Where The US Has Military Footholds In Europe

Since the beginning of his second term one year ago, President Trump has escalated his public campaign regarding his plans for acquiring Greenland, framing the autonomous Danish territory as a "national security necessity" due to its Arctic location, while the island is also rich in untapped mineral resources.

Trump's rhetoric has ranged from offers to purchase the territory from Denmark, including a direct payment to its residents, to veiled threats of military intervention, having notably stated in early January: "We are going to do something on Greenland, whether they like it or not, because if we don’t do it, Russia or China will take over Greenland, and we’re not going to have Russia or China as a neighbor".

That rhetoric appeared to peak last weekend and then drifted back into more diplomatic discussion after his flip-flop on possible kinetic action during his speech in Davos.

This push follows a pattern of assertive U.S. foreign policy, including the recent military raid in Venezuela to capture the country's President Nicolas Maduro.

The U.S. already operates a permanent military base in Greenland: Pituffik Space Base, a Cold War-era installation now staffed by about 200 personnel, down from a peak of 10,000. The base is critical for missile defense and space surveillance, but Trump argues that full U.S. control is needed to deter Russia and China, despite existing defense agreements with Denmark that allow for expanded U.S. military presence.

As Statista's Tristan Gaudiat notes in the map below, the U.S. also currently maintains over 50,000 troops across around thirty permanent bases in Europe (area of responsibility of the United States European Command), with important air hubs like Keflavik (Iceland), Ramstein (Germany) and Lakenheath (United Kingdom), or naval stations like Rota (Spain) and Souda (Greece).

These bases are not only tools of NATO deterrence but also leverage points for U.S. power projection around the globe.

You will find more infographics at Statista

Europe's reliance on U.S. military infrastructure is a double-edged sword.

While European leaders have condemned Trump's Greenland ambitions as "absurd" and a threat to NATO's unity, some also recognize their dependence on U.S. bases and security support.

On the other hand, in response to Trump's escalations, the EU and several member states could consider the possibility of restricting U.S. access to European bases - a move that could significantly hamper American operations in the Middle East and elsewhere.

Denmark, backed by the EU, has reaffirmed Greenland's sovereignty and warned that any U.S. annexation attempt would "destroy 80 years of transatlantic security links".

Furthermore, Denmark has boosted its Arctic defense budget and, alongside France, Germany and other European partners, has deployed small military contingents to Greenland for exercises, signaling unity and willingness to defend Arctic sovereignty.

Tyler Durden Sun, 01/25/2026 - 08:45

2026 Is The Year Of Balance Sheet Engineering In The Battery Storage Market

By Michael Kern of OilPrice.com

In the first quarter of 2026, the global energy storage market is no longer a playground for visionaries... it is a graveyard for the undercapitalized.

The data is rough. As of March 2025, QuantumScape sat on $860 million in cash against a trailing twelve-month burn rate of $331 million. This 2.6-year window is the "valley of death" made manifest in a ledger. 

While the early 2020s were fueled by the speculative highs of SPAC mergers and theoretical energy density, the 2026 market has pivoted to "Balance Sheet Engineering."

Success is now measured by manufacturing yield and the ability to exploit the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) Section 45X.

The gap between a patent and a production line has become a chasm that physics and finance are struggling to bridge.

Lessons from the Liquidation Slow-Burn

The history of next-generation batteries is written in the records of bankruptcy courts. We see the "polysulfide shuttle" not as a chemical reaction, but as a financial sinkhole.

OXIS Energy, once the titan of Lithium-Sulfur (Li-S), entered administration in 2021 and spent four years in a liquidation slow-burn. Creditors were still waiting for "intended dividends" in September 2025. They received pennies for a dream that promised 550 Wh/kg but delivered fewer than 100 cycles before the chemistry ate itself.

Physics is indifferent to venture capital timelines... and physics usually wins.

Pellion Technologies attempted to harness the divalent power of Magnesium-Ion, offering theoretical density that dwarfed lithium. But magnesium ions move through solid hosts like sludge. When Khosla Ventures realized the drone market couldn't fund the R&D required for automotive scale, they pulled the plug. Pellion is now "deadpooled."

Not every failure ends in an auction of lab equipment. Ambri, the MIT-born liquid metal battery firm, utilized a Section 363 sale in 2024 to wipe its slate clean. By selling assets to a consortium led by Bill Gates’s Frontier fund, Ambri shed its legacy debt while keeping its calcium-antimony tech alive.

