What Do You Resolve For 2026?

Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Epoch Times,

One of the most underrated intellectuals of the 20th century is Henry Hazlitt, author of “Economics in One Lesson” (1946). His career is far more varied than people know. Long before he was writing free-market treatises, he was a working journalist on Wall Street and, later, literary editor of The Nation and then H.L. Mencken’s chosen successor at The American Mercury.

His first published work is a wonderful little book published in 1922 called “The Way to Will Power.” He was only 28 when he wrote it, and spoke about the book none at all later. One suspects that he later found it too rudimentary or immature. Personally, I think it is wonderful.

The book aspires to apply what he learned as a financial reporter to matters of personal decision-making. His points are obvious once you think about them but, then as now, most people do not.

In finance and economics, the key to success is to match long-term ambitions with decisions one makes today. An orientation toward the future is always the key. He begins with the way a single price on the market today incorporates all knowns and expectations for the future. Silver might be $80 today not merely because of existing market conditions but based on the perception that there will be future uses, shortages, and high demand.

This is always a point about prices that confuses people. If there is a plan next year to permanently close a beach, the property values along the coastline will fall not next year but right now. This is because markets by their nature are always forward-looking. This is also why the price system always outwits the central planners. It benefits from its status as the composite wisdom of millions of buyers and sellers, whereas a government bureaucrat only knows what he knows.

Hazlitt wondered if there were ways to make our personal lives behave with as much intelligence.

He offers the example of the man who wants to lose weight, develop muscle tone, and upgrade his health. But night after night, he keeps choosing to go out gambling and drinking with his friends. Every morning he has a sense of regret about this and recommits to living a more healthy life.

Somehow his ambitions are not realized. He deeply desires health. The problem is that at no particular moment is health offered as an immediate alternative to drinking and staying out late. The choice on any particular evening is to go to bed early without fun or go have fun with his friends. He wants both health and fun but at every marginal unit of time, he always chooses fun over health and therefore never obtains his long-term goal.

In economics, this is the equivalent of a person who has high aspirations to build a large pool of personal savings from which he can earn interest, dividends, and increased financial valuations. But the consumption decisions he makes daily not only squander all the money he has but also drive him further into debt. He wants to be financially responsible but gains more personal advantage in the near term by doing what feels best at the moment.

To Hazlitt, the whole key to living a rich and rewarding life really comes down to this insight he gained from economics: match the decisions you make today with your dreams of how you want to live and who you want to be in the future. In other words, he urges not just a long-term orientation but a profound commitment today to making every decision about what it implies for the future.

Simple point? Maybe but it is easily overlooked, especially during the holidays.

We are surrounded by food and drink, invitations to indulge, and enjoy the freedom to sleep late and otherwise languish. The days are short and the weather is cold so the last thing on our minds is getting out, getting healthy, getting sober, and preparing for the future.

This is roughly where people are at the end of these days. And this is precisely why we have New Year’s resolutions. They reflect a sense of disgust over what the previous weeks have revealed about our own personal discipline and reflect a determination to change. Upon making the resolution—read more, get in shape, stop drinking—we are already feeling better as if adopting the ambition is half the battle.

The truth is that having a goal is none of the battle at all unless one’s decisions in the moment perfectly match one’s long-term hopes. Making resolutions stick means more than just imagining a better future. It means giving up right now that thing you want to do in order that the goal you desire is feasible and realized.

Hazlitt’s insight here is all the matching of time preferences. The here and now must embody the ambition of who you want to be in the future. This is particularly difficult when it comes to diet. A poor diet is addictive, and it is easy to swear it off following a huge meal over overindulgence. That’s the moment in which a fast seems like a great idea. That outlook lasts until the next morning when your empty stomach changes your mind.

What Hazlitt wrote here in 1922 contributed to the growing use of the term “willpower” in popular culture. We all just have to say no to the easy and quick thing in order to achieve that harder thing that unfolds over time. The example of the trade-off between consumption and investment is the best economic analogue: there can be no real prosperity for any society without the discipline to defer immediate consumption.

The sociologist Max Weber speculated that it was precisely the Protestant celebration of self-discipline and saving that bred the incredible prosperity of the West in the 19th century. The savings created a gigantic pool of capital for investment and empire building. The riches flowed and came to challenge the core values that gave rise to them in the first place. Frugality is forgotten when the money seems endless. Modest living and prudential management of material matters get sidelined.

In our own financial times, every major business and most smaller ones too have learned to live off leverage, as much as possible. If there is any chance an institution’s profit streams can outpace the cost of borrowing, living off debt can seem like the right thing to do. Of course this is only possible thanks to fiat money and the Federal Reserve system, without which the entire empire of debt would have collapsed long ago. In this way, our central banking institutions and profligate legislatures have undermined the whole basis of long-term prosperity.

There is a more insidious aspect to this pattern. When Hazlitt was writing in 1922, money was still gold and silver, interest rates were high and punishing, and hard work and savings were highly rewarded. There was a match between how government and finance lived and how we should live as individuals. In other words, the world made some sense.

It’s no longer clear that the functioning of finance and government makes much sense. If you and I lived in our private lives the way major corporations and legislatures function, we would live for the day, squander every dime, stay as inebriated as possible, and hope to foist the consequences of our misjudgements on others in the future.

Notice that Hazlitt’s view is all about having ambitions for the future rather than languishing in past trauma, as the culture says we should do today. This a fateful error. You can always use past trauma as an excuse for neglecting future triumphs.

Is it any wonder that the idea of willpower—which entered the vocabulary in the early 20th century—is so unfashionable? It just so happens that this very day, an attack on the notion appears in the nation’s major newspaper. The writer says we should forget about willpower (“overrated”) and adopt instead something she calls “situational agency.”

As best I can tell, she means that we should forget trying to resist temptation and instead structure our lives to eliminate it entirely. Perhaps this is the Ozempic theory of how to get thin. Forget saying no to pie and third helpings. Just take a pill to change your preferences entirely!

I have my doubts that pharmacology can overcome the core problem that Hazlitt identified. Indeed it seems like an excuse to pretend that the problem doesn’t exist at all. Surely there is some artificial means by which we can bypass the need for any self-discipline!

To restate Hazlitt’s core power, we all underestimate the power of the mind. Decide to quit smoking—really decide—and it is done. Same with drinking, overeating, and sloth in general. The difference between now and a better future is a simple change in thinking.

We will all make New Year’s resolutions, and most will be broken.

Once we reflect on why this is, we will be better positioned to match how we live today with the kind of life we want to have in the future. It’s the core human problem from time immemorial, one not easily swept away with fiat money, pills, and assurances that this time it will be different.

Tyler Durden Thu, 01/01/2026 - 10:30

12 NASA Satellite Images That Tell The Story Of Earth In 2025

From devastating wildfires to swirling cloud vortices, NASA’s fleet of Earth-observing satellites captured remarkable views of our planet throughout 2025.

As Visual Capitalist's Nick Routley shows below, these images reveal both the beauty and fragility of Earth’s systems, documenting natural phenomena, climate events, and human impacts visible from space.

All images featured in this article come from NASA’s Earth Observatory, captured by instruments aboard a variety of satellites in orbit around Earth. Together, they tell the story of a dynamic planet in constant flux.

The Palisades Fire’s Footprint

NASA Earth Observatory/Lauren Dauphin, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey

This false-color Landsat 9 image from January 14, 2025, reveals the burn scar left by the Palisades fire in Los Angeles County.

The fire ignited on the morning of January 7 near the Pacific Palisades neighborhood and spread rapidly, consuming nearly 24,000 acres (97 square kilometers) of wildland and developed areas within one week. In this image, which combines shortwave infrared, near infrared, and visible light, unburned vegetation appears green while recently burned landscape shows as light to dark brown.

The charred areas stretch north and west of Pacific Palisades toward Malibu, where land previously burned by the December 2024 Franklin fire is also visible along the coast.

Desert Dust Streams from Iran

NASA Earth Observatory/Michala Garrison, using MODIS data from NASA EOSDIS LANCE and GIBS/Worldview

This Terra MODIS image from January 22, 2025, captures dust plumes sweeping across southeastern Iran and streaming over the Gulf of Oman toward the Arabian Peninsula.

The airborne material originates primarily from the dried bed of Hamun-e Jazmurian, an intermittent lake in one of southwest Asia’s major dust source regions. In this arid basin, some areas receive less than 10 centimeters (4 inches) of annual rainfall while evaporation rates remain high.

The dust traveled south-southwest across the water to the coast of the United Arab Emirates, where the haze reduced visibility and prompted weather warnings. Beyond disrupting transportation, such dust events pose health risks: a recent analysis found that material from Jazmurian basin storms contains heavy metals and other substances hazardous to human and ecosystem health.

Floating Solar Farm on India’s Narmada River

NASA Earth Observatory/Lauren Dauphin, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey

This Landsat 9 image from January 30, 2025, shows arrays of floating solar panels, known as “floatovoltaics,” spread across a reservoir on the Narmada River in Madhya Pradesh, India.

The geometric blue rectangles visible in the reservoir represent two floating solar projects commissioned in 2024, with a combined capacity of 216 megawatts. The reservoir, created by the Omkareshwar Dam completed in 2007, spans more than 90 square kilometers.

Floating solar installations offer an alternative to land-based systems in areas where space is limited. They can also reduce evaporation, impede algal growth, and benefit from the cooling effect of water on panel efficiency.

Swirling Skies and Melting Icebergs

NASA Earth Observatory/Wanmei Liang, using VIIRS data from NASA EOSDIS LANCE, GIBS/Worldview, and the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS)

This NOAA-20 VIIRS image from February 24, 2025, captures von Kármán vortex streets forming behind three of the remote South Sandwich Islands in the southern Atlantic Ocean. The swirling cloud patterns appear when persistent westerly winds of moderate strength push marine stratocumulus clouds past the steep volcanic peaks of Visokoi, Candlemas, and Saunders islands.

Named after mathematician and aerospace engineer Theodore von Kármán, who first described these oscillating flow features in 1911, the vortices form alternating spirals that rotate in opposite directions downstream of each obstacle. The cloud trail extending from Saunders Island appears slightly brighter than surrounding clouds due to volcanic emissions from Mount Michael, which has been weakly erupting since 2014. To the west of the island chain, several icebergs drift visibly beneath thin cloud cover.

Haze Sweeps Over the Mediterranean

NASA/ISS External Camera

This photograph from the International Space Station’s external camera on April 30, 2025, provides an oblique view stretching from the Alps to Sicily, revealing layers of industrial haze drifting across the Mediterranean basin.

Much of the haze originates from the Po Valley in northern Italy and the Rhône Valley in France, where surrounding mountains trap pollutants. The Po Valley haze drifts hundreds of kilometers over the Adriatic Sea toward Greece. Astronauts have documented this atmospheric phenomenon for decades, providing a unique perspective on how geography shapes air quality across southern Europe.

Glacier Collapse Buries Swiss Village

NASA Earth Observatory/Wanmei Liang, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey

This Landsat 9 image from May 29, 2025, shows the aftermath of a catastrophic collapse of the Birch Glacier in Switzerland’s Lötschental valley.

The debris buried most of the village of Blatten, traveled 2.5 kilometers down the valley, and climbed 240 meters up the opposite valley wall before damming the Lonza River and causing flooding. Authorities began evacuating residents on May 19 after detecting instability. By May 27, the glacier was moving at 10 meters per day. Scientists believe rockfall accumulation on top of the glacier led to basal melting that reduced friction, triggering the collapse. The event was unusual in magnitude for the Swiss Alps.

Rare Snow Blankets Australia’s Northern Tablelands

NASA Earth Observatory/Wanmei Liang, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey

This Landsat 8 image from August 3, 2025, captures a rare blanket of snow across New South Wales’ Northern Tablelands, the heaviest snowfall in the region since the mid-1980s.

