winner: Intel Core Ultra Series 3. That's sure to bring the power efficiency this dual-screen beast needs.

For the past couple of years, the idea of a 2-in-1 has always been a convertible laptop. In 2026, dual-screen laptops have a real shot of breaking through thanks to the Zenbook Duo. — Jason England

Roborock Saros Rover

The ability to climb stairs is the final threshold — both literally and figuratively — for robot vacuums. At CES 2026, we saw a few companies try to tackle that problem, but the Roborock Saros Rover did it with the most elegance.

This robovac has two wheels at the end of extendable legs that can lift it up, one step at a time, to go from one floor of your house to the next. Even better, it can vacuum each tread of your stairs as it ascends. It's also pretty agile. In our hands-on with the Saros Rover, we saw it lean back and forth on each leg, glide effortlessly down a ramp, and even jump up and down. When was the last time you saw a robot vacuum do that? — Mike Prospero

Hisense RGB MiniLED 116UXS

You can't walk more than 15 feet in the Las Vegas Conference Center without seeing a sign for some brand's Mini RGB technology. It's everywhere. But of all the brands, Hisense has come away with the best model in my eyes — a 116-inch behemoth in the Hisense RGB Mini-LED 116UXS that not only uses RGB-subpixels but even throws in a new fourth color in the mix (cyan) to display 110% of BT2020's coverage area.

In layman's terms, this is the most colorful TV you've ever seen in your life. The tradeoff is that it's not the slimmest, nor does it have the best anti-glare filter, but the picture is absolutely sublime. If Hisense manages to shrink this display technology and bring it to its award-winning mid-range models, it's game over for the competition. — Nick Pino

Previous reporting on the tech show:

• At CES, A Chinese Two-Legged Vacuum Signals The Next Phase Of Home Robotics

• "Market That Never Existed": Nvidia CEO Sparks Frenzy In Memory Stocks

What intrigued us most is that the rollable display concept is a game-changer for anyone tired of lugging external monitors while traveling

Tyler Durden Sun, 01/11/2026 - 13:25

Majority Of North Carolina Trucking Licenses Issued To Foreigners Are Illegal: Duffy

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times,

A review of non-domiciled commercial driver’s licenses (CDLs) granted in North Carolina found that 54 percent were issued illegally, the Department of Transportation (DOT) said in a statement on Jan. 8.

The review was conducted by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) and is part of its ongoing nationwide audit of trucking licensing systems, the department said.

DOT warned that if North Carolina does not “fix their serious failures” and revoke licenses issued illegally to foreign nationals, the department will withhold almost $50 million in federal funding.

“North Carolina’s failure to follow the rules isn’t just shameful—it’s dangerous. I’m calling on state leadership to immediately remove these dangerous drivers from our roads and clean up their system,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said.

According to audit findings, North Carolina illegally issued non-domiciled CDLs to drivers whose lawful presence in the United States had expired, and some of those drivers were found to be ineligible to hold a non-domiciled commercial license.

FMCSA sent a letter to North Carolina Department of Transportation Commissioner Paul Tine and Gov. Josh Stein, outlining audit results and the corrective actions that must be taken to prevent funding from being withheld.

The agency asked North Carolina authorities to “immediately” pause the issuance of non-domiciled CDLs, identify unexpired CDLs that fail to comply with FMCSA regulations, and conduct a comprehensive internal audit to identify errors, practices, quality assurance, and other issues that led to such CDLs being granted.

“The level of noncompliance in North Carolina is egregious,” FMCSA Administrator Derek D. Barrs said. “Under Secretary Duffy, we will not hesitate to hold states accountable and protect the American people.”

The Epoch Times reached out to the North Carolina Department of Transportation and Stein’s office for comment, but did not receive a response by publication time.

North Carolina is one of the latest states the DOT has warned regarding the illegal issuance of CDLs to foreign nationals.

Illegal Drivers in California

After a federal audit found that 17,000 trucking licenses were issued illegally in California, the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles issued cancellation letters to these drivers, Duffy said in November 2025.

The move faced opposition, with the Sikh Coalition, which represents around 20,000 immigrant drivers and business owners in California, filing a lawsuit arguing the move would remove thousands of drivers from roads and disrupt supply chains and services.

“This action was taken as a result of pressure from the federal government; unfortunately, the CA-DMV has thus far failed to provide any recourse or means for drivers to correct these issues,” the Coalition said in a Dec. 23, 2025, statement, referring to the California Department of Motor Vehicles.

“By ejecting these drivers from the workforce without allowing for any sort of solution, the CA-DMV is discriminating against them on the basis of their immigration status.”

On Dec. 30, California announced it would have to delay revoking the 17,000 CDLs.