In energy finance, "failure" is a terminal event for the middle class... but it is merely a recapitalization event for the ultra-high-net-worth.

How Sodium Neutralized Lithium’s Edge

While Western startups navigate insolvency, China has executed a violent pivot to Sodium-Ion (Na-ion). This is the "Great Bifurcation" of 2026.

The Western strategy is a high-stakes bet on premium "leapfrog" technologies like Solid-State. The Chinese strategy is a brutal scale-up of the "good enough."

In 2025, Lithium-Iron-Phosphate (LFP) prices in China crashed to $44/kWh due to massive overcapacity. Sodium-Ion, despite lacking the same scale, is hovering at $59/kWh.

• LFP Cost (2025): $44–$52/kWh
• Na-ion Cost (2025): ~$59/kWh
• The Friction: Sodium is currently more expensive than the lithium incumbent it was meant to replace.

But cost is only half the story. Sodium-Ion represents a geopolitical hedge. By deploying Na-ion via brands like CATL’s "Naxtra," China has effectively destroyed the pricing power of lithium miners. If lithium prices spike, the world’s largest manufacturer simply flips a switch to sodium.

The West is playing for performance... China is playing for control.

Subsidy Lifelines

For the survivors in the U.S., the business model is no longer about selling batteries—it is about harvesting tax credits.

Section 45X of the IRA has become the primary revenue driver for firms like Peak Energy and Lyten. The credit provides 10% of the production cost for "electrode active materials." Because the legal definition is chemistry-neutral, it doesn't matter if the cathode is made of expensive lithium or dirt-cheap Prussian Blue.

The Foreign Entity of Concern (FEOC) rules have created a "supply chain wall." Because China controls 80% of the lithium refining capacity, standard Li-ion batteries are increasingly ineligible for U.S. consumer tax credits.

This has created a desperate demand for "FEOC-compliant" alternatives.

• Sion Power: Secured $75M in Series A funding led by LG Energy Solution.
• The Logic: LG isn't buying a chemistry; they are buying a 50 Amp-hour large-format cell production line in Arizona that doesn't rely on Chinese precursors.
• The Shift: Hiring former GM executive Pamela Fletcher as CEO signals that the "science experiment" phase is over.

You don't hire an automotive veteran to run a lab... you hire them to manage a supply chain.

A Solid-State Stalemate

If Sodium-Ion is the hammer, Solid-State is the ghost. Toyota, the undisputed leader in solid-state patents, has moved the goalposts again. Mass production, once promised for 2025, has been pushed to 2027 and beyond.

The technical friction remains the "yield" bottleneck.

Ceramic separators are brittle. In a laboratory, a 90% yield is a triumph. In a gigafactory, a 10% scrap rate is a financial death sentence. This is why companies like Solid Power have pivoted to a capital-light licensing model. They are letting BMW and SK Innovation take the hit on the CAPEX-heavy manufacturing while they collect royalties on the sulfide electrolytes.

The market has bifurcated into two distinct spheres:

1. The China-Sphere: Focused on LFP and Na-ion, driven by TWh-scale manufacturing and low-cost exports.
2. The Western-Sphere: Focused on High-Nickel and Solid-State, propped up by Section 45X subsidies and trade barriers.

The "PowerPoint Engineering" era is dead. The "Balance Sheet Engineering" era is here.

The winners of 2026 are not the companies with the highest theoretical energy density... they are the ones with the smartest tax lawyers and the highest manufacturing yields.

Tyler Durden Sun, 01/25/2026 - 08:10

Trump Slams Davos Elites Over "Green New Scam" As Climate Crisis Narrative Falls Apart

President Trump used his time at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, to denounce the globalists' disastrous "Green New Scam" policies that have caused degrowth in parts of the West and helped spark an energy crisis with soaring power prices.

"You're supposed to make money with energy, not lose money. Here in Europe, we've seen the fate that the radical left tried to impose on America," Trump told the elites in Davos.

The Climate Hoax was created by the WEF Losers and President Trump just called them out to their faces.

“The United States avoided the catastrophic energy collapse which failed every European Nation that pursued the Green New Scam…perhaps the greatest hoax in History…” pic.twitter.com/Pq5mNDUKk6

— Liz Churchill (@liz_churchill10) January 21, 2026

Just a few years ago, Davos elites were betting big on solving their made-up climate crisis, which was used to loot taxpayers by diverting public funds into risky green energy companies and climate NGOs. But with Trump restoring common-sense energy policies centered on reliable fossil fuel power generation, and rolling back left-wing green policies that handed China and the East a competitive manufacturing edge, globalists were absolutely furious with the president this week.