A powerful low-pressure system brought up to 40 centimeters (16 inches) of snow to the highlands while dumping more than 100 millimeters of rain at lower elevations. The storm stranded vehicles, closed highways, and left properties without power. Flooding triggered dozens of rescues across the region.

Phytoplankton Bloom in the Barents Sea

NASA Earth Observatory/Wanmei Liang, using MODIS data from NASA EOSDIS LANCE and GIBS/Worldview

This Aqua MODIS image from August 5, 2025, reveals a massive phytoplankton bloom swirling through the Barents Sea near Norway’s Bear Island.

The milky turquoise-blue colors indicate the presence of coccolithophores, single-celled organisms armored with calcium carbonate plates that scatter light. The green hues come from diatoms, another type of phytoplankton. The Barents Sea typically experiences two bloom seasons: diatoms dominate in May and June, while coccolithophores peak in August.

These microscopic organisms form the base of the Arctic marine food web and play a critical role in the ocean’s carbon cycle and oxygen production. Researchers are closely studying how warming Atlantic currents may be shifting the location and extent of these blooms.

Hurricane Erin Roils in the Atlantic

NASA Earth Observatory/Wanmei Liang, using MODIS data from NASA EOSDIS LANCE and GIBS/Worldview

This Terra MODIS image from August 18, 2025, shows Hurricane Erin churning in the Atlantic Ocean as the first hurricane of the 2025 season.

The storm underwent rapid intensification, jumping from Category 1 to Category 5 in just 24 hours between August 15 and 16, reaching peak sustained winds of 160 mph. Erin became only the 43rd Atlantic hurricane to reach Category 5 status since 1851, and the earliest to do so at this location.

Factors contributing to its explosive strengthening included light wind shear, a compact structure, and warm sea surface temperatures. While Erin did not make landfall, it caused more than 147,000 power outages in Puerto Rico and prompted evacuation orders for North Carolina’s Outer Banks.

British Columbia Wildfires Send Smoke Skyward

NASA Earth Observatory/Michala Garrison, using MODIS data from NASA EOSDIS LANCE and GIBS/Worldview

This Aqua MODIS image from September 2, 2025, captures thick smoke plumes rising from multiple lightning-ignited wildfires in British Columbia’s Cariboo region. The Itcha Lake fire had burned approximately 17,000 hectares (170 km²), while the Beef Trail Creek fire consumed around 7,800 hectares (78 km²) and the Dusty Lake fire charred about 2,800 hectares (28 km²). Evacuation orders were issued for surrounding communities.

The towering pyrocumulus clouds generated by these fires can inject smoke and particulate matter high into the atmosphere, where it can travel thousands of kilometers and degrade air quality across distant regions. By the end of the season, British Columbia had burned 732,000 hectares (7,320 km²), slightly above the 10-year average. Overall, Canada experienced one of its worst fire seasons on record, trailing only 2023.

A Desert Intersection

NASA Earth Observatory/Michala Garrison, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey

This Landsat 9 image from September 11, 2025, reveals a striking geological boundary in China’s Tarim Basin where the Mazartagh ridge meets the Hotan River. The 145 km (90 mile) ridge acts as a natural barrier, creating distinct dune patterns on either side.

The Hotan is the only river fed by glacial meltwater that maintains enough flow to cross the entire Takla Makan Desert. For centuries, this region served as an important source of nephrite jade collected along the ancient Silk Road.

Stubble Burning Shrouds Northern India in Haze

NASA Earth Observatory/Michala Garrison, using MODIS data from NASA EOSDIS LANCE and GIBS/Worldview

This Aqua MODIS image from November 11, 2025, shows thick haze blanketing northern India during the annual crop residue burning season.

Farmers in Punjab, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh burn rice stubble between October and December to quickly clear fields before planting wheat.

On this day, air quality exceeded 400 on India’s national index, well into the “severe” category. Scientists have detected a shift in burning patterns: fires now peak from 4-6pm rather than the previous window of 1-2pm, meaning traditional satellite monitoring systems miss many fires. Estimates suggest stubble burning contributes 40-70% of particulate pollution on peak days.

The Tip of the Iceberg

These 12 images represent just a fraction of the thousands of observations NASA’s satellites make each year.

From tracking climate patterns to monitoring natural disasters, this orbital perspective helps scientists understand Earth’s interconnected systems and provides critical data for decision-makers around the world. As our planet continues to change, these eyes in the sky remain essential tools for documenting and responding to the challenges ahead.

Tyler Durden Thu, 01/01/2026 - 09:55

American Legal Sovereignty Threatened By Greenpeace's Retaliatory EU Lawsuit

Authored by John Swallow via The Epoch Times,

The strength of the American civil legal system rests on a simple principle: those who break the law on U.S. soil answer to U.S. plaintiffs in U.S. courts. Our constitutional order depends on juries empowered to weigh evidence, judges and plaintiffs entrusted to enforce verdicts, and a system insulated from foreign interference. However, that foundation is now being tested by an activist organization determined to escape domestic accountability for domestic acts, by turning abroad and using a foreign country’s laws and courts to take another bite at the legal apple, so to speak.

In March 2025, a North Dakota jury delivered a decisive $670 million verdict against Greenpeace and its affiliates, finding them liable for extreme torts against Energy Transfer LP in the form of defamation, trespass, and conspiracy. The jurors rejected the claim that the Greenpeace activity—supporting violent demonstrations that disrupted construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline in 2016 and 2017—was protected speech, finding instead that Greenpeace orchestrated a campaign of unlawful disruption and reputational harm against Energy Transfer.

While the award has since been reduced to $345 million, the fact remains: the jury verdict was well founded.

During the trial, Energy Transfer’s lawyers presented compelling evidence showing Greenpeace’s role in orchestrating the protests. The group spent $55,000 training activists in direct action and violent protest tactics, supplied them with power tools, tents, propane, cold-weather gear, and lockboxes to chain themselves to heavy equipment, and encouraged confrontations with law enforcement. Meanwhile, its former executive director was found to have used an official Greenpeace email account to raise another $90,000 to fuel the effort.

On top of that, the jury found that Greenpeace knowingly defamed Energy Transfer by falsely accusing the company of knowingly desecrating Native American burial grounds during pipeline construction. In reality, Energy Transfer took extensive precautions to protect cultural and historical sites. Such fabricated and highly incendiary claims were found to have inflicted serious harm on Energy Transfer’s public reputation and its standing with financial institutions.

But rather than accept the ruling of the court, Greenpeace is attempting an end-run around it. Just weeks before the trial concluded, Greenpeace and Greenpeace International filed a retaliatory lawsuit against Energy Transfer in the Netherlands, invoking the European Union’s new anti-Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation (anti-SLAPP) directive. Importantly, the EU directive allows EU-based entities, such as Greenpeace International, to pursue damages against non-EU actors for cases originally brought outside the EU—expanding its reach far beyond Europe’s borders.

The Dutch lawsuit marks the first test of the new EU directive, and it appears that Greenpeace’s goal is to reframe its adjudicated misconduct as “free speech,” sprinkle in its own claims, which could and should have been raised and litigated in the North Dakota forum, and ask a foreign tribunal to essentially re-litigate, where a North Dakota court had already ruled following a full jury trial. Such tactics are abusive, costly, extra-jurisdictional, and very concerning for any company dealing with EU-based entities as no U.S. company could anticipate being hauled into an EU Court by or through its activities in the United States.

Fortunately, at least for now, Recital 29 of the directive only applies to untruthful allegations, meaning that if the claims in the original suit are proven true, anti-SLAPP protections do not apply. On that basis alone, the Dutch court should dismiss the case.

The directive was meant to protect European journalists, activists, and civic participants from frivolous lawsuits meant to silence dissent for activities on European soil. As determined in court by a jury, under the guidance of an experienced judge, the Energy Transfer/Greenpeace case was not frivolous. Nothing Greenpeace could say in a Dutch court could undermine the “truth” as found by a North Dakota jury, under state law.

However, the danger of allowing Greenpeace to relitigate facts and activities already determined by a lawful proceeding in the United States risks setting a dangerous precedent. If a foreign-based entity can lose in the United States and live to fight the same fight overseas, it creates a real incentive for bad actors to engage in tortious activities in the United States while discouraging what might be perceived as fruitless litigation. What company can afford to pay the price of a never-ending battle overseas?

The Greenpeace tactic of using the EU directive as a counterweight also raises jurisdictional questions concerning liability of a U.S. company under foreign laws when they have done nothing to justify being hauled into a foreign court. Indeed, allowing a foreign tribunal without jurisdiction over a U.S.-based company to require even a response to an EU action would open the floodgates to duplicative litigation and erode the confidence American companies should have in U.S. systems of civil justice.

Energy Transfer recently appealed a decision by the North Dakota Southwest Judicial District Court and Judge James Gion—who is overseeing the proceedings—to not enjoin Greenpeace from moving the EU lawsuit forward. The jury got the case right and the Judge got his denial of an injunction wrong. In America, courts should do all they can to respect and protect jury verdicts and those who pay the price to bring justice to those who violate American laws, even if they are foreign-based.

The stakes of the anti-SLAPP suit are too high to simply hope for the right outcome.

We should not forget that Greenpeace is not simply testing the boundaries of free expression—it is testing whether U.S. legal sovereignty and the rule of law still mean something. The answer must be a firm and resounding yes.

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 Thu, 01/01/2026 - 09:20

Finnish Police Seize Russia-Linked Ship Accused Of Cutting Undersea Cable

The Europeans have taken yet more 'counter-Russia' actions amid widespread allegations that Moscow has sponsored sabotage campaigns targeting EU communications infrastructure.

Finnish authorities have newly detained a cargo ship suspected of damaging an undersea communications cable. The vessel has been identified as the Fitburg, and had departed St. Petersburg, Russia and was traveling toward Israel when it was intercepted by Finnish authorities.

Handout: Anadolu/Getty Images

Security officials have since confirmed, "Finnish authorities have taken control of the vessel as part of a joint operation."

The cable in question links Helsinki with Tallinn and is operated by the Finnish telecom company Elisa. Like with other similar cable cutting allegations, officials admit there's no smoking gun proof at this point.

Prior similar instances of Russia's 'shadow fleet' supposedly engaged in cable cutting activity have generated ample headlines but nothing in the way of proof.

Bloomberg and European media have reported that fourteen crew members are currently being held by authorities - which includes nationals of Russia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, and Azerbaijan.

The Finnish police and the Border Guard have accused the vessel dragging its anchor along the seabed, after which it entered Finnish territorial waters at the request of authorities, whereupon it was taken into custody.

"At this stage, the police are investigating the incident as aggravated criminal damage, attempted aggravated criminal damage, and aggravated interference with telecommunications," the police said.

The Finnish coast guard tracked has charged that "The ship's anchor chain had been lowered into the water." This after it was taken into custody.

Finland's President Alexander Stubb says he's closely monitoring the situation amid a pending investigation. "Finland is prepared for various security challenges and responds to them in the manner the situation requires," he said on X.

This kind of thing has occurred in the Baltic Sea region, allegedly many times since the Ukraine war began. CNN writes that "At least 10 undersea cables have been cut or damaged in the Baltic Sea since 2023."

Finland seizes vessel suspected of damaging underwater cable

Finnish authorities have seized the cargo vessel Fitburg off the coast of Porkkala in connection with damage to an undersea data cable between Helsinki and Tallinn. The vessel departed Saint Petersburg on December 30… pic.twitter.com/ihtJpkZVlW

— MarineTraffic (@MarineTraffic) December 31, 2025

Sometimes the vessels at the center of these controversies were already under Western sanctions, and have been boarded by authorities from various EU and NATO countries.

Tyler Durden Thu, 01/01/2026 - 08:45

Russia's Secretive Hypersonic, Nuclear-Ready Oreshnik Missiles Go Operational In Belarus

Belarus has announced that Russia's Oreshnik intermediate-range nuclear capable ballistic missile system has been deployed on its territory, though details and specifications - including range - of the projectile remain secretive.