In a Jan. 7 statement, Duffy announced that FMCSA will withhold roughly $160 million from California for failing to cancel those CDLs by the Jan. 5 deadline.

“Our demands were simple: follow the rules, revoke the unlawfully-issued licenses to dangerous foreign drivers, and fix the system so this never happens again,” Duffy said.

“[Gov.] Gavin Newsom has failed to do so—putting the needs of illegal immigrants over the safety of the American people.”

Meanwhile, in December, Duffy threatened to withhold $24 million in funding from Colorado over “slow walking” the purge of illegally issued truck licenses.

Earlier that month, Duffy revealed that an audit had found over 50 percent of non-domiciled DCLs issued in New York were granted illegally. DOT ordered the state to revoke all such licenses and come into compliance, failing which roughly $73 million in federal funding would be withheld.

Tyler Durden Sun, 01/11/2026 - 12:50

 

 

Yes, the HNTI podcast series continues in 2026 (albeit at a much slower pace)

Barry Ritholtz, co-founder, chairman and CIO of Ritholtz Wealth Management, is out with a new book titled “How Not to Invest: The Ideas, Numbers, and Behavior that Destroy Wealth—and How to Avoid Them,” which he discusses along with his earlier book “Bailout Nation: How Greed and Easy Money Corrupted Wall Street and Shook the World Economy.”

Ritholtz is also creator of The Big Picture blog, and creator and host of the Bloomberg podcast Masters in Business. (01/2026)

Via Real Assets ASdviser

 

The post Real Assets: How Not to Invest appeared first on The Big Picture.

Hotel occupancy was weak in 2025.   It is difficult to tell early in the year because travel is always weak in early January. 

From STR: U.S. hotel results for week ending 3 January

The U.S. hotel industry reported positive year-over-year comparisons, according to CoStar’s latest data through 3 January. ...

28 December 2025 through 3 January 2026 (percentage change from comparable week in 2024 and 2025):

• Occupancy: 50.5% (+4.4%)
• Average daily rate (ADR): US$175.47 (+3.4%)
• Revenue per available room (RevPAR): US$88.65 (+7.9%)
emphasis added

The following graph shows the seasonal pattern for the hotel occupancy rate using the four-week average.
Click on graph for larger image.

The red line is for 2026, blue is the median, and dashed light blue is for 2025.  Dashed black is for 2018, the record year for hotel occupancy. 
It is difficult to judge performance early in the year.
Note: Y-axis doesn't start at zero to better show the seasonal change.
The 4-week average will increase seasonally for the next few months. 

UK Government Video Game Warns Kids They May Be Terrorists For Questioning Mass Migration

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

In a chilling move, the UK government has rolled out a taxpayer-funded video game that paints every curious teenager as a potential far-right extremist. The “Pathways” game, backed by the Home Office’s Prevent counter-terrorism program, threatens young players with referrals to anti-terror experts simply for questioning unchecked mass migration or engaging with online debates about British identity.

This indoctrination tool assumes teens are one wrong click away from radicalisation, equating basic concerns over job competition or veteran housing with illegal hate groups. It’s a blatant assault on free thought, designed to stifle dissent and enforce globalist narratives in schools—exposing the state’s tightening grip on the next generation.

The game, developed by Shout Out UK with funding from Prevent, targets 11- to 18-year-olds. Players guide a character named Charlie—using “they” pronouns—through everyday scenarios that quickly spiral into warnings of extremism.

?INSIDIOUS: The UK government has developed a video game that INDOCTRINATES children by threatening to report them to counter-terrorism authorities for merely questioning mass migration or expressing concern about the erosion of British values. pic.twitter.com/YoEmqAOptd

— m o d e r n i t y (@ModernityNews) January 10, 2026

For instance, after being outperformed by a black student, Charlie faces a choice: accept it or blame immigrants for “stealing jobs.” Opting for the latter ramps up an in-game extremism meter.

One scenario involves a video claiming “Muslim men are stealing the places of British veterans in emergency accommodation” and “the Government is betraying white British people and we need to take back control of our country.” Engaging with it leads to a flood of “harmful ideological messages,” with the game stating, “Unfortunately, Charlie didn’t realise that some of the groups they were engaging in were actually illegal.”

This is where the UK is at. https://t.co/ZdxCPDM5qI

— m o d e r n i t y (@ModernityNews) January 9, 2026

Even researching immigration statistics online is portrayed as a gateway to danger, bombarding players with material on the “replacement” of white people. Joining a protest against “the changes that Britain has been through in the last few years and the erosion of British values” nearly ends in arrest, with the revelation that it “seemed to be more about racism and anti-immigration than British values and honouring fallen veterans.”