Take, for instance, climate alarmist and grifter, Al Gore, on Tuesday booed Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick during his speech at a VIP dinner in Davos.

The Financial Times reported the dinner "descended into uproar after combative remarks from Lutnick," with European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde leaving the event early.

Gore's behavior was just as embarrassing for the United States as Gov. Gavin Newsom's bizarre behavior. The unhinged behavior of both Gore and Newsom - both leftist - in the public domain is merely a sign that Trump is winning against America's left-wing.

Lutnick responded on X...

Thankfully, we didn’t come to Davos for Al Gore’s praise.

— Howard Lutnick (@howardlutnick) January 22, 2026

Let's circle back to the so-called "climate crisis" narrative, which was merely an information operation to sway public sentiment polls to pass the controversial Green New Deal into law in 2019, but failed to gain legislative traction. Following that failure, corporate media helped set and amplify the narrative, unleashing what amounted to a broad psyop on the American public about a planet in crisis. Then Democrats were able to push through the Inflation Reduction Act, a massive climate and energy spending package signed by former President Joe Biden in 2022.

As shown in the Bloomberg data below, as soon as the climate bill was passed and taxpayer funds flooded the green industry and NGOs by the tens of billions of dollars, the narrative of the world on fire because of cow farts and Taylor Swift's private jet almost disappeared.

Earlier today, Trump on Truth Social said, "Record Cold Wave expected to hit 40 States. Rarely seen anything like it before. Could the Environmental Insurrectionists please explain — WHATEVER HAPPENED TO GLOBAL WARMING???"

Of course, left-wing corporate media was furious with Trump ...

Trump is correct about the climate crisis agenda and how it amounted to one giant "scam." It served as a vehicle for Democrats to loot the Treasury, and the reckless spending that followed the IRA fueled the worst inflation storm in more than a decade, which Trump is now working to correct through common-sense energy policies that will bridge the power grid until reliable clean nuclear power comes online in the 2030s.

Tyler Durden Sun, 01/25/2026 - 07:35

The AI Factor Behind Trump's Power Play On China's Oil Suppliers

Authored by James Gorrie via The Epoch Times,

Why is it so important to the Trump administration to take control of Venezuela and encourage the people of Iran to overthrow the Islamic regime?

The link between the two is obviously oil.

Of course, the strategy in Venezuela involves oil, but also includes restricting China’s influence in the Western Hemisphere, undermining the BRICS currency, and shutting down Venezuelan drug trafficking, illegal immigration, and other nastiness.

Same for Iran regarding oil. Both are important energy suppliers to China, but especially Iran.

But it’s not the whole picture. President Donald Trump’s broader strategy is about restricting China’s access to cheap, reliable oil at the exact moment it needs that energy to compete with the United States in artificial intelligence (AI).

Venezuela Was a Great Deal—For China

Looking back, Venezuela was as an unbelievable good deal for China. Sanctioned by the United States and shunned by much of the West, Caracas sold heavily discounted crude to Chinese refiners willing to tolerate risk. It wasn’t glamorous oil—but it was dependable and cheap. Venezuela provided about five percent of China’s annual oil needs; not a huge figure, but enough to matter.

Trump’s decision to blockade Venezuelan oil exports and assert control over the country’s oil infrastructure effectively ends that dream deal. With U.S. control, China loses a meaningful slice of supply, about four percent, that helped buffer it from global price swings.

That matters more than it sounds.

As the world’s largest oil importer, even small disruptions force Beijing to scramble for alternatives—often at higher prices, longer shipping distances, or greater political cost.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi (R) speaks during a meeting with Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza (L) at the Diaoyutai State Guest House in Beijing on Jan. 16, 2020. Ng Han Guan-Pool/Getty Images

Iran: The Bigger Pressure Point

But the Venezuelan oil flow to China is small potatoes compared to that of Iran.

China is Iran’s largest oil customer, buying the vast majority of Tehran’s exported crude, up to 80 percent, often at steep discounts, and is the life blood to China’s independent refineries, its petrochemical sector, and its power-hungry industrial base. In other words, Iranian oil is critical to China’s continued economic and technological growth.