On Tuesday, the Belarusian Ministry of Defense released a video it claims shows the Oreshnik system being deployed inside the country. It featured Russian troops and technicians in a ceremonial flag-raising while stationed in Belarus, along with a convoy of vehicles moving into a field-based firing position before being concealed under camouflage netting. 

Oreshnik, via Reuters

Accompanying this was the recent emergence of satellite images indicating that Moscow is indeed positioning the nuclear-capable missiles in Belarus.

But questions have been raised as to the precise location of the missile systems, given that the undated published video features only support vehicles and doesn't appear to including the launch apparatus itself. 

Still, the video includes a senior officer informing troops that the systems have officially entered combat duty and references prior routine training and reconnaissance exercises carried out by missile crews.

Russian state media has referenced a precise date for the missile transfer to Belarusian territory, however:

Russian officials have likened its conventional destructive power to that of a low-yield nuclear strike, highlighting its dual strategic and tactical potential. By comparison, Western militaries currently lack a directly equivalent hypersonic MIRV-capable system, giving Oreshnik a unique edge in speed, maneuverability, and multi-target strike capability.

Up to ten systems are slated for deployment in Belarus under an agreement reached between Minsk and Moscow shortly after the missile’s initial combat test.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko announced in a parliamentary address this month that the Oreshnik systems had arrived in Belarus on December 17. Deputy Defense Minister Pavel Muraveyko said last week the combat patrol areas are set and the system is fully operational and ready for use.

Already Belarus plays host to Russian tactical nuclear weapons - though details of this too remain shrouded in mystery and intentioned strategic ambiguity.

EuroNews: "Analysts identified a former airfield near the Russian border as a likely site."

Russia shows nuclear-capable Oreshnik missile system in Belarus

Russia's Defence Ministry released the first images of an intermediate-range weapon entering service. Analysts identified a former airfield near the Russian border as a likely site. pic.twitter.com/vkEv6eGP5r

— euronews (@euronews) December 30, 2025

2025 has been a big year for Moscow showcasing its military might and tech. As we reviewed earlier, in a matter of less than a year, Russian scientific know-how came up with four bangers:

1. Oreshnik: hypersonic missile, already tested in the Ukraine battleground.

2. Burevestnik: Or “Stormbringer”, with that nice Deep Purple ring. Nuclear cruise missile with unlimited range.

3. Poseidon: nuclear-powered torpedo, capable of loitering underwater, undetected, for unlimited time; then, at a command, strikes enemy coasts with a nuclear payload, provoking a radioactive tsunami. Largely exceeds the destructive power of the Sarmat, Russia’s largest ICBM.

4. Khabarovsk: nuclear sub. Call him The Messenger of Doom: capable of delivering at least 6 Doomsday-enabling Poseidons.

As for the Oreshnik, it was at a December 2024 meeting with Belarusian President Lukashenko that Putin had first unveiled plans to station Oreshnik missiles in Belarus. He indicated at the time that the deployment would occur in the second half of 2025. There are prior reports saying the hypersonic Oreshnik has already been used against Ukrainian targets to demonstrate Moscow's 'shock and awe' capabilities.

Tyler Durden Thu, 01/01/2026 - 07:40

The Real Existential Threat Facing Europe

Authored by Nouriel Roubini via Project Syndicate,

Contrary to what far-right leaders claim, Europe’s greatest challenge is not immigration or “wokeness,” but its own economic and technological backwardness. With productivity growth lagging and innovation increasingly taking place elsewhere, Europe must confront its structural weaknesses or risk falling further behind.

US President Donald Trump’s new National Security Strategy offers a misguided assessment of Europe, long regarded as America’s most reliable ally. Unrestrained immigration and other policies derided by administration officials as “woke,” it warns, could lead to “civilizational erasure” within a few decades.

That argument rests on a fundamental misreading of Europe’s current predicament. While the European Union does face an existential threat, it has little to do with immigration or cultural politics. In fact, the share of foreign-born residents in the United States is slightly higher than in Europe.

The real threat facing Europe lies in its own economic and technological backwardness. Between 2008 and 2023, GDP rose by 87% in the US, compared to just 13.5% in the EU. Over the same period, the EU’s GDP per capita fell from 76.5% of the US level to 50%. Even the poorest US state – Mississippi – has a higher per capita income than that of several major European economies, including France, Italy, and the EU average.

This widening economic gap cannot be explained by demographics. Instead, it reflects stronger productivity growth in the US, largely owing to technological innovation and higher total factor productivity. Today, roughly half of the world’s 50 largest technology firms are American, while only four are European. Over the past five decades, 241 US firms have grown from startups into companies with market capitalizations of at least $10 billion, compared with just 14 in Europe.

These trends raise a critical question: Which countries will lead the industries of the future, and where does Europe fit in? The race for technological leadership now spans a wide range of fields, including AI and machine learning, semiconductor design and production, robotics, quantum computing, fusion energy, fintech, and defense technologies. Europe enters this race at a clear disadvantage.

Whether the US or China currently leads the industries of the future remains open to debate, but most observers agree that it’s essentially a two-horse race, with America still ahead in several key areas. Beyond that, innovation is concentrated in countries like Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, India, and Israel. In Europe, by contrast, innovative activities are largely confined to the United Kingdom, Germany, France, and Switzerland – two of which are not even EU member states.

It is hardly a surprise, then, that while the US and China dominate global technological rankings, Europe finds itself far from the top. And the outlook is anything but reassuring, given that the next wave of innovation is widely expected to be more disruptive than anything we have seen over the past half-century.

The technological gap between the US and Europe can be attributed to several factors.

• First, the US has a far deeper and more dynamic ecosystem for financing startups, while Europe still lacks a genuine capital markets union, limiting the scale and speed at which new firms can grow.

• Second, Europe is hampered by excessive and fragmented regulation. A US startup can launch a product under a single regulatory framework and immediately access a market of more than 330 million consumers. The EU has a population of roughly 450 million but remains divided among 27 national regulatory regimes. An International Monetary Fund analysis shows that internal market barriers in the EU act like a tariff of around 44% for goods and 110% for services – far higher than the tariff levels the US imposes on most imports.

• Third, cultural attitudes toward risk-taking differ sharply. Until relatively recently, a failed entrepreneur in some EU countries (like Italy) could face criminal penalties, while in the US, a tech founder who has never failed is often seen as too risk-averse.

• Fourth, the US benefits from a deeply integrated academic-military-industrial complex, while Europe’s chronic underinvestment in defense has weakened its innovation capacity. Technological leaders like the US, China, Israel, and, more recently, Ukraine spend heavily on defense, with military research often producing technologies that have civilian applications.

Despite this, many European political leaders continue to frame higher defense spending as a tradeoff between security and social welfare. In reality, free-riding on US defense spending since the end of World War II has limited the type of innovation that could have generated more of both through higher productivity. Paradoxically, sustaining Europe’s social model will require greater investment in defense, beginning with meeting NATO’s new spending target of 3.5% of GDP.

If Europe allows its technological lag to grow over the coming decades, it risks prolonged stagnation and continued economic decline relative to the US and China. There are, however, reasons for cautious optimism. Increasingly aware that Europe faces an existential challenge, policymakers have begun to advance serious reform proposals. The most notable examples are the two major 2024 reports on EU competitiveness and the single market by former Italian prime ministers Mario Draghi and Enrico Letta, respectively.

Europe also retains considerable strengths, including high-quality human capital, excellent education systems, and world-class research institutions. With the right incentives and regulatory reforms, these assets could support much higher levels of commercial innovation. With a better environment for entrepreneurship, Europe’s high per capita income, large internal market, and elevated savings rates could help unleash a wave of investment.

Crucially, even if Europe never leads in cutting-edge technologies, it could still significantly boost productivity by adopting and adapting American and Chinese innovations. Many of these technologies are general-purpose in character, benefiting both adopters and pioneers.

All of this leaves Europe at an inflection point.

As Ernest Hemingway famously observed, bankruptcy happens “gradually and then suddenly.”

So far, Europe’s technological decline has been gradual. But if it fails to confront its structural weaknesses, today’s slow erosion could give way to a sudden and irreversible loss of economic relevance.

Tyler Durden Thu, 01/01/2026 - 07:20

2026: The Year Of Living Dangerously

Authored by Lawrence Kadish via The Gatestone Institute,

The British were the first to develop the aircraft carrier as an emerging weapon of war. But it was the Japanese who perfected the ship by combining as many as four aircraft carriers into a single battle group and deploying a task force that led to their devastating strike against the American fleet at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.

Nearly a century later, another ally, the State of Israel, has pioneered asymmetrical warfare in which they combine their technological superiority in gathering intelligence with precision strikes to counter enemies who seek their destruction. The Israelis' continued success can be found from the use of explosive pagers that took out Hezbollah terrorists, to hidden computer malware that disabled Iranian uranium enrichment. Their exploits could fill a book.

Our other allies, the Ukrainians, are using drones controlled by sleeper agents to destroy Russian military assets far behind the battle lines.

For the Russians, anyone and everyone could now be a suspect.

All of this begs the question: If this is what our allies are capable of, what can our enemies be contemplating?

As the successful Japanese carrier task force dramatically reminded the world in 1941, our enemies sit, watch, and consider how emerging tools of warfare pioneered by democracies can be used against these nations of freedom.

Who are the sleeper agents who may be working within our nation's utilities, capable of infecting our complex electrical grids with malware that, if activated, would plunge our cities into darkness?

Who are those who have purchased farmland near our Midwest strategic bomber air bases and whose barns and warehouses could now have drones hidden within them, waiting for a signal to strike?

Can hackers in North Korea manipulate our nation's financial system, threatening everything from bitcoin "banks" to financial transfers on the command of their Communist leader?

These are just some of the nightmare scenarios that America needs to understand and prepare to defend against in a world where armies do not need to invade and missiles do not need to be launched in order to disarm an adversary.

The Chinese, however, are not solely relying on stealth sleeper agents or asymmetrical opportunities.

China's second aircraft carrier is expected to enter service in 2026, according to the respected publication Aviation Week.

Separately, the publication also notes that while the Chinese are publicly criticizing the Trump administration's Golden Dome missile-defense program, they are hard at work at developing their own anti-missile defense shield.

It is classic Beijing – criticize your enemies for what you are already pursuing.

The year 2026 will see the United States advancing on multiple fronts, from accelerating our return to the Moon to strengthening our naval forces, to bolstering our drone technology, to increasing our strategic defenses.

All the while, the forces of freedom must recognize that, like Imperial Japan of 1941, our adversaries are watching Western democracies to determine our vulnerabilities.

It will require the White House to sustain its firm and resolute leadership to protect our future and all those who treasure democracy and freedom.

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

Tyler Durden Wed, 12/31/2025 - 23:30

Are Fireworks Integral To New Year's Eve?

Fireworks are bad for the environment, distressing to animals and people with conditions such as PTSD, as well as dangerous - resulting in thousands of injuries in the United States alone each year.

Yet, come New Year’s Eve, they are set off all around the world, as the clock strikes 12 in one timezone after another. In the U.S, the market is even booming, with the U.S. fireworks industry having reported an estimated $2.2 billion in revenue from consumers in 2024 and an additional $600 million on professional display fireworks.

As Statista's Anna Fleck shows in the following chart, using data from Statista’s Consumer Insights survey, the share of respondents who say that fireworks and firecrackers are an essential part of a New Year’s celebration varies across geographies.

You will find more infographics at Statista

In all of the five countries surveyed, a minority of respondents said this was the case.

Germans were the most likely to think that fireworks were a “must” for the 31st, with 29 percent of respondents picking the option, while in France, the tradition was far less popular, with only 12 percent of respondents saying the same.

More popular responses to the question on essential elements for a New Year’s celebration included “to wish friends and family a happy new year” and “toasting with champagne”.

