Authored by Waters, Ellwanger & Calvin via RealClearHistory,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And Prometheus tore that down …

Yes.

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

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

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

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

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

Key details about the consumer that Briggs provided clients:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Authored by Kevin Stocklin via The Epoch Times,

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

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

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

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

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

Corporate Alliances Proliferate

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

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

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

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

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

ESG Critics Cheer

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Climate Activists Respond

Advocates for net-zero policies were less complimentary.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

For example, here’s AOC – a vocal critic of Israel, slamming Hamas supporters protesting in a Jewish neighborhood as a “disgusting and antisemitic thing to do.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

Guys, something is happening.

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

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

— Clandestine (@WarClandestine) January 10, 2026

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

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

Or maybe it’s just polling related.

Or maybe related to Iran.

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

— Clandestine (@WarClandestine) January 10, 2026

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

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

— Saggezza Eterna (@FinalTelegraph) January 10, 2026

Maybe one just has to follow the money?

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

It’s very funny.

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

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

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

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

Democrats in 2026…

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

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

— Eyal Yakoby (@EYakoby) January 9, 2026

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

Mamdani’s base

pic.twitter.com/wQzTKE1CwZ

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) January 9, 2026

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

— @amuse (@amuse) January 11, 2026

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

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

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

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

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

Smith replied:

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

The comment is entirely and shockingly wrong.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Post wrote:

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

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

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

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

Bravo.

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

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

Authored by Thaddeus McCotter via American Greatness,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Temerity.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) January 9, 2026

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

So, someone’s lying…

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

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

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

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

The Rift

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Authored by Ryan Morgan via The Epoch Times,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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