That fact puts Trump’s renewed pressure on the ruling Islamic regime in Iran in a different light. The tariffs, sanctions enforcement, secondary penalties, and encouraging rebellion by the Iranian people is more than just punishment for Tehran. It puts China in an energy bind.

Should Beijing keep buying Iranian oil and risk broader economic retaliation, or comply and lose one of the cheapest energy sources available?

Either way, Beijing pays more for less reliable oil supplies.

Why Oil Still Matters in the AI Age

There’s a popular myth that AI runs on “clean” digital infrastructure—clouds, algorithms, and software. In reality, AI runs on electricity, and electricity is still largely generated through nuclear power and fossil fuels, i.e., oil, natural gas, and coal. Training large AI models requires staggering amounts of energy, and a single hyperscale data center can consume as much electricity as a mid-sized city. Multiply that by hundreds of facilities, and energy, not chips, becomes the real bottleneck in the AI race.

Beijing understands this. That’s why it continues to approve a record number of new coal plants, expand its gas infrastructure, and secure long-term oil contracts—even while leading the world in renewables.

What’s more, China knows that oil and gas help stabilize power grids that support data centers. Intermittent renewables alone can’t guarantee the always-on power that AI systems require. Plus, AI hardware depends on petroleum-based products—plastics, resins, coolants, lubricants, and advanced composites used in chips, servers, and cooling systems. Oil is a non-negotiable industrial input.

Finally, oil is relatively inexpensive, lowering the cost of training models, which compounds quickly, because whichever nation can train more models faster and cheaper leads the AI race.

Cutting China off from discounted oil doesn’t just raise fuel prices, it raises the cost of intelligence itself.

A worker rides bicycle at an oil refinery of China’s Sinopec in Wuhan, a city in China’s Hubei Province on May 10, 2011. STR/AFP/Getty Images

Energy as a Hidden AI Weapon

This is where Trump’s strategy becomes clearer.

The United States doesn’t need to out-build China in data centers if it can out-price and out-power them. America has abundant domestic oil and gas, expanding LNG exports, and deep capital markets to finance new, energy-hungry infrastructure.

China, by contrast, is vulnerable. It imports over 70 percent of its oil. Much of that comes from politically unstable or sanctioned states. Disrupt those flows, and China’s AI ambitions become more expensive, more fragile, and more dependent on geopolitical goodwill.

In that sense, oil becomes a second-order AI weapon, in that it is not something that directly attacks technology, but something that quietly determines who can afford to scale it.

What This Means for the Global Balance

Yes, Russia still matters in this equation—but more as a background variable than the main event. Lower oil prices and tighter markets can squeeze Moscow’s revenues and complicate its war financing. China’s increased reliance on Russian crude also deepens a partnership that carries long-term risks for Beijing.

But the real target of Trump’s energy denial strategy isn’t Russia. It’s China’s momentum.

Trump’s energy foreign policy is about slowing China’s rise without firing a shot—forcing it to spend more, plan more cautiously, and accept structural disadvantages in the most important technological competition of the century.

The Bigger Picture

AI dominance won’t be decided by who writes the best code. It will be decided by who can power the most machines, the longest, at the lowest cost.

By squeezing Venezuela, pressuring Iran, and reshaping global oil flows, Trump is betting that energy strategy, not algorithms, will decide the winner in the AI-driven economy.

And if that bet is right, the future of AI may be decided not in Silicon Valley or Shenzhen, but in oil fields, shipping lanes, and sanctions that most people aren’t paying attention to.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.

Tyler Durden Sun, 01/25/2026 - 07:00

Avert your eyes! My Sunday morning look at incompetency, corruption and policy failures:

• I’ve Covered Police Abuse for 20 Years. What ICE Is Doing Is Different. There were no promises of an impartial investigation. There was no regret or remorse. There was little empathy for her family — for her parents, her partner or the children she left behind. From the moment the world learned about her death, the administration pronounced the shooting not only justified but an act of heroism worthy of praise and celebration. (New York Times)

• We Are Witnessing the Self-Immolation of a Superpower: With Donald Trump’s actions in Greenland, Minneapolis, and Venezuela, a foreign enemy could not invent a better chain of events to wreck the standing of the United States. (Wired) see also America vs. the World: President Trump wants to return to the 19th century’s international order. He will leave America less prosperous—and the whole world less secure. (The Atlantic) see also This Is the End: Putinism abroad always morphs into Putinism at home. And we chose this path. Why? Because something-something the price of eggs. (The Bulwark)