The French and Germans were the most romantic of the group, with 45 and 37 percent, respectively, selecting a “kiss at midnight” as an essential part of the festivities, versus 32 percent in the U.S., 26 percent in the UK and 14 percent in Mexico. Multiple answers were possible.

Tyler Durden Wed, 12/31/2025 - 22:45

Obama's Trojan Horse: How His Refugee Machine Engineered The Billion-Dollar Looting Of US Treasury

Authored by X user Saggezza Etern,

Obama’s Billion-Dollar Minnesota Fraud Empire

The Heist You Paid For

Imagine waking up tomorrow to find your bank account empty. Every dollar you saved for your children’s tuition, your retirement, your security—gone. Now imagine looking out the window and seeing the thief driving a Porsche bought with your money, laughing as he waves a government-issued thank you note. This is not a hypothetical scenario. It is the reality of the American taxpayer in the wake of the single largest COVID-era fraud scheme in the nation’s history. While you were locked down, masked up, and worrying about the price of eggs, a sophisticated network of fraudsters in Minnesota was siphoning off a quarter of a billion dollars—likely far more—from programs meant to feed hungry children.

The "Feeding Our Future" scandal is not just a story about greed. It is the smoking gun of a much darker political operation. Federal prosecutors have charged 70 people in a $250 million conspiracy, and the FBI is reportedly eyeing fraud that could total over $2 billion across multiple sectors including autism therapy, housing, and daycare. The vast majority of these defendants come from the Somali community in Minnesota. But do not be distracted by the foot soldiers. To understand how a fraud of this magnitude happens, you have to look past the people cashing the checks and look at the architect who built the bank. This industrial-scale theft traces directly back to Barack Obama. It was his administration that deliberately flooded Minnesota with tens of thousands of refugees, creating a dependent, insular enclave primed for exploitation. It was his policy of "equity" that paralyzed oversight. And it is his political heirs who are now frantically trying to bury the evidence.

The Architect of the Enclave

You might be wondering how Minnesota, a state once known for Scandinavian stoicism and lakes, became the global epicenter for Somali diasporic fraud. It was not an accident. It was a federal mandate. Between 2008 and 2016, the Obama administration oversaw the admission of over 54,000 Somali refugees into the United States. But they didn't just scatter them across the 50 states. They targeted specific swing states and counties, with Minnesota being the primary dumping ground.

By the time Obama left office, Minnesota was home to the largest Somali population in the country, now estimated at over 80,000 people. This concentration was strategic. By clustering refugees in Minneapolis, the Democratic machine created a voting bloc that could be harvested for elections and a demographic that demanded massive government outlays. They called it "diversity." In reality, it was demographic engineering. The Obama administration poured federal grants into "refugee services," creating a lucrative industry of nonprofits and community organizers whose entire existence depended on keeping the flow of refugees—and federal dollars—moving. This established the infrastructure for the fraud we see today. When you import a population from a failed state with no tradition of Western civic duty, and you teach them that the government is a bottomless trough of free money, you don't get assimilation. You get predation.

The "Equity" Shield: How They Paralyzed the Police

The genius of the Obama-era strategy was not just in the importation of people, but in the weaponization of race to silence dissent. Under the guise of "equity," the Obama administration pushed for relaxed standards in federal contracting, specifically favoring "minority-owned" nonprofits. This created a regulatory environment where asking questions became a career-ending risk.

Consider the mechanics of the "Feeding Our Future" fraud. The fraudsters claimed to be serving thousands of meals a day to children who did not exist. At one site, they claimed to be feeding 2,000 children daily in a second-story apartment. Anyone with eyes could see this was impossible. So why didn't the Minnesota Department of Education stop it? Because when they tried, they were called racists. The fraudsters, emboldened by the racial grievance culture Obama cultivated, sued the state for discrimination. Terrified of the "racism" label, the state resumed payments. This is the direct result of a decade of Obama-era policy that equated oversight with oppression. The bureaucrats were more afraid of a lawsuit from the ACLU than they were of letting billions of dollars in taxpayer money walk out the back door.

The Protege: Ilhan Omar and the MEALS Act

If Barack Obama built the machine, Ilhan Omar is the operator. Omar is the ultimate product of the Minnesota Somali enclave. She rose to power not despite her radicalism, but because of the demographic reality Obama created. And her legislative fingerprints are all over this scandal.

In 2020, as the pandemic began, Omar sponsored the MEALS Act. This legislation fundamentally altered the rules for federal nutrition programs, allowing parents to pick up meals without children present and removing the requirement for congregate dining. While pitched as a compassionate measure, it effectively removed the only verification mechanism the government had. It was a blank check. It is no coincidence that the fraud exploded immediately after these rules were relaxed. Omar’s campaign has accepted thousands of dollars from individuals later indicted in the scheme, money she quietly returned only after the media glare became too bright. She defends the lax rules as necessary to "feed kids," twisting the narrative to make you feel guilty for questioning the theft. But the money didn't go to kids. It went to luxury condos in Nairobi, beachfront property in Turkey, and Porsches in Minneapolis.

The Deep State Money Laundry

The rabbit hole goes deeper than just meal tickets. The connections between the Somali fraud network and the highest levels of the Democratic establishment are becoming impossible to ignore. Take a look at Rose Lake Capital, a venture capital firm founded by Tim Mynett, Ilhan Omar's husband. As the fraud investigations heated up, astute observers noticed that the firm's website was scrubbed of some very interesting names.

Prior to the scrub, the firm listed advisors including a former Obama ambassador to Bahrain, a former Obama ambassador to China, and a former DNC treasurer. Why are top-tier Obama officials swimming in the same financial waters as the family of a Congresswoman whose district is ground zero for the largest fraud in history? These networks provide the cover. They provide the legitimacy. And they potentially provide the mechanism to wash the proceeds of the grift. This is not just local corruption. It is a federally integrated operation where the political elite protect the foot soldiers who deliver the votes and the cash.

The Cost of Submission

You are paying for this. Every time you look at your pay stub and see the massive chunk taken out for federal taxes, remember that money is not building roads. It is not securing the border. It is funding the lifestyle of people who hate you. The $250 million stolen in the Feeding Our Future scam is just the tip of the iceberg. Investigators believe the total theft across childcare, autism, and housing programs could reach billions.

But the financial cost pales in comparison to the security threat. Much of this stolen money was remitted overseas. We know it bought real estate in Kenya and Turkey. What we don't know is how much of it ended up in the hands of Al-Shabaab or other extremist groups in the Horn of Africa. By turning a blind eye to this fraud to preserve "community relations," the Democrats have effectively turned the US Treasury into a piggy bank for foreign interests. And politically, they have succeeded. The Somali bloc in Minnesota votes over 80% Democrat. They have sent Ilhan Omar to Congress three times. They are a captured constituency, bought and paid for with your tax dollars.

Dismantling the Legacy

The Minnesota fraud scandal is the inevitable result of the Obama doctrine: Import a dependent class, dismantle the safeguards against corruption under the banner of "equity," and brand anyone who notices as a bigot. They counted on your silence. They counted on your fear of being called a name.

But the receipts are in. We know who did this. We know how they did it. And we know who let it happen. The solution is not "reform." It is a complete dismantling of the refugee resettlement pipeline that Obama built. We need a forensic audit of every federal dollar sent to "community non-profits" in the last ten years. We need to seize the assets—the cars, the houses, the overseas accounts—of everyone involved. And most importantly, we need to stop being afraid. The cry of "racism" is the thief's final defense. Ignore it. Keep your eyes on the money. Keep your eyes on the truth. They stole your country and sold it back to you as "diversity." Demand a refund.

What You Can Do Right Now:

• Share this article: The mainstream media is trying to bury the Obama connection. Force the conversation.

• Demand Audits: Contact your state representatives and demand a specialized audit of all Department of Education and DHS grant recipients in your state.

• Reject the Guilt: When they try to shame you for asking where the money went, laugh in their faces. You are the creditor. They are the debtors. And collection day is coming.

. . . 

Tyler Durden Wed, 12/31/2025 - 22:00

China's EV Makers Are Powering Southeast Asia's Bus Revolution

Chinese-made electric buses are rapidly gaining ground across Southeast Asia as governments push to decarbonize public transport and Chinese manufacturers seek growth beyond a slowing home market, according to Nikkei Asia.

In Jakarta, that shift is already visible. Transjakarta, the capital’s main bus operator, introduced electric buses from China’s BYD in 2022. It now runs 420 electric buses — nearly 10% of its fleet — including models from Skywell and Zhongtong, and plans to fully electrify its 10,000-bus fleet by 2030.

For veteran driver Muhammad Iqbal, the change has been dramatic. A decade ago, Chinese buses in Indonesia were known for breakdowns and even fires, forcing operators to rely on Japanese and European brands. Now, Iqbal says the new electric models are easier and more comfortable to drive. “It's more comfortable to drive this electric bus,” he said. “It uses an automatic transmission, and drivers don't have to queue at the gas station each [night] before returning [the buses].”

Nikkei writes that Chinese firms dominate the global electric bus export market, led by Yutong and King Long. In the first half of 2025 alone, China exported about 9,000 electric buses worldwide — a 124% increase from a year earlier. Southeast Asia still represents a small share of that total, but demand is accelerating.

In Indonesia, BYD has partnered with local manufacturer VKTR Teknologi Mobilitas, which opened an assembly plant in Central Java in May. The facility, capable of producing 3,000 vehicles a year, currently builds about 200 and aims to deliver 80 buses to Transjakarta by early 2026. Forty percent of the buses’ components are locally sourced, qualifying the company for government incentives.

Growth is also spreading regionally. Malaysia operates more than 140 electric buses and plans to deploy thousands over the next five years. Singapore has already ordered hundreds of electric buses from Chinese suppliers and aims to electrify half its fleet by 2030. The Philippines and Indonesia have set similar targets, driven by national EV policies.

Vietnam and Thailand are exceptions. Vietnam’s local manufacturer VinFast dominates its electric bus market, while Thailand is prioritizing rail investment over bus electrification.

The rapid expansion has also raised cybersecurity concerns. In November, Norway’s public transport operator warned that Chinese-made buses could be vulnerable to remote manipulation, prompting investigations in Europe. Chinese manufacturer Yutong rejected the claim. Indonesian cybersecurity expert Pratama Persadha cautioned that vehicle data could be exploited and urged governments to require cyberaudits for imported EV systems. As analyst Mark Manantan put it, “Whoever the company is, there will always be a cybersecurity risk.”

Tyler Durden Wed, 12/31/2025 - 21:15

US Instructs Its Western-Nation Embassies To Report On Abuses Due To Mass Immigration

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times,

The Department of State has instructed U.S. embassies located in Western nations to report human rights abuses occurring there due to mass immigration, according to a Dec. 30 thread on X.

The embassies will “analyze government policies that facilitate mass migration or privilege migrants over citizens,” the department said.

“The United States urges governments to protect their borders and defend their citizens against the human rights abuses caused by mass migration. The United States stands ready to work alongside nations across the Western Hemisphere to end the global crisis of mass migration.”

According to the United Nations’ International Migrant Stock report published in January 2025, the total number of international migrants worldwide in 2024 was 304 million.

Europe hosted 94 million of these individuals, which is “more international migrants than any other region” in the world, the report said.

In second place was North America, which hosted 61 million migrants, followed by Northern Africa and Western Asia with 54 million people.

Between 1990 and 2024, Europe saw the largest increase in international migrants, with 43 million foreigners flowing into the region. North America added 34 million people during this period.

In its X post, the State Department said the United States has seen millions of migrants and massive amounts of deadly drugs flowing into the country on transnational routes operated by terror groups.

“Mass migration has endangered American citizens, threatened the economic security of American workers, and strained America’s asylum system,” it said, adding that the “narco-terror organizations that facilitate mass migration routinely engage in child trafficking, forced labor, sexual assault, and other heinous human rights abuses that threaten the citizens of nations throughout the Western Hemisphere and undermine the rule of law.”

