Human rights groups say that hundreds of people have been killed during mass demonstrations that have roiled Iran in recent weeks, with thousands more detained.

At least 192 protesters have been killed since the mass demonstrations started, said the Norway-based Iran Human Rights group on Sunday. It said that “unverified reports” have shown that several hundred people, or even more than 2,000, might have been killed so far.

“Due to the total internet blackout and severe restrictions on access to information, independent verification remains a serious challenge under the current circumstances,” the organization stated.

A U.S.-based group, the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) said Sunday that at least 538 people have been killed in the government suppression of nationwide protests, adding that 490 deaths were protesters and 48 were members of the regime’s security forces.

Around 10,600 people have been detained, the group reported, adding that the death toll and arrest numbers will likely rise.

The Epoch Times’ Jack Phillips reports that it has not been able to independently verify the group’s reports. The Iranian regime has not released any official figures about the death toll or how many people have been detained.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Sunday that outside groups have been fomenting discord in the country and have been facilitating riots as well as general unrest. He also signaled that the country’s regime would be willing to speak to some of the protesters.

“We have made our decision to resolve their problems with every possible approach … that is why we are holding talks with them on a daily basis,” Pezeshkian said, according to state-run Tasnim News.

Speaking to the youth in Iran, Pezeshkian said that they should “not … be deceived by these rioters and terrorists” and said that those individuals “are trained,” according to his comments carried by state-run media outlet PressTV.

There have been reports from inside the country that some buildings, including Mosques or courthouses, have been set on fire amid the unrest. The Epoch Times has not been able to independently those reports, either.

The demonstrations began on Dec. 28, 2025, over the collapse of the Iranian rial currency, which trades at over 1.4 million to $1, as the country’s economy is squeezed by international sanctions levied in part over its nuclear program. The protests intensified and grew into calls directly challenging Iran’s theocratic regime.

President Donald Trump has offered support for the protesters, saying on social media that “Iran is looking at FREEDOM, perhaps like never before. The USA stands ready to help!!!”

“Iran’s in big trouble. It looks to me that the people are taking over certain cities that nobody thought were really possible just a few weeks ago,” Trump told reporters on Friday. “We’re watching the situation very carefully. I’ve made this statement very strongly, that if they start killing people like they have in the past, we will get involved … that doesn’t mean boots on the ground, but it means hitting them very, very hard where it hurts.”

In this frame grab from footage circulating on social media shows protesters dancing and cheering around a bonfire as they take to the streets despite an intensifying crackdown as the Islamic Republic remains cut off from the rest of the world, in Tehran, Iran, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. UGC via AP

Trump’s comments were made about a week after the U.S. military launched an operation in Venezuela, an ally of Iran, that captured leader Nicolás Maduro on drug-trafficking charges.

About six years ago, Trump ordered a U.S. military strike that killed top Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani, who the Trump administration described as a major backer of attacks on American forces in the Middle East. And over the summer, the U.S. and Israeli militaries launched strikes on facilities associated with Iran’s nuclear program, prompting Iran to launch missile barrages at a U.S. air base in Qatar that led to no casualties.

Some Iranian officials have responded by saying that the country could strike Israel or the United States. A parliamentary speech by Mohammad Baagher Qalibaf, the speaker of the Iranian body who has run for the presidency in the past, issued direct threats to both countries.

“In the event of an attack on Iran, both the occupied territory and all American military centers, bases and ships in the region will be our legitimate targets,” Qalibaf said over the weekend. “We do not consider ourselves limited to reacting after the action and will act based on any objective signs of a threat.”

Via Remix News,

In yet another major blow to the German automobile labor market, Mercedes has announced it will be relocating production of its A-Class from Rastatt, Germany, to Kecskemét, Hungary. While Hungary’s foreign minister is taking a victory lap, Germany’s largest opposition party is sharply crticizing he government as signs grow that Germany’s automobile market is faltering.

Trade Minister Péter Szijjártó has officially confirmed Mercedes move, writes Budapester.

Szijjártó credited the success to “an economic policy based on sound common sense and a stable government that continually attracts new investment projects from global companies in America, Asia, and even Germany.”

However, the news is not being welcomed in Germany, with the Alternative for Germany (AfD) pointing out the dire economic situation the country is facing.

“Mercedes-Benz has stood for German engineering excellence and Germany’s economic upswing for decades. Yet, like many other automakers, the company is cutting jobs in Germany and expanding in other countries. As a result, the entire production of the A-Class is being relocated to Hungary. 20,000 employees are expected to lose their jobs as a result,” wrote AfD politician Christian Abel on X.