Pathways is an interactive game designed for 11- to 18-year-old pupils and funded by Prevent, a Home Office programme for tackling extremism.

Young players are directed to help their in-game characters – a white teenage boy and girl – to avoid being reported for “extreme… pic.twitter.com/fUkUdYRr4P

— Sick Of It Media…..???? (@SickOfItteo) January 9, 2026

As The Telegraph reports, bad choices within the game culminate in counseling for “ideological thoughts” or full Prevent referrals, complete with mentors to teach the “differences between right and wrong in expressing political beliefs.”

Matteo Bergamini, founder and CEO of Shout Out UK, defended the game, saying, “Teaching media literacy ensures that all those impacted by our programmes leave with life-long tools and skills to safeguard themselves from these threats. Our Pathways game is designed for the local threat picture in collaboration with the local authority and funded by the Home Office, to teach about the concept of extremism and radicalisation and illustrate the scope of online dangers and radicalisation routes.”

A Home Office spokesman added, “Prevent has diverted nearly 6,000 people away from violent ideologies, stopping terrorists and keeping our country safe. We provide funding to local authorities to tackle a range of threats, including Islamist extremism and Extreme Right Wing.”

Yet this comes amid growing scrutiny of Prevent’s overreach. GB News highlighted how the program now flags concerns about mass migration as a “terrorist ideology,” including “cultural nationalism” where Western culture faces threats from unchecked integration failures. Referrals for right-wing views hit 19% in 2024, outpacing Islamist cases despite MI5’s focus on the latter as 75% of threats.

This isn’t isolated. Recall our recent coverage where a teacher was branded a terrorist threat for showing Trump videos in a U.S. politics class. The educator recounted, “It was just terrifying; just mind-boggling. We were discussing the US election, Trump had just won and I showed a couple of videos from the Trump campaign. Next thing, I was accused of bias. One of the students said they were emotionally disturbed and claimed to have had nightmares.” The Local Authority Designated Officer warned his views “could constitute a hate crime” and risked “radicalisation.”

Such cases expose the left’s weaponization of Prevent against conservative ideas. Now, add in to this dystopian recipe the Labour government’s push to ban X entirely, with the frankly laughable excuse that images of people in bikinis can be created using Grok.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer raged, “This is disgraceful. It’s disgusting, and it’s not to be tolerated,” insisting “all options are on the table” over Grok AI’s image generation. Labour MP Lola McEvoy declared platforms like X “have no right to be accessed in this country” if non-compliant.

Leaked messages show MPs calling Elon Musk a “fascist” and urging abandonment of the platform. This aligns perfectly with “Pathways”—silencing online spaces where teens might encounter unfiltered views on migration or freedom.

There also exists a horrible double standard where schools freely indoctrinate kids with outright fabrications, such as pushing “non-fiction” books claiming Black people built Stonehenge, and were integral in other historical developments, part of a “decolonizing” push that insists Britain was “a black country for more than 7,000 years before white people came.”

The hypocrisy deepens with radical gender ideology flooding classrooms. Trans lobbyists from Stonewall are demanding over 300 schools scrap terms like “boys and girls,” opting for neutral language, gender-neutral bathrooms, and identical uniforms—all under the guise of “inclusion.” Schools paying into Stonewall’s scheme must embed LGBTQ+ propaganda across the curriculum, ignoring government guidance against promoting “gender identity ideology.”

This teacher-shaming fits into a broader, sinister trend: the UK government’s push to teach children how to “spot extremist content and misinformation” in schools, embedding “critical thinking” that suspiciously aligns with establishment narratives.

Under the Labour government, kids are being indoctrinated to analyse articles and websites and weed out “putrid conspiracy theories,” grooming the next generation to police thought.

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has warned: “If the parameters that are set are to say to every kid, if you read a post that questions net zero and global warming, it will be extreme content, and a lie, if you read a post that even dares to question levels of immigration, legal or illegal into Britain, that that’s extremist, then you start to set a narrative for a future generation that is fundamentally undemocratic.” Farage has labeled Prime Minister Keir Starmer the “biggest threat to free speech” in British history.

Keir Starmer poses the biggest threat to free speech we’ve seen in our history. pic.twitter.com/AB9cdiQtue

— Nigel Farage MP (@Nigel_Farage) August 11, 2024

As X owner Elon Musk has warned, the British public simply have to come together and get on board with stopping this lurch toward tyranny dead in its tracks now, before it’s too late.

ELON MUSK: "All of the people of Britain have to fight for the future. If this doesn't happen, there won't be a future. You have to fight." pic.twitter.com/yKC8T2Euph

— DogeDesigner (@cb_doge) January 9, 2026

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Tyler Durden Sun, 01/11/2026 - 08:10