On Nov. 21, the State Department said in a thread on X that it had directed embassies to report on any human rights implications and public safety impacts of mass migration, calling it an “existential threat to Western civilization” that also undermines the stability of key American allies.

“In the United Kingdom, thousands of girls have been victimized in Rotherham, Oxford, and Newcastle by grooming gangs involving migrant men,” the department said. “Many girls were left to suffer unspeakable abuse for years before authorities stepped in.”

The department also noted rapes of teen girls in Sweden and Germany by migrants.

In the United States, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has arrested and deported “hundreds of thousands of criminal illegal aliens” under the Trump administration, including drug traffickers, rapists, gang members, and kidnappers, the department said in a Dec. 19 statement.

“Seventy percent of those arrested by ICE are criminal illegal aliens who have been charged or convicted of a crime in the U.S.,” DHS said, referring to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has seized 39,984 pounds of drugs under President Donald Trump, a 10 percent jump from the same time in 2024, the department said, adding that Coast Guard seizures of illegal narcotics have surged 200 percent since January 2025.

Living on Benefits

As part of strengthening immigration practices, DHS issued a notice of proposed rulemaking on Nov. 19 to amend the Public Charge provision regarding the admission of immigrants into the country, triggering opposition from lawmakers.

Under the provision, authorities can deny the application of an immigrant applying for a visa, admission, or adjustment of legal status in the United States who is likely to primarily become dependent on government benefits.

On Dec. 19, more than 100 lawmakers sent a letter to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Joseph B. Edlow, urging them to withdraw updates to Public Charge rules, saying it would harm immigrant communities, according to a Dec. 23 statement from the office of Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.).

“The Trump Administration’s proposal would rescind the clear 2022 public charge regulations and replace them with vague, undefined standards, leading to arbitrary decision-making, fear, and widespread confusion,” they said.

“Past public charge expansions have driven families, including those with U.S. citizen children, away from lawful access to health care, nutrition, and early childhood programs.”

In its proposed rulemaking notice, DHS said that the regulations must be updated.

The existing rules are “inconsistent with congressional intent, unduly restrictive, and hamper DHS’s ability to make accurate, precise, and reliable determinations of whether certain aliens are likely at any time to become a public charge,” it said.

DHS wrote that rescinding these rules would restore “broader discretion to evaluate all pertinent facts and align with long-standing policy that aliens in the United States should be self-reliant and government benefits should not incentivize immigration.”

Tyler Durden Wed, 12/31/2025 - 20:30

Trump Pulls National Guard Out Of Chicago, Los Angeles & Portland

President Donald Trump on Wednesday announced that he's pulling National Guard troops from Chicago, Los Angeles and Portland. 

"We are removing the National Guard from Chicago, Los Angeles, and Portland, despite the fact that CRIME has been greatly reduced by having these great Patriots in those cities, and ONLY by that fact," he wrote on Truth Social, adding that federal forces will "come back" if crime spikes again. 

Earlier this month a federal judge in California blocked the Trump administration from deploying members of the California National Guard in Los Angeles, and also directed the administration to return control of the Guard to Gov. Gavin Newsom - until an appeals court paused the latter. 

In a Tuesday court filing, the Trump administration said it was no longer seeking a pause in that part of the order. That paves the way for the California National Guard troops to fully return to state control after Trump federalized the Guard in June.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta called the development a “major litigation victory” in a press release Wednesday. -AP

In October, however, a federal appeals court allowed Trump to deploy the Oregon National Guard to Portland as a legal challenge progresses - however in November, a judge permanently blocked the deployment of National Guard troops there following a three-day trial.

The decision to pull troops also comes a week after the Supreme Court refused to allow the admin to deploy National Guard troops in the Chicago area to aid in ICE efforts to remove illegals. The order was not a final ruling, but marked a rare setback by the SCOTUS in regards to Trump's efforts. 

"Portland, Los Angeles, and Chicago were GONE if it weren’t for the Federal Government stepping in," Trump's post continues. "We will come back, perhaps in a much different and stronger form, when crime begins to soar again - Only a question of time!"

In November, US Northern Command said it was "shifting and/or rightsizing" operations in Portland, Chicago and Los Angeles, but that there would be a "constant, enduring and long-term presence in each city." 

Trump has made a crackdown on crime a centerpiece of his second term, and has teased the use of the Insurrection Act to stop Democrats from using the courts to block his plans. 

Tyler Durden Wed, 12/31/2025 - 19:00

New Trump-Xi Showdown Approaches As Chinese Tankers Press Ahead To Venezuela Despite Blockade

Two Chinese-flagged very large crude carriers are proceeding toward Venezuelan waters despite a U.S.-imposed blockade on sanctioned oil tankers, raising the prospect of heightened tensions between Washington and Beijing over Venezuela's crude exports.

Thousand Sunny oil tanker (photo: Tommy Chia)

Shipping data published by Lloyd's List on Tuesday shows the Thousand Sunny is expected to arrive at Venezuela's Jose Terminal in mid-January after rounding the Cape of Good Hope empty in the southern Atlantic, Newsweek reports. The vessel, which is not subject to U.S. sanctions, has historically transported Venezuelan Merey heavy crude to China. A second unsanctioned Chinese-flagged VLCC, the Xing Ye, is currently positioned off French Guiana, awaiting loading at the same terminal, Newsweek said.

Via Newsweek

Both the State Department and China's Foreign Ministry have remained mum on the vessels' movements.

The high-stakes voyages come as President Donald Trump escalates pressure on Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro, including a mid-December order for a "total and complete blockade" of sanctioned oil tankers entering or leaving the country. U.S. forces have seized at least two tankers carrying Venezuelan crude in international waters this month, with a third evading boarding. The Pentagon has described the measures as a "quarantine" aimed at curbing revenue to the Maduro government, which Washington accuses of links to drug trafficking and terrorism.

Separately, the Central Intelligence Agency carried out a drone strike on a remote coastal dock in Venezuela earlier this month, marking the first acknowledged U.S. operation on Venezuelan territory, according to people familiar with the matter briefed to CNN.The target, believed by U.S. officials to be used for storing and loading narcotics onto boats - potentially by the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua - was unoccupied at the time, and no casualties were reported. The strike followed a series of U.S. attacks on suspected drug-trafficking vessels in international waters.

Trump first referenced the operation in a Friday radio interview with WABC's John Catsimatidis, saying U.S. forces had "knocked out" a "big facility where the ships come from" two nights earlier.

On Monday, Trump elaborated on the mission during a gaggle with reporters, saying, "There was a major explosion in the dock area where they load the boats up with drugs... That is no longer around."

The White House and Pentagon have declined to provide further details on the operation or its execution. Venezuelan officials have not publicly responded to the reports.

Tyler Durden Wed, 12/31/2025 - 18:20

In Texas, A 400-Acre Muslim Development Sparks Controversy

Authored by Darlene McCormick Sanchez via The Epoch Times,

JOSEPHINE, Texas - This rural town with farmland stretching to the horizon might as well be a million miles away from New York City with its skyscrapers and big-city worries.

But the residents of the Big Apple and Josephine have something in common—controversy over the construction of a mosque.

Perhaps not since the “Ground Zero Mosque” was proposed two blocks from the World Trade Center site of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks has a mosque drawn so much attention.

The proposed 2009 Manhattan mosque and Islamic cultural center was known as Park 51. It faced sharp public criticism for plans to place a symbol of Islam so close to where thousands died from an attack by radical jihadists. Groups such as Stop Islamization of America led protests against “radical Islam” before the project was eventually abandoned.

More than a decade later, as Muslim migration to Texas has increased, a similar uproar has risen over a proposed Muslim-focused neighborhood anchored by a mosque in rural Texas, some 40 miles from Dallas.

Promotional materials first described EPIC City, named after the East Plano Islamic Center, as the “epicenter of Islam in America.”

Following backlash at the local, state, and federal levels, it changed its name to The Meadow.

The development would encompass 402 acres of farmland outside Josephine, a town of 8,800 residents founded in 1888 by a railroad company back when cotton was king in Texas.

It would include 1,000 homes, a mosque, a K-12 faith-based school, sports facilities, a community college, senior housing, an outreach center, and businesses.

Since the idea was proposed, numerous public officials and community members have worked to halt the development, citing concerns about whether the new community would integrate with the local population and asking questions over sharia—Islamic law—and potential ties to foreign Islamic groups.

The development has prompted legal battles, state and federal investigations, and new state laws addressing neighborhood composition and foreign ownership. The ongoing battle included Texas Gov. Greg Abbott classifying some Islamic groups as foreign terrorist organizations; and the White House is considering similar action.

A new mosque is the centerpiece of the proposed EPIC City, described as the “epicenter of Islam in America.” The city was renamed The Meadow after backlash at the local, state, and federal levels. Republican leaders, including Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, and residents have opposed the proposed 402-acre Muslim development outside the rural town of Josephine, Texas. Rendering from Texas legal documents

Grassroots Backlash

The Muslim-led community would be located in an area largely populated by white and Hispanic residents whose religion is predominantly Christian.

Locally, residents have voiced concerns about Islamic radicalization and sharia law in communities they believe may not integrate into U.S. culture, despite the developer’s denials.

Sharia law is an Islamic code of conduct and law derived from the Quran, often at odds with laws and rights in Western countries.

One woman who spoke at a Collin County Commissioners Court meeting in November raised concerns that sharia would replace U.S. law within the development.

“This remains an Islamic-focused community, and Islam is fundamentally incompatible with our Constitution,” she said.

At the Josephine City Council meeting, a resident of Armenian descent said people should be aware that, in his view, Islam is only peaceful when it is not in control.

“Islam is not truly a religion of peace,“ he added. ”Once they get to a certain point in a culture, they start to ravage it from within.”

Most Muslims are good people, he said, but when their religious ideology demands it, they feel compelled to obey. “They don’t speak up against it.”

He referenced historical events, saying the West should consider the Armenian genocide over a century ago under the Ottoman Empire, which imposed sharia.

“We were walked into the Syrian desert until we died of hunger, of starvation. They hung Christian females to posts and lit them on fire as candles,” he said.

As public concerns intensified, state officials stepped up their efforts to address them.

Earlier this month, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced a lawsuit against the East Plano Islamic Center (EPIC), which contracted for the land, and developer Community Capital Partners, and others, alleging violations of Texas securities laws.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton at a press conference in Anzalduas Park near McAllen, Texas, on April 28, 2021. Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times

​The lawsuit claims the housing development would be illegally reserved for Muslim residents. It also asserts that the project’s leaders “lined their own pockets” with funds during development.

Abbott took to social media on Dec. 3, stating the development’s name change does not alter its intent and that at least four state agencies continue to investigate “this misguided mission.”

“‘The Meadow’ will remain just that—an empty meadow,” Abbott said. “EPIC can change its name, but can’t change the legality of the flawed structure they seek to impose. They delete social media posts & rewrite contracts. But it’s just a disguise to impose sharia on a community they create.”

Developers Say No Wrongdoing

​Meanwhile, the Texas enclave’s developers and Muslim groups have denounced the legal action as Islamophobic and a violation of their rights.

The Islamophobia Network, a project of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), produced a report about the development condemning Abbott’s actions as politically motivated.

​“Anti-Islam organizing targeting the Muslim-led EPIC City development project saw bias mobilizing the power of Texas government to deny Muslims their equal opportunities to pursue their dreams and potential,” the report said.

​It denounced what it called “anti-Islam” legislation and what it called “advanced conspiracy theories” involving “no-go zones.”

​The report compared tactics used to stop the EPIC development to those used in the controversy over the “Ground Zero Mosque” at Park 51.

​“We also note that Governor Abbott and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s attack on EPIC City has not resulted in any evidence of wrongdoing to date and may violate Constitutional prohibitions against arbitrary government action,” the group stated.