• The rich are powering spending, with the U.S. economy in a danger zone: The health of the economy increasingly depends on rich people spending money, a new analysis of government data finds. That puts the U.S. in a fragile place because consumer spending drives growth — so the entire economy is now relying on a smaller number of people to keep things afloat. (Axios)

• When Chicago pawned its parking meters: The deal Chicago made would go down as one of the most notorious miscalculations in the history of city government. It would call into question what the government is even supposed to do, and become a textbook case on the potential pitfalls of privatization.  (NPR)

• They’ve bought themselves a Congress: Coinbase calls the shots in the Senate; former New York City Mayor Eric Adams faces rug pull allegations, and a crypto executive is breaking up with Trump. (Citation Needed)

• Inside Bari Weiss’s Hostile Takeover of CBS News: The network’s new editor-in-chief has championed a press free from élite bias, while aligning herself with a billionaire class more willing than ever to indulge Donald Trump. (New Yorker)

• How Donald Trump Has Transformed ICE: A former D.H.S. oversight official on what, legally, the agency can and can’t do—and the accountability mechanisms that have been “gutted beyond recognition.” (New Yorker) see also “ICE 101″ — How Trump changed ICE and CBP into a fascist secret police: ICE and CBP are fatally flawed products of the post-9/11 War on Terror — now Trump has weaponized those very flaws to occupy America. (Doomsday Scenario)

• DOGE staffer signed deal to share Social Security data with election deniers: In an extraordinary court filing, “NOTICE OF CORRECTIONS TO THE RECORD,” government lawyers representing the SSA revealed that in March 2025, a DOGE staffer signed an agreement to share the private data of Americans with a “political advocacy group” seeking to “overturn election results in certain States.” WTF? (Popular Information)

• Rejecting Decades of Science, Vaccine Panel Chair Says Polio and Other Shots Should Be Optional: Dr. Kirk Milhoan, a pediatric cardiologist who leads the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, said a person’s right to refuse a vaccine outweighed concerns about illness or death from infectious diseases. (New York Times) see also The Quiet Misogyny of RFK Jr.’s War on Science: The burdens of so many of these proposals fall disproportionately on women, and moms in particular. (Slate)

• A Year Inside Kash Patel’s F.B.I. Forty-five current and former employees on the changes they say are undermining the agency and making America less safe. (New York Times)

Be sure to check out our Masters in Business this weekend with Zach Buchwald, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Russell Investments. The global investment firm was founded in 1936, and today has ~$370 billion in AUM. Previously, he had a 15-year tenure at BlackRock, where he served as the head of its $2 trillion Institutional Business, leading the company’s Financial Institutions Group and helped establish its Retirement Solutions and Financial Markets Advisory platforms.

 

The most important chart in US politics

Source: @FredLambert

 

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The post 10 Sunday Reads appeared first on The Big Picture.

Lefty Protestor Bites Off Federal Officer's Finger

Authored by Catherine Salgado via PJMedia.com,

It seems long past time for President Donald Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act.

In the chaos and violence following the death of an armed Minneapolis would-be terrorist shot while fighting Border Patrol, another protester has bitten off the finger of a federal officer.

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin posted photos on X showing the loathsome protestors who so viciously assaulted federal officers, and also photos of the one officer’s wounded hand and the severed finger.

What absolute scum these protestors and the politicians who encourage them are.

McLaughlin explained, “In Minneapolis, these rioters attacked our law enforcement officer and one of them bit off our HSI [Homeland Security Investigations] officer’s finger. He will lose his finger.”

What a proud victory for Walz and co.! They managed to ruin a brave officer’s life.

Just ponder how deranged and bestial you have to be to seek out a federal law enforcement officer for the express purpose of assaulting him, and then deliberately bite off his finger.

I can't help but think of Gollum biting off Frodo's finger at the climax of The Lord of the Rings to obtain the Ring; and the fiction has a parallel to the reality. As Tolkien meant the Ring to represent sin and evil, and as Gollum is destroyed and driven mad by it, so leftist domestic terrorists seem drunk on and driven mad by their lust for violence and revenge.

Indeed, the protestor who bit off the HSI officer's finger is d*mn lucky he didn't get shot. One hopes he at least faces some legal accountability, but that seems in precious short supply in Minneapolis.