“This is a direct consequence of Friedrich Merz’s green climate and energy policies. To make Germany an attractive industrial location again, a genuine economic policy turnaround is needed through the termination of the energy transition, the combustion engine ban, the abolition of fleet emission limits, and the elimination of state-mandated reporting requirements. If this is not possible within the EU, Germany must seriously consider a Dexit,” he wrote.

His last comment has proven controversial in the AfD itself, with the mainline position that a Dexit will not be considered. In 2024, it was reported that AfD co-leader Weidel said she ruled out completely the idea that a Dexit, or exit of Germany from the EU, was possible.

Nevertheless, in 2023, the country lost a staggering 120,000 manufacturing jobs, highlighting serious problems.

However, Hungary, already a major manufacturing hub for German automobile producers, is now set to expand. Production of the A-Class is slated to begin at the Kecskemét plant as early as Q2, with production planned to continue until 2028.

“Hungary is demonstrating economic brilliance at a time when all of Europe is suffering from the consequences of the war in Ukraine and the misguided policies of the EU headquarters in Brussels,” Szijjártó wrote on social media.

Mercedes’ decision proves that investors embrace Hungary’s political stability, low taxes, and highly skilled workforce, with the Kecskemét plant its largest production site in Europe; only in China does the group have a larger capacity, notes Budapester.

Mercedes, named “Most Attractive Employer” in 2024, now directly employs more than 5,000 people in Hungary.

In October 2024, the plant celebrated the milestone of 2 million vehicles produced; in the future, the site will be able to manufacture both combustion engine cars and plug-in hybrids and all-electric vehicles.

Mercedes is also setting up its first R&D center in Hungary. With the relocation of A-Class production, the German automaker is now entrusting three models to the Hungarians, as the electric GLB and the new C-Class were already being built in Kecskemét.

Last December, Szijjártó also posted about new jobs in Szeged brought by Germany’s Rheinmetall as well. “Rheinmetall’s new hall has been completed, which means more than 300 new, highly skilled jobs in the city! Such investments contribute to Hungary becoming one of the most important European centers for future technologies, which is why we supported the German company’s 29 billion forint investment with 13 billion forints.”

The plant will produce high-tech components for both civil and defense applications, focusing on electromobility (e-mobility), hydrogen vehicles, and renewable energy power plants, alongside some military electronics. It’s Rheinmetall’s first major site outside Germany that combines civil and defense activities under one roof, creating jobs and positioning Hungary as a hub for future technologies.

Read more here…

Submitted by Thomas Kolbe

Italian authorities are attempting to force the internet service provider Cloudflare to delete and block certain online services. Cloudflare is resisting and has turned to the U.S. government for support.

The fight for a free internet is intensifying.

The struggle over control of information, censorship, and economic dominance in the digital space is increasingly becoming a fundamental civilizational question. That the European Union now sees not only the EU Commission but also national governments and security apparatuses siding with information diktats, against the fundamental principle of free speech, sends a dangerous signal to the world. The EU has effectively withdrawn from the circle of freedom-oriented state actors.

Into this picture fits a recent report from Italy. A tweet by the founder and CEO of the internet infrastructure provider Cloudflare, Matthew Prince, has caused a stir.

Yesterday a quasi-judicial body in Italy fined @Cloudflare $17 million for failing to go along with their scheme to censor the Internet. The scheme, which even the EU has called concerning, required us within a mere 30 minutes of notification to fully censor from the Internet any… pic.twitter.com/qZf9UKEAY5

— Matthew Prince 🌥 (@eastdakota) January 9, 2026

Prince reports that Cloudflare has been hit with a $17 million fine by a — as he calls it — clandestine cabal in Italy. The accusation: Cloudflare refused to participate in an Italian censorship mechanism at the behest of this group.

A Cabal of Regulators and Media Corporations

Specifically, this concerns a system controlled by the Italian media authority AGCOM (Autorità per le Garanzie nelle Comunicazioni) called the “Piracy Shield.” This blocking system is officially aimed at combating illegal sports and media streaming services. The main targets are the economic interests of major players such as Italy’s Serie A football league, Sky Italia, DAZN, Mediaset, and other large European media and rights corporations.

Private actors, comparable to the so-called “Trusted Flaggers” now familiar in Germany, operate on behalf of the Italian media sector within this system. They report websites, IP addresses, or suspicious domains to the Piracy Shield. The authority then compels internet service providers and infrastructure operators like Cloudflare to implement the corresponding blocks within just 30 minutes. Every advertising minute counts; piracy is indeed a dangerously significant economic factor. The question is: How do states and affected companies enforce copyright? Do they operate under the rule of law and avoid collateral damage, such as backdoor state censorship?