People watch construction at the World Trade Center site in New York City on Aug. 16, 2010. The proposed Manhattan mosque and Islamic cultural center, known as Park51, drew sharp criticism in 2009 over plans to locate it near the site of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Spencer Platt/Getty Images

​High-profile Texas attorney Dan Cogdell, who represents developer Community Capital Partners, held a press conference in the spring as the pressure campaign against the development ramped up.

​​“My clients are law-abiding Texans, law-abiding Americans, and law-abiding Muslims,” he said.

​​He added that no one associated with the community follows or implements sharia and that Abbott was attempting to “demonize” Muslims.

​Neither EPIC nor Cogdell responded to requests for comment.

State Legislation

Republicans campaigning in the Lone Star state are tapping into public unease over mass immigration and the increase in terrorist incidents, such as the Nov. 26 shooting of two Washington D.C. guardsmen by an Afghan immigrant.

​Abbott is currently seeking his fourth term as governor, while Paxton is running in the Senate Republican primary against incumbent Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas).

In a flurry of activity this fall, Abbott took steps to block foreign threats and developments in Texas.

In September, he signed House Bill 4211 into law, banning residential property developers from creating exclusionary compounds, specifically citing the EPIC project.

Abbott stated that the law bans residential property developments such as EPIC City “from creating sharia compounds and defrauding and discriminating against Texans.”

“The fact is, religious freedom is a central part of the Texas Constitution. But bad actors like EPIC and EPIC City tried to use religion as a form of segregation. We will ensure that we have the laws and law enforcement in place to prevent attempts to build such discriminatory compounds in the state of Texas.”

​Likewise, in June, the governor signed Senate Bill 17 into law, banning transnational criminal organizations and foreign adversaries—including Iran—from purchasing land.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signs a bill at the state Capitol in Austin on April 23, 2025. Earlier this year, Abbott signed measures that would curb exclusionary residential compounds—citing the EPIC project—and restrict land purchases by foreign adversaries and transnational criminal groups. Brandon Bell/Getty Images

On Nov. 18, Abbott cited these laws in a proclamation designating the Muslim Brotherhood, which has ties to Hamas, and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) as foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs) and transnational criminal organizations.

The designation authorizes “heightened enforcement against both organizations and their affiliates and prohibits them from purchasing or acquiring land in Texas,” according to the governor’s office.

Abbott took the additional step in December of asking Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to suspend CAIR’s tax-exempt status, citing longstanding ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas.

CAIR filed its own lawsuit against Abbott and Paxton in November, calling Abbott’s proclamation “unconstitutional and defamatory.” The group said the proclamation falsely declared the Texas chapter of CAIR as a terrorist group.

A few days later, the White House announced it would investigate whether certain chapters of the Muslim Brotherhood should be designated as FTOs. Secretary of State Marco Rubio suggested during a radio interview with “Sid and Friends in the Morning” in August, that designating CAIR as a terrorist group was also “in the works.”

Other leading Republicans, opponents of Islamic extremism and sharia, have weighed in on the EPIC development.

In May, Cornyn said that the Department of Justice (DOJ) launched a civil rights investigation into the development at his request. The investigation was ultimately dropped with no violations cited.

Cruz, who reintroduced a bill in July to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist group, said during a Heritage Foundation appearance that sharia law was a concern at the EPIC development in North Texas.

​Last month, Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), who is running for Texas Attorney General, introduced legislation to counter mass migration. The bill would deny legal status to followers of sharia, known or suspected terrorists, and other groups.

​“Many Americans strive to live their life practicing their faith, while our immigration system is actively importing radical Islamic sharia adherents and communists,” Roy said in a press release.

Demonstrators attend a rally with the Coalition to Honor Ground Zero in New York City on Aug. 22, 2010. The rally was held to oppose the construction of an Islamic Center and mosque near Ground Zero. Don Emmert/AFP via Getty Images

‘A Different Population’

​Simon Hankinson, a senior research fellow at the Border Security and Immigration Center at The Heritage Foundation, said public fears over Muslim enclaves and mass migration are symptoms of a brewing national identity crisis.

Americans fear they are losing their culture and way of life to foreign influences, including those from the Middle East, he told The Epoch Times.

​The foreign-born population of the United States currently sits at about 16 percent—the highest in history, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s January 2025 Current Population Survey.  The last time it was close to being that high was in 1890, when immigrants mainly from Eastern Europe pushed the foreign-born population to 14.8 percent, according to the Census Bureau.

​“But obviously, now the Muslim population is growing rapidly with immigrants from the Middle East and North Africa—and it’s a cultural change,” Hankinson said.

​“So it’s a new phenomenon. I think people, maybe in parts of rural Texas, were kind of used to the certain makeup that they had.”

More Americans are paying attention to immigration policy because it’s impacting their communities, he said.

Social media is awash in posts highlighting the effect of mass migration in Europe, warning that it’s a harbinger of things to come in America.

On Dec. 20, Tulsi Gabbard, director of National Intelligence, warned against “Islamist ideology” and sharia taking over the West during a speech at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest

“This Islamist ideology is a direct threat to our freedom because at its core it is a political ideology that seeks to create a global caliphate that governs us here in America,” she said.

“If we don’t take action to identify this threat, to define it, to call it out for what it is, and take action to defeat it, then we will find ourselves in a place where many European countries and countries like Australia have found themselves.”

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard speaks at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest in Phoenix on Dec. 20, 2025. Gabbard warned against “Islamist ideology” and sharia taking over the West. John Fredricks/The Epoch Times

Hankinson, a British immigrant, said that native-born English citizens are now the minority in London.

​“If you replace a population with a different population, then everything’s going to change,” he said.

​But immigration is not accidental; it is a policy choice that voters make, he said.

Small groups of immigrants with cultures similar to those of the areas they move to tend to assimilate, such as Ukrainians settling in Poland, he said.

​Enclaves of culturally diverse immigrants have been accepted when they are localized and relatively small, he said. ​But large groups of people coming into a country will change that society.

​“I think Americans are noticing, and some of them probably don’t like it,” he said.

Ammon Blair, a security consultant and senior fellow for the Texas Public Policy Foundation’s Secure & Sovereign Nation Initiative, said the mass migration that occurred during the Biden administration was different from past migrations.

​“This is a completely engineered, fabricated form of immigration where it’s done for the sole purpose of eradicating the sovereignty of a nation and state,” he told The Epoch Times.

​Blair pointed to large immigrant settlements that sometimes remain under the control of the countries they left, making assimilation difficult.

Muslims pray at a mosque during Friday prayers in Plano, Texas, on April 11, 2025. Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP via Getty Images

This March, President Trump asserted in a proclamation that the Venezuelan transnational gang Tren de Aragua was part of the Cártel de los Soles, sponsored by President Nicolás Maduro’s regime. Tren de Aragua is known to target Venezuelan nationals in the United States.

Another example would be recent fraud rooted in Minnesota’s Somali settlement, which allegedly funds Al-Shabaab, a terrorist organization, he noted. Since then, President Donald Trump announced a crackdown on temporary legal status for Somalis.

“It all comes down to not just assimilation, but allegiance,” Blair said.

Hankinson said after experiencing immigration himself and watching countries change, he no longer believes multiculturalism works, saying it has probably “failed as an experiment.”

The ongoing debate over the proposed Muslim-centric development in Texas encapsulates larger questions about immigration, assimilation, and national identity across the United States, he said.

“The idea is that we can all live in one country, but we can have completely different values, beliefs, religions, cultural traditions, etc. I don’t think there’s enough to hold a country together without those things.”

Tyler Durden Wed, 12/31/2025 - 17:45

Swalwell Pledges To Arrest ICE Agents And Take Away Their Driver's Licenses

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

Rep. Eric Swalwell (D., Cal.) will not be outdone again.

Recently, Swalwell was outvoted in Congress by a colleague who had died months earlier. 

Now, he is ensuring that, when it comes to violating the Constitution, no one is even close. This week, Swalwell pledged that, if elected California governor, he will arrest ICE officers and take away their driver’s licences.

On MS NOW’s “All In,” Swalwell was asked by host Jason Johnson:

 “What would you do if you are able to be elected as governor of California? … What would you bring to the table as a governor of California?”

Swalwell responded:

“Well, you have immense powers as governor of California and your responsibility to protect the most vulnerable in the state. So if the president is going to send ICE agents to chase immigrants through the fields where they work, what I’m going to do is make sure that they take off their masks and show their faces, that they show their identification. And if they commit crimes that they’re going to be charged with crimes, if it’s falsely imprisoning people, if it’s kidnapping, if it’s assault battery, they’re going to be held accountable. I also think if the governor has the ability to issue driver’s licenses to people in California, if you’re going to wear a mask and not identify yourself, you’re not going to be eligible to drive a vehicle in California. There’s a lot you can do, but most importantly, you have to go on offense. Otherwise, the most vulnerable in our community will always be on defense.”

Democrats appear to be morphing into predecessors like Gov. George Wallace (D., Ala.), pledging to defy federal authority and bar federal agents from their states. Wallace also reportedly threatened to arrest federal officers (and then later backed down when he was threatened with court action).

In an “age of rage,” the most irate and irrational reigns supreme.

From demanding that any Democratic nominee pledge to demolish the new Trump ballroom to opposing parental rights in schools, Swalwell has struggled to find traction with far-left California voters.

However, he is now promising to violate the Constitution. That did not take long. We do not even have a clear idea of who will be the frontrunners in the election. It is like a game of chicken where Swalwell immediately drives off the cliff before anyone gets into their cars.

Ironically, it is precisely what he has accused Donald Trump of doing: disregarding the Constitution when it suits his political agenda.

In case it matters to anyone left in California, he cannot do this. Seizing federal agents sort of went out of constitutional style after the Civil War. The “immense powers as governor of California” do not include dictating what federal officers can wear on their faces or bodies.

The first tiny barrier to Swalwell’s antebellum policies is the Supremacy Clause, which prevents states from “interfering with or controlling the operations of the Federal Government.” United States v. Washington (2022). Since McCulloch v. Maryland in 1819, the Supreme Court has consistently struck down state laws that impede federal enforcement.

Moreover, immunity under the Supremacy Clause (Article VI, Clause 2) bars criminally charging officials who are properly carrying out their lawful federal duties. For example, in 1890, the Supreme Court ruled In re Neagle that a U.S. Marshal had immunity when a state tried to charge him with murder after he shot and killed an individual attacking a justice.

While the Supreme Court has also stressed that federal immunity does not afford federal employees carte blanche to violate any and all state laws, it has made clear that such state limits must be incidental and nonintrusive. In Johnson v. Maryland (1920), Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes explained:

“It very well may be that, when the United States has not spoken, the subjection to local law would extend to general rules that might affect incidentally the mode of carrying out the employment — as, for instance, a statute or ordinance regulating the mode of turning at the corners of streets. Commonwealth v. Closson, 229 Mass. 329. This might stand on much the same footing as liability under the common law of a state to a person injured by the driver’s negligence. But even the most unquestionable and most universally applicable of state laws, such as those concerning murder, will not be allowed to control the conduct of a marshal of the United States acting under and in pursuance of the laws of the United States. Ex parte Neagle, 135 U. S. 1.”

None of this really matters to Swalwell. He is moving from democrat to demagogue in pledging unconstitutional acts to be sure that no one is farther to the left in the California race. It is the same “politics of contempt” that he has displayed as a member of Congress. Swalwell has always distinguished himself by doing things that few others could stomach, such as mocking a female senator over the death threats that she was receiving from irate liberals.

He also may be right about California voters. While others are struggling to come up with ideas for a state that is facing a crushing debt crisis and top taxpayers fleeing the state, Swalwell is promising chest-pounding theatrics…more jester than governor. He will entertain and distract with measures that will be struck down in courts.

It is the modern equivalent of the Roman games, promising combat with federal officers to thrill the crowd. From California and New York, there is an insatiable appetite for lawfare and disruption. Swalwell will promise chaos and confrontation … and many California voters will love him for it.

