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.      

By Peter Tchir of Academy Securities

Fast And Furious 47

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

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

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

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

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

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

Then on the economic front, we had:

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

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

Midterm Elections are Driving Everything

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

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

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

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

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

The point we are trying to make is twofold:

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

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

Out of the Box on Interest Rates

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

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

My view on rates is:

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

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

A “Fun” Fast and Furious Story

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

But he had a story that outdid them all.

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

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

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

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

ProSec Needs You!

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

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

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

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

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

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

You Need ProSec

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

Holy Corporate Bond Market!

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

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

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

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

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

Bottom Line

Two biggest threats to risk markets:

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

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

• The bond market drifts towards our outlook on rates.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bartlett noted:

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

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

Lenovo Legion Pro Rollable

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

Asus ROG Swift OLED PG34WCDN

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

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

Best 2-in-1 Laptop: Asus Zenbook Duo

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

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

Roborock Saros Rover

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

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

Hisense RGB MiniLED 116UXS

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

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

Previous reporting on the tech show:

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

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

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

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Illegal Drivers in California

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The multi-national “Will for Peace 2026” naval exercises began Saturday off the coast of Cape Town, hosted by South Africa, and is set to run for one week. It is widely being described as a BRICS and “BRICS+” naval drill and saw a Russian warship arrive off South Africa’s primary naval base on Friday.

The Russians joined Chinese and Iranian vessels for the drills, along with other BRICS members Indonesia, Ethiopia and Brazil – which participated as observers. The nation heading up the drill is China, and it’s being seen as an attempt of BRICS and Global South countries to flex their collective military might in the wake of the Trump-ordered ousting of Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro. The other members of the bloc – India, Egypt and Saudi Arabia – are not represented at the drills.

Naturally it is especially Iran which could be a ripe target for the next Trump regime change action, as it’s not yet gone nuclear. But Tehran wants to showcase its much more powerful nuclear-armed friends China and Russia, which have defense and economic cooperation agreements with the Islamic Republic.

South Africa’s defense force has described that the exercises will allow participating navies “to exchange best practices and improve joint operational capabilities, which contributes to the safety of shipping routes and overall regional maritime stability.”

This will make already somewhat strained relations with Washington even more delicate for Pretoria. With this US relationship in mind, a separate statement emphasized that the drills were organized and agreed to significantly before last weekend’s US strikes on Venezuela.

But tensions have ratcheted particularly after Washington expelled South Africa’s ambassador last year and slapped the country with 30% trade tariffs. The Trump administration has also long complained about violent persecution against South Africa’s minority White farmer population.

BBC provides some further background as follows:

Some commentators have questioned why Brics+ members are carrying out military exercises together, given the grouping is an economic alliance. “There are members of Brics+ that are diametrically opposed to each other politically and even have hot border skirmishes between them,” defence analyst Dean Wingrin told the BBC.

It is not the first time South Africa has had naval exercises with China and Russia. The first was called “Mosi”, which means “smoke” in South Africa’s Tswana language, and took place in 2019 with little fanfare.

🇿🇦⚓️ Multinational naval exercises “Will for Peace 2026” have begun in SA’s territorial waters.

Based in Simon’s Town, the drills involve navies of China and South Africa, with ships from Russia and Iran participating.

The exercises focus on maritime security & safe navigation. pic.twitter.com/LvRUNy5MQV

— Russian Embassy in South Africa 🇷🇺 (@EmbassyofRussia) January 9, 2026

But as for wanting to distance itself from being seen as ‘too close’ to China and Russia, a South African Defense Ministry official has described to AFP, “Let us not press panic buttons because the USA has got a problem with countries,” and that “Those are not our enemies” – in vague reference to the US and Western alliance.

“Let’s focus on cooperating with the BRICS countries and make sure that our seas, especially the Indian Ocean and Atlantic, they are safe,” the official added.