According to Prince, all of this happens without a judicial order or prior review, bypassing due legal process entirely. The measures affect not only allegedly illegal content but also deeply intrude into the technical infrastructure of the internet.

Cloudflare as a Critical Infrastructure Node

Cloudflare has announced that it will legally challenge the fine. As a U.S. company operating parts of its infrastructure in Europe, it is foreseeable that this conflict will quickly escalate to the political level. Prince has already stated that he will present the case in Washington this week. Italy should prepare for an uncomfortable confrontation with U.S. Vice President JD Vance, known for speaking bluntly on matters of free speech. Tricks and maneuvers by European policymakers are well known in U.S. government circles.

To understand the significance of this situation, one must look at Cloudflare’s business model. The company is one of the central pillars of internet infrastructure. It protects millions of websites from cyberattacks, accelerates data flows, and provides fundamental services like the DNS resolver 1.1.1.1. Cloudflare is not a traditional content provider but a digital shield — and precisely for this reason, a particularly vulnerable target for state censorship efforts.

Cloudflare’s current immunity from such interference is largely due to its U.S. headquarters. There, the current U.S. government explicitly supports internet freedom — regardless of European media and political criticisms of Donald Trump.

Censorship Instead of the Rule of Law

The collaboration between Italian regulatory authorities and powerful media corporations exposes a problem: Instead of choosing the lawful path through the courts — for example, by blocking financial flows to illegal services — actors resort to immediate, executive-enforced blocks. This creates infrastructure that enables far-reaching censorship, including against political opponents. Two goals appear to be pursued: enforcing national corporate interests and positioning the Italian surveillance apparatus within the broader trajectory of European policy increasingly focused on internet control and regulation.

Cloudflare’s CEO has made clear that this course could have immediate consequences for Italy. Planned responses include withdrawing free security services for Italian users, removing servers from Italian cities, and halting further investments in the country. Even the pro bono cybersecurity protection for the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics is now in question.

Italy is sending mixed signals. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s government often positions itself against Brussels’ line — critical of the Ukraine war, skeptical of further climate regulation, and more restrictive on migration. That the country opens the door to regulatory arbitrariness in digital free speech is especially perplexing in this context.

Precedent Cloudflare

Cloudflare establishes a compelling precedent. European regulators are likely to scrutinize the legal consequences closely. For the EU, this could become a lever to enforce its own censorship measures more effectively, ultimately blocking unwanted platforms — such as Elon Musk’s X — and further narrowing the corridor of acceptable discourse.

However, Cloudflare, headquartered in San Francisco, is primarily subject to U.S. law. Neither Italy nor the European Union can globally regulate the company, which digitally secures around 20% of global internet traffic. The EU can only exert pressure within its internal market — through fines, proceedings against European subsidiaries, or by steadily expanding regulatory requirements.

That open escalation has not yet occurred is largely due to Cloudflare’s systemically important role for European business, public administration, and cybersecurity. A withdrawal of Cloudflare from European digital infrastructure would carry unpredictable technical risks and, amid rising hacker threats, significant economic damage.

Current indications suggest that the U.S. government will again place its protective hand over Cloudflare — and thus over central elements of free speech. Italy would then be forced to address illegal streaming and systematic rights violations through lawful means, such as cooperation with banks and payment providers. Negotiation, rather than wielding the regulatory hammer to crush fundamental rights, would become the unusual approach.

That calls to expand security agencies’ surveillance — for instance, Germany’s BND — show Europe sliding further down a slippery slope. Free speech risks losing its status as an inalienable right — and could once again emerge as a central civilizational hallmark in the United States.

Even Pope Leo XVI in his New Year’s address warned of the erosion of free speech in Western nations, a final cautionary signal against the descent into civilizational barbarism.

* * * 

About the author: Thomas Kolbe is a German graduate economist. For over 25 years, he has worked as a journalist and media producer for clients from various industries and business associations. As a publicist, he focuses on economic processes and observes geopolitical events from the perspective of the capital markets. His publications follow a philosophy that focuses on the individual and their right to self-determination.

Authored by Jacob Burg via The Epoch Times,

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

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

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

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

What to Expect

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Desperately Needed

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Compressed Timeline

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Peraton to Lead Upgrade Project

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

— Federal Reserve (@federalreserve) January 12, 2026

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

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

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

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

— Barbarian Capital (@BarbarianCap) January 12, 2026

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.