Tyler Durden Wed, 12/31/2025 - 14:40

Russia Presents Its Evidence Of Ukrainian Drone Attack On Putin's Residence

"We're going to see some escalation now," Retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Blaine Holt has said amid allegations Ukraine targeted Putin's residence. "The Russians have made up their minds and made declarations about who they believe tried to strike the Valdai mansion that's owned by President Putin, and they're going to change their negotiable posture."

For starters, the Kremlin has already indeed made clear Moscow would toughen its stance in US-backed peace talks which seek to end nearly four-year-old war. The fear is also that Russia will use this as an 'excuse' to expand the war.

The Kremlin has presented images of downed drones related to the attack. Russian Defense Ministry via Reuters

The allegation is that Ukraine's military launched 91 long-range strike drones at the presidential compound in Novgorod Region on Sunday night into early Monday, but that anti-air defenses intercepted all of them, and there was no damage or casualties.

The Zelensky government has rejected this account, calling it a "fabrication" and says there was no effort to target Putin's home. This denial was followed by demands for evidence. 

On Wednesday the Russian government and state media have publicized various items of evidence said to prove the attack took place, also accompanied with interviews of various Russian citizen eyewitnesses from the area that night.

Moscow’s Defense Ministry newly released a map showing the flightpath of the Ukrainian long-range drones that targeted the presidential residence in Novgorod Region.

Additionally, Russia's Defense Ministry has published footage purporting to show the debris of one of the UAVs which had apparently been downed in the attack.

The ministry stated that it has "presented irrefutable evidence of a terrorist attack planned by the Kiev regime on the Russian President’s residence." 

The images feature "fragments of drones shot down in Novgorod region, including those with warheads equipped with special striking elements designed to kill people," the statement continued. But Kiev isn't buying it.

Ukraine's Foreign ministry has responded to the video footage by saying it's "laughable" that this constitutes proof the Ukrainians tried to attack Putin's residence.

Russia’s Defense Ministry has released video of what it says is one of the Ukrainian drones downed on Sunday night while flying toward Putin’s residence in Novgorod region. According to the ministry, the drone was carrying a 6-kg explosive charge. Ukraine denies the claim. pic.twitter.com/45EOJ7Zvu6

— Brian McDonald (@27khv) December 31, 2025

Interestingly, Moscow is still trying to keep a sympathetic ear from the White House, after President Trump issued condemnation of the alleged attack on Putin's home. The Kremlin has asserted the failed attack was also "against President Trump's efforts to facilitate a peaceful resolution of the Ukraine conflict."

Tyler Durden Wed, 12/31/2025 - 14:20

Moore: Economists Got 2025 All Wrong

Authored by Stephen Moore via DailyCaller.com,

Well, Donald Trump has done it again!

He stumped the chumps.

The “chumps” in this case were the “blue chip” academic and financial economists whose consensus forecast this time last year was for high inflation and low economic growth. Wrong on both counts.

As you’ve probably heard, the GDP growth for Q3 came in at a red hot 4.3% following 3.5% for the second quarter. Some 90% of the professional economists got it wrong — all underestimating the strength of the Trump economy. QED: these weren’t random errors. These were “hate Trump” errors.

They also predicted inflation of above 3% for 2025. It’s going to come in at closer to 2.7% with the last two months trending down to the Fed inflation target of 2%.

Starting in the second quarter, GDP has been nearly twice as high as predicted.

To quote the inimitable special agent Maxwell Smart: “Missed it by that much.”

This isn’t the first time the whiz kids whiffed on the Trump economy.

These are the same Keynesian economists who warned at the start of Trump’s first term that we would see a stock market crash. (The stock market is today at record highs on all three indices. Paul Krugman, who won a Nobel prize in economics, and wrote regularly for the New York Times for years, famously feared a second Great Depression if Trump policies took hold).

Krugman and others all thought Trump’s tariffs would ignite runaway inflation.

There’s no doubt tariffs did cause a rise in aluminum, coffee and beef prices – commodities that got hit by tariffs as high as 50%. But the economic pundits failed to take account of the disinflationary effect of pro-growth policies like deregulation, Trump tax rate cuts, and pro-America energy policies. These counteracted the impact of tariffs on prices overall.

One would have thought that the academics and media would have learned from their mistakes of always underestimating Trump on the economy. But they seem incapable of self-correcting. They keep doubling-down on dire predictions about Trumponomics.

The latest blue chip forecast for economic growth for 2026 is a measly 1.9% even though the economy has been growing 50% faster than that of late.

This raises the question: why are they persistently wrong? It could be that they are so afflicted with Trump Derangement Syndrome that they can’t see or shoot straight. Or perhaps they WANT Trump to fail so their judgment is impaired. No one likes their theories, orthodoxies, and core beliefs to be proven wrong.

The forecasts of the “hate Trump” sages are about as accurate as a blind man tossing darts at a dartboard in a crowded bar.

If these blue chippers had any integrity, they’d admit that they don’t know what they are talking about.

Fat chance that will ever happen. Instead these prophets of doom will continue to give the entire economics profession a black eye. No wonder it is known as “the dismal science.”

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation or ZeroHedge.

Tyler Durden Wed, 12/31/2025 - 14:00

The Trump Administration's Fight To Fund Scientists

Authored by Paul D. Thacker via RealClearInvestigations,

The panic and outrage were palpable last February when President Trump announced plans to trim reimbursement rates for government-funded scientific research.

“This is going to decimate U.S. scientific biomedical research,” Northwestern University biologist Carole Labonne told Bloomberg. “The lights will go out, people will be let go, and these [medical] advances will not occur,” David Skorton, CEO of the Association of American Medical Colleges, told PBS. “The goal,” University of Washington biologist Carl Bergstrom warned on BlueSky, “is to destroy U.S. universities.”

The sky has not fallen on American research in the 10 months since. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is still paying the same 50% to 70% in indirect costs – the premium added on top of grants meant to reimburse universities for providing labs and other research infrastructure – because lawsuits have frozen the president’s proposed policy. One Trump official admits this is unlikely to change because the administration will almost certainly lose in court. The current system, which provides the lion’s share of billions of dollars each year for often-unspecified overhead costs to universities, has the backing of Congress. As it stands, there appears to be no momentum, even among Republicans, to reform the practice.

“It’s basically a slush fund,” one NIH official told RealClearInvestigations. “We just don’t like to call it that.”

A RealClearInvestigations analysis of these indirect payments reveals a long, largely forgotten history of concern about taxpayer-sponsored research. Although many researchers have cast Trump’s proposal as an attack on science, this issue isn’t the need to fund research activities that sometimes lead to beneficial discoveries, but whether some of the billions that support the necessary infrastructure and equipment are actually being shifted to purposes such as staffing and buildings that have little or no direct connection to the actual research. 

In the late ’80s, Stanford faculty revolted against the university’s high overhead charges for diverting research dollars to a bloated administration and a campus building frenzy. Those concerns are still voiced by some.

“If the universities truly believe that it takes 60-70% of a research grant to provide facilities, utilities, and other basic support, then that is easy to prove by opening the books,” said Sanjay Dhall, a research physician at the University of California, Los Angeles. “I suspect however, that opening the books would reveal that a significant chunk of these funds, or even the majority, are paying an army of unnecessary administrators.”

At a time when the value of college is being challenged because of exorbitant tuition and fees, and the federal government is struggling to rein in debt, the story of indirect funding offers a window into the history of runaway costs and the growing power of college officials. RCI has also learned that NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya has been selling a new plan that makes the grant process more competitive for institutions that were overlooked in the past. 

Indirect Costs Hard To Define

Distributing over $37 billion in grants every year, NIH is the largest funder of biomedical research on the planet, far exceeding the European Commission, which spends around $12 billion, and dwarfing the Gates Foundation’s $1 billion. 

Every NIH grant a university researcher receives provides two categories of funding: direct and indirect costs. The direct costs include all items the researcher submitted as part of the project’s budget, from laboratory equipment to a percentage of salaries.

Indirect costs are harder to define. The funding goes to administrators, and how they use it is shrouded in mystery. What’s more, indirect rates vary from university to university for reasons that few understand and can explain. 

While institutions charge private foundations like Gates a mere 10% and Rockefeller 15% for indirect costs, they charge the NIH much higher rates – 69% for Harvard, 67.5% for Yale, and 63.7% for Johns Hopkins. 

“How do you think Harvard built all those buildings?” one NIH official, a graduate of Harvard Medical School who insisted on anonymity, told RCI. “NIH indirect costs paid for that.”

When Trump first proposed the 15% cap in 2016, Harvard president Drew G. Faust told the student newspaper in late 2017 that she flew to Washington, D.C., to lobby Republicans in both the House and the Senate to stop it. “We’re bringing in quite a bit of money through federal contracts which provide money for a lot of buildings and other infrastructure that makes possible what we do going forward,” a Harvard dean told the student newspaper. “So if that was to all go away, we’d have to sit down and look at that.”

The Trump administration’s proposal to cap overhead at 15% would cost university administrators billions of dollars that they control. Among the many critics was Holden Thorp, editor-in-chief of the flagship journal Science and a former university administrator. He wrote an editorial last February titled “A Direct Hit” that described the cap as a “ruthless takedown of academia.”

“The scientific community must unite in speaking out against this betrayal of a partnership that has enabled American innovation and progress,” he wrote.

In response to questions from RCI, Thorp said any change to NIH overhead funding should be done in partnership with the scientific community. “Indirect costs are used to secure debt on research facilities and were treated as very secure by banks and the rating agencies,” Thorp said. “Pulling all of that abruptly – without following processes with decades of precedent – is certainly betraying a partnership by putting the universities in difficulty with their lenders and bond ratings.” 

Inexorable Rise in Charges

It turns out that concerns over universities possibly misusing federal grant money date back more than half a century, according to Thorp’s own publication. In 1955, the federal government almost doubled the 8% premium paid for university overhead. A decade later, Science reported that Congress lifted the overhead ceiling to 20%, maintaining a flat rate to assure more taxpayer dollars were targeted at scientific research, and less spent on constructing new buildings. Some members of Congress believed that “the universities need not accept the grants if they can’t afford them.” Elected officials also worried that indirect costs would not go to research but to support other university efforts.

“You might be surprised if you read the list of money being spent for research in various universities,” one senator said in a 1963 Science news story. “Not only to pay the teachers, but also to construct buildings and facilities around the school.” 

Despite these concerns, lobbyists convinced the government in 1966 to remove all caps, empowering universities to negotiate directly with federal agencies to set their own overhead rates. In 1966, overhead consumed 14% of NIH grant expenditures. By the late 1970s, it consumed 36.4%. When the federal government attempted to backpedal in 1976 to bring “spiraling indirect cost rates under control,” it failed. 

Both Republicans and Democrats have long championed increasing NIH budgets, partly because grants for research land in congressional districts scattered across the nation. Republicans have often been the NIH’s biggest supporters. Fifteen years ago, Congress launched investigations into the NIH’s poor monitoring of grants that were awarded to research physicians with undisclosed ties to the pharmaceutical industry. Despite the unfolding scandal, Republican Sen. Arlen Specter pushed through a 34% increase in the NIH’s budget in 2009. During the 2013 government shutdown, the NIH was one of the few agencies that Republicans pushed President Obama to keep open. Two years later, Republicans cut many parts of Obama’s proposed 2015 budget, yet gave the president even more money than the increase he requested for the NIH.

Like some elected officials, academics have also long complained that high overhead harms academic scientists by diverting NIH funding to administrators. In 1981, a University of California researcher published a study in Science, which showed how “Funding has thus been markedly reduced, and this has become a critical factor limiting research support in the United States.”

By 1983, indirect costs accounted for 43% of the NIH grant budget. In response, then-NIH Director James B. Wyngaarden pushed to make more money available for scientists by paying administrators only 90% of what they claimed in overhead. 

“[L]egislators tend to sympathize with the investigators who are more interested in seeing federal money spent for equipment and researchers’ salaries in their labs than for light and heat and the services of typists and bookkeepers,” reported Science at the time. 