As for the shooting that triggering the other violence, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem explained that Border Patrol officers were simply trying to carry out the arrest of an illegal alien who was wanted for violent assault.

“During the operation, an individual approached U.S. Border Patrol officers with a 9mm semi-automatic handgun. The officers attempted to disarm the suspect, but the armed suspect violently resisted. Fearing for his life and the lives and safety of fellow officers, an agent fired defensive shots,” she declared.

“This violence is directly fueled by hateful rhetoric from Minnesota's sanctuary politicians. It must end now.”

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz rushed to frame the armed protester as an innocent victim of eeeevil federal goons, raving about a “horrific shooting by federal agents” and labeling them “violent, untrained officers.” 

This is why there is violence. The gunman who died had two magazines of ammunition and no ID on him, indicating he planned to trigger a mass casualty event. Furthermore, he was trying to intervene on behalf of a violent criminal illegal alien — which is in itself a felony (as is protecting illegal aliens, as Minnesota politicians do).

There is no possible way a sane person could be on the side of such a man, and yet Democrats are all on his side. Of course, fully committed Democrats are also insane.

Pray hard for our brave HSI, Border Patrol, and ICE officers in Minneapolis.

Local police are not helping them, local authorities are lying about them, and mobs of protestors are literally out for their blood.

Tyler Durden Sat, 01/24/2026 - 22:10

Would Term Limits Make The DC Swamp Even Worse?

Via Brian McGlinchey at Stark Realities

Though America is beset by increasingly bitter political divisions, there are two convictions that unite Americans across party and demographic lines. Large majorities are certain that Congress isn’t serving the interests of the American people, and that Capitol Hill would become far more virtuous with the imposition of term limits.

Despite their broad appeal to our “throw out the bums” instincts, term limits would probably make Congress even worse than it is now. Even as a proposed policy, the concept does the country a disservice by distracting Americans from the more extreme remedies required for a federal government guiding us along a dangerous path into mounting partisan hostility, unconstitutionally-concentrated power, and obliviousness to coming financial ruin.

According to a 2023 McLaughlin and Associates poll, an overwhelming 87% of US adults favor congressional term limits, a finding that’s consistent with other surveys. Proposals vary. Reflecting a common recommendation, one of the term-limit bills introduced this session would limit House representatives to six two-year terms, and senators to two six-year terms, thus maxing out both varieties of legislator at a dozen years. Notably, members who served before 2023 -- including the bill’s introducing sponsor, Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) -- would be exempted.

One dynamic that makes term limits appealing is the overwhelming power of incumbency in US electoral politics: Federal incumbents who sought reelection had a 98% success rate in 2024, matching the pace of 2022 and edging the 96% rate seen in 2020.

Jarring as they are, those stats create a false impression of the degree of stagnancy in the House and Senate. That’s because -- over the dozen years often floated as a term-limit maximum tenure -- a substantial number of legislators already leave on their own. According to the most recent Pew Research calculations, over a 12-year period, 69% of House seats and 62% of Senate seats had different occupants at the end versus the beginning.

With those numbers in mind, Republican Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massie -- who has backed term-limit bills-- cautioned that the idea is not a “silver bullet.” Pointing to the notion that term limits would open more seats to good people since incumbents are otherwise hard to dislodge, Massie noted the substantial churn in seat-holders, and asked, “Where are all the good guys/gals?”

Note that about 84% of congressional seats are “safe seats,” where party control isn’t in question, and the real election happens in the party primary. This incentivizes primary candidates to take positions that maximize their appeal to their party’s extreme, which contributes to polarization in Washington. Term limits wouldn’t change that, other than increasing the frequency of contested primaries, which, if anything, might make the phenomenon slightly stronger.

Cook Political Report's House Race Ratings as of Jan 15

Cycling more people out of Congress may exacerbate one of the worst dynamics of Washington: the “revolving door” that sees legislators frequently moving on to lobbying posts and board positions, and incentivizing them to cater to lobbyists and corporations before their swing through the door happens. “Mandating member exits ensures a predictable and consistently high number of former members available to peddle their influence,” wrote Casey Burgat at Brookings.

Term-limit proponents are hopeful that bringing new faces into Washington would reduce the power of special interests, lobbyists and the entrenched bureaucracy -- the last of which is sometimes called the “Deep State.” However, lacking understanding of complex federal issues and experience with DC’s legislative machinery, wide-eyed, rookie legislators are even more susceptible to outside influences who bring clear guidance sprinkled with money and favors.