However, Science reported that Wyngaarden was met with stiff opposition from university officials and their allies in Congress.

When Wyngaarden tried to deal with the matter by sending a report to Congress, Science reported, officials from several university lobby groups shut the report down, calling it not “acceptable.”

One of Wyngaarden’s biggest critics was Stanford President Donald Kennedy, whose school was then charging one of the highest rates for indirect costs. Kennedy convened a group to attack cost-saving proposals, stating in a letter, “The NIH proposals to reduce reimbursement of those costs … will directly damage the research effort as a whole.” 

This effort appeared to succeed until Kennedy himself became ensnared in a scandal that showed Stanford’s indirect costs charged to the NIH paid for a bevy of personal goods and upkeep on a yacht. 

Stanford’s Taxpayer-Funded Yacht

Stanford’s yacht, the Victoria, was valued at $1.2 million and became a symbol of excess, with walnut and cherry paneling, brass lamps, marble counters, and lavish woodwork. Administrators used the yacht as a fundraising venue to wine and dine campus bigwigs. NIH money had paid for overhead to maintain it. 

As Congress and federal investigators dug into Stanford’s accounting, they discovered that administrators had also redirected NIH research overhead to pay $2,000 a month for flowers at President Kennedy’s home, $7,000 for his bed linens, and $6,000 to provide him with cedar-lined closets. Another college official had hosted Stanford football parties and charged the NIH $1,500 for booze.

Humiliated in the media, Stanford was forced to lower the indirect rate it charged the NIH from 78% to 55.5%, and federal agencies launched audits of overhead charges at dozens of other universities, resulting in millions of dollars returned to the NIH. 

With the politics and the media on his side, Michigan Congressman John Dingell launched reforms to indirect charges. Stanford and other institutions were forced to halt expensive building campaigns. President Clinton proposed a cap on indirect costs in a “concerted effort to shift national spending from overhead to funding research.” As in the past, universities opposed the change, and the White House buckled.

“One way or another, I’ve been involved in controversy about indirect cost rates for about 30 years,” a chancellor at the University of Maryland told The Baltimore Sun in 1994. 

Kennedy resigned from the Stanford presidency, as did several of his administrators. Kennedy later joined Science as editor-in-chief – a predecessor to Thorp – while universities’ charges for indirect costs to the NIH eventually snapped back to their former pricing, which continues to this day.

RCI spoke with several academic researchers at institutions scattered across the U.S., working at both private and public-funded universities. None wished to be named about their concerns about how their administrators spend NIH indirect funding, with one professor noting that administrators determine your career, so it makes no sense to criticize their spending habits.

While university presidents say administrators strictly account for NIH indirect funds, the reality appears to be different. Professors who bring in large sums of NIH money, sometimes referred to as heavy hitters, can complain and get some of the indirect costs back from the administrators for their own research and even personal use. At some institutions, department heads can get a cut of the indirect costs to set up slush funds, monies they can dole out to favored professors, or even divert to their own labs.

Professor Dhall said that after he published a March letter in the Wall Street Journal that supported Trump’s cap on indirect rates, he was contacted by colleagues across the country. “They congratulated me on going public and vehemently agreed, in private,” he said. 

A congressional staffer who has spent decades investigating problems at the NIH said that nobody truly understands how universities negotiate their NIH overhead rates. And once that money gets to the university, it disappears into a byzantine accounting system that seems designed to confuse government auditors, who rarely inspect university books.

“It’s a complete black box,” he said. “I wish someone could explain it to me.”

Trump’s Play To Change the Game

The Trump administration will lose the fight to cap indirect costs at 15%, a senior HHS official told RCI, because of the universities’ outsize influence. During the first Trump administration, universities caught wind that Trump planned to cap overhead rates. As they had done for over half a century, university lobbyists ran to Congress to complain, only now they sought an alliance with the pharmaceutical industry.

Responding to lobbying pressure, Republicans in the House and Senate inserted a provision into the appropriations bill in 2018 to block Trump’s attempt to change universities’ indirect cost rates. That provision has been included in every succeeding appropriations bill.

While it does not seem likely that Congress will strip the schools in their states and districts of billions of dollars in funding, NIH Director Bhattacharya has been floating his own proposal to revamp indirect payments to make them more equitable in private talks with members of Congress and university leaders. Shortly before Thanksgiving, Bhattacharya gave a dinner talk to the Republican Main Street Caucus, a group of 85 GOP members of Congress who are critical behind-the-scenes players among Republicans now running the House. 

A dinner participant recounted to RCI that Bhattacharya noted that more than half of the NIH’s money goes to 20 universities located on both coasts. These elite universities win a lion’s share of the grant money, including indirect costs, because they have the money to attract excellent scientists, in part because NIH money helped them build great infrastructure. 

This creates a vicious cycle that guarantees NIH will continue to fund institutions that have already won past NIH money – and which charge high indirect costs. To end this cycle, Bhattacharya wants to break off indirect costs into a separate category of infrastructure grants that universities can compete to win.

During the talk, Bhattacharya said that all the universities in the entire state of Florida now get as much money as Stanford. Yet, there’s no reason Florida could not become a hub for scientific research if the federal government invested in its scientific infrastructure. 

If Florida can provide lab space at a lower cost than Stanford, he said, they should get the money. Bhattacharya also wants to make it easier for academics to take their grant to different universities. If a Harvard researcher is offered more space or better facilities at a university in Kansas, because building costs there are cheaper, that professor should be able to transfer his grant. 

The NIH already provides specific grants for infrastructure, and the hope is that spreading the billions in indirect costs across the country will gain political support. 

“He wants to get this money out to the middle of the country, not just the coasts,” said Congresswoman Mariannette Miller-Meeks, Republican from Iowa. Dr. Miller-Meeks is one of the few physicians in Congress and said she was impressed with Bhattacharya’s talk at the Main Street Caucus dinner. However, she is uncertain whether Democrats would embrace the new proposal in today’s polarized environment.

“I would think there are members from the center of the country that would like to see more money in their district,” she said.

A spokesperson told RCI that NIH remains focused on ensuring that funding is used efficiently and that direct and indirect costs contribute to scientific productivity. “Bhattacharya’s proposal represents one of several ideas being discussed publicly about how to structure federal support for research infrastructure,” the spokesperson said. “NIH looks forward to continuing to work constructively with Congress on this issue.”

Tyler Durden Wed, 12/31/2025 - 13:20

DOJ's Inventory Of Unreleased Epstein Files Soars To 5.2 Million Pages

Already in violation of a statutory deadline and accused of engaging in rampant, unlawful redactions, it's been revealed that the US Department of Justice has about 5.2 million pages of documents related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein that still need to be reviewed, according to a document reviewed by Reuters and inside sources cited by the New York Times. 

The Epstein Files Transparency Act, which was enacted in November, gave the DOJ a Dec. 19 deadline for releasing "all unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials" relating to Epstein and his convicted co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell. It released some 100,000 pages on the due date, but now we learn that first batch represented a tiny 1.9% of the total inventory -- before accounting for duplicates. 

The initial release of Epstein documents included this photo of former President Bill Clinton being embraced by an unidentified woman

With Republican Rep. Thomas Massie and Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna in discussions with other members of Congress about potentially holding Attorney General Pam Bondi in contempt, the DOJ is scrambling to amass a legion of 400 lawyers to work on the enormous task. Those lawyers will come from the DOJ's Criminal Division, the National Security Division, the FBI and the US Attorney's office in Manhattan, according to Reuters, with a goal of hammering out the mass-review between January 5 and 23. Until now, the DOJ has had almost 200 lawyers from the National Security Division reviewing the files. 

Of course, these extra lawyers being recruited into the project have other responsibilities, so the expectation is that they'll allocate three to five hours a day to the Epstein files. Volunteers will be enticed with time-off awards along with the option to work the Epstein project remotely. 

.@AGPamBondi’s most egregious violation of the Epstein Files Transparency Act is not that she ignores the deadline…

it’s that she’s redacting names of accused sex offenders AND internal communications about decisions, wrongly citing old rules that are overridden by new law. pic.twitter.com/LDOmC2emho

— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) December 28, 2025

Last week, DOJ said it had discovered more than a million more documents with potential links to the Epstein cases. Seeking to fend off criticism, the DOJ said:   

“We have lawyers working around the clock to review and make the legally required redactions to protect victims, and we will release the documents as soon as possible. Due to the mass volume of material, this process may take a few more weeks."  

The threat of contempt isn't the only form of heat Bondi and the Trump administration are facing. On Christmas Eve, a group of 12 senators sent a letter to DOJ Acting Inspector General Don Berthiaume demanding an audit of the DOJ's handling of the Epstein files.

Beyond pointing to the failure to meet the Dec. 19 deadline, the senators said the huge number of redactions in the released documents have raised "serious questions as to whether the Department is properly applying the limited exceptions for redaction that are permitted under the Act. Any withholding or redaction beyond those specified circumstances is against the law."

Does anyone really believe that Epstein and Maxwell were the only wrongdoers in this vast, sordid saga? 

Tyler Durden Wed, 12/31/2025 - 13:00

"This Is A Perfect Storm": Martin Armstrong Warns 'War Is Coming'

Via Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com 

Legendary financial and geopolitical cycle analyst Martin Armstrong says everywhere you look there is big trouble bubbling out of control.  

Armstrong sees the perfect storm closing in from all sides.  Let’s start with the war in Ukraine.  It looks like peace was possible until Russia claimed Ukraine attacked Putin’s residence.  Also, just today, a fresh headline reads “More than 600,000 Russians plunged into darkness as Ukrainian drones strike Moscow.”  Armstrong says,

“I don’t see this turning into a real sustainable peace. 

What they are trying to do is get a ceasefire so NATO can send in their troops pretending to defend Ukraine, and what’s going to happen is a false flag. 

They are going to say, oh, they shot one of our guys in the foot, therefore, that’s World War III.”

The extreme unpayable debt situation is worst in Europe.  Armstrong points out,

“Europe is so concerned with this idea of social justice. 

You can go on the Fed website and look at Europe’s miniscule quarterly growth rate and compare it to the United States. 

It’s a tiny fraction compared to the US.  Europe is committing economic suicide.  That’s what this war is about. 

If they don’t get war with Russia, the people are going to rise up with their pitchforks and go after parliament. . .. 

The EU is not going to survive.  It’s going to collapse. 

The computer says we are going into a stark global recession between 2024 and 2028.  The US will be the least affected, where Europe will probably be the worst.”

When it comes to metal, Armstrong says, “People who know war and crisis are coming are buying metals..."

"We have creative destruction.  You have AI coming in and you have unemployment rising and you have GDP rising. . .. You have shortages in commodities on top of this. . ..  Then you have geopolitical nonsense. 

Anthony Blinken (Secretary of State in the Biden Administration) put sanctions on Russia.  Look at the metals.  What did it do?  It cut off the supply of gold, silver and platinum coming out of Russia.  Now, you have China putting in a ban on exporting silver as of January 1, 2026.  

This is rather important.  China controls about 60% of the supply of silver. . .. This is one of the reasons why silver jumped up dramatically. 

This is a perfect storm.  On top of all this, NATO is there only for war.  That is it. . ..

Socrates is still saying Europe will lose badly in a war with Russia.”

Armstrong sees a bull market for gold, silver and other metals for years ahead.  One big reason is shortages in the metals.  Armstrong says, “I don’t see these shortages going away.  The bull market is more likely to go into 2032.  It will be volatile, and then you’ve got war coming.  Once you get into war, prices are going to go up even more.  It’s all a mess.  This is a perfect storm.”
There is much more in the 55-minute interview.

Join Greg Hunter of USAWatchdog as he goes One-on-One with Martin Armstrong to talk about the perfect horrible storm coming for the world in 2026 for 12.30.25

Tyler Durden Wed, 12/31/2025 - 12:35