Advocates of term limits often envision a warm, fuzzy new era where career politicians are replaced by humble “citizen legislators” who come from all walks of life and professions. However, the great majority of US representatives and senators held some other office before winning their current seat, and there’s no reason to think term limits would do away with the inherent advantages that state and local officeholders have when they seek federal office.

Many champions of term limits are convinced that term-limited federal legislators would spend far less time on electoral politics and fundraising. Don’t bet on it. First, until a legislator’s final term, they’d still be focused on re-election. More importantly, much and perhaps even most of the time and energy that members spend on fundraising isn’t for their own campaigns, but for their parties.

Here, it’s important to spotlight a little-known yet powerful congressional dynamic, one that guarantees that even term-limited legislators would continue spending substantial time on party fundraising: Each party ties committee assignments to how much money a legislator raises for the party.

The numbers are big. “Between 2023 and 2024, Democratic Party members were expected to raise between $100,000 and $30 million per year in dues to the party to move up in the [House] chamber,” wrote Maya Kornberg of the Brennan Center for Justice. It’s the same on both sides of the aisle. Here’s how Republican Massie candidly described the arrangement to Reason’s Matt Welch:

“[Members] have to raise money and give it to the party in order to rent or buy their committee assignments. Literally, the party comes to you, whether you’re a Democrat or Republican, and says, ‘if you want an important committee, you’re going to have to pay us this much money,’ not one time, but every election cycle. You can’t go back to your district and ask your constituents at a fundraiser to help you buy a seat on a committee. You get that money from the lobbyists who are in Washington, DC.”

For members striving for plum committee assignments, there’s another major avenue of fundraising, one that turns legislators into glorified telemarketers, calling party donors across the country and asking for donations or inviting them to events that require them. It’s illegal to make such calls from their offices, so legislators walk to nearby party call centers to do it.

A hidden-camera glimpse inside the GOP call center showed a dozen tiny offices with phones; a board displays how much each legislator has raised (CBS News)

“You’re told…don’t even ask for one of these ‘A’ committees unless you’re ready to do the hard work across the street,” said Massie. He refuses to participate, and pays the price via exclusion from powerful committees such as Ways and Means, Appropriations, or Energy and Commerce.

As Florida Democrat and then-congressman David Jolly told CBS News, dialing for dollars is a major part of life on the Hill:

“The House schedule is actually arranged, in some ways, around fundraising…You never see a committee working through lunch because those are your fundraising times. And then, in between afternoon votes and evening votes, that's when you can see Democrats walking down this street, Republicans walking down that street to spend time on the phone making phone calls.”

Under term limits, the only thing that would change in this bleak picture are the particular faces trudging off to a Red Team or Blue Team call center, or lunching with lobbyists offering fundraising help -- rather than learning about any of the infinite issues subjected to federal governance. (Knowing their time on the Hill is limited, legislators will have even less reason to invest their time in building mastery of complex issues.)

In fact, to the extent that term limits manage to put a modest dent in the power of incumbency and render a few more of their seats vulnerable, parties would be even more concerned with raising money to either defend a majority or take it over, and would thus exert more pressure on members to refill the party’s coffers.

There’s one more way term limits would exacerbate the problem of outside influences: With a shortened span on Capitol Hill, more members would be focused on what they’ll do next. Though “citizen-legislator” daydreamers may have quaint visions of a farmer returning to his tractor, most term-limited legislators will be either planning a run for a different office, or looking for a job. Either ambition makes them susceptible to the policy overtures of people outside the chamber promising funding for future campaigns, help getting the inside track on a lobbying job of their own, or maybe a private-sector post in the industry the lobbyist represents.

Term limits would bring many unintended consequences that run counter to their advocates’ noble intentions. However, the concept’s worst attribute is that, even as a mere proposal, it diverts attention from what’s most wrong in Washington. Term limits focus on the frequency with which Washington’s power is exchanged, when the biggest problem is the power itself. For more on that, see the most-read article at Stark Realities: Americans Are Fighting For Control Of Federal Powers That Shouldn’t Exist

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Stark Realities: Invigoratingly unorthodox perspectives for intellectually honest readers. Join thousands of free subscribers at starkrealities.substack.com

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Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ZeroHedge

Tyler Durden Sat, 01/24/2026 - 21:00