Authored by Jim Quinn via The Burning Platform blog,

I hate shopping. I hate crowds. I hate malls. I don’t believe I had entered a mall in over a decade, until Monday. My visit to the once vibrant Montgomery Mall in Montgomeryville, PA was a shocking confirmation of what I had been predicting about retail stores since 2008.

Next to the term Dead Mall in the dictionary should be a picture of the current version of the Montgomery Mall. If you need visual proof, here is brief video showing how it is deader than ever.

We didn’t go to the mall to shop. My wife bought me a watch from Macy’s (online purchase) for Christmas. I haven’t worn a watch in over a decade and now that I’m retired, have no need for a watch. So we were going to get a refund and then walk around the mall for some exercise, because the weather outside is bitterly cold. The Mall had three anchor stores: Macy’s, JC Penney, and Sears. The Sears closed in 2020. JC Penney declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2021, but still operates as a zombie like entity on the opposite end of the mall from Macy’s. Macy’s hasn’t declared bankruptcy yet, but their business plan appears to be closing 50 to 100 stores per year, until there are none left.

We arrived at the Macy’s at about 11:00 am on MLK day. Ghost town USA. The few employees we saw outnumbered the customers. A store filled with jewelry, clothes, shoes, and other useless crap had no customers.

It took us ten minutes to find someone who could process a return.

Both Macy’s and JC Penney are clearly in an extend and pretend phase. The entire pitiful mall is pretending to be viable, when it is clearly deceased. What a far cry from its heyday – 1977 until approximately 2007. With three rambunctious boys, my wife spent many days at this mall trying to wear them out. When they were teenagers, I would drop them off on Friday nights so they could cruise around the mall with their friends. Those days are long gone.

The two story Montgomery Mall, with 1.1 million square feet of retail space, was built in 1977 by Kravco. Before smart phones, social media and online ordering, malls were the place to go for shopping mothers and teenagers escaping from their parents clutches. Malls were swarming with people, because they were convenient and accessible. They were the mecca of consumerism, enabled by the all powerful credit card. I have lived in Montgomery County since 1990, with three malls encircling me: The Plymouth Meeting Mall, where my employer’s first store in the U.S. (IKEA) and their headquarters were located; The Montgomery Mall; and the king of all malls in King of Prussia.

At its peak, the Montgomery Mall had over 90 stores/eateries. Major tenants, excluding their anchors, included: H&M, Disney Store, Uniqlo, Boscovs, Tweeter, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Strawbridge’s, and dozens of the usual smaller mall outlets. The bustling food court consisting of Chick-fil-a, McDonalds, Sbarro, Subway, and a Chinese place met all the healthy eating requirements. Yesterday, the number of occupied outlets totaled less than 15. It was a pitiful mixture of dynamite retail juggernauts like Cell Phone Care, Dilshal Halal Cuisine, Montgomery Dental, a pop-up Spirit Halloween store, and a mixture of wireless and jewelry repair stores. I think a store selling Vacancy signs would best suit this nearly dead mall.

The death of this now obsolete mecca of consumerism can be blamed on clueless corporate executives, devious developers, feckless bankers, and technology. The beginning of the downfall can be traced to the acquisition of the mall by Simon Property Group in 2003. These corporate raiders use the legal system to organize their holdings in such a way that they can take on massive leverage, pillage the asset, not repay the debt, and walk away virtually unscathed, like they did in 2021 when the mall was foreclosed upon with a $119 judgment against Simon. Simon Property Group is still a thriving entity, with their stock near an all-time high of $184 per share, because they gate off each of their mall entities so they can go bankrupt and not affect the parent company. Ain’t America great?

The bank sold the stinking, rotting carcass of this beached 1.1 million square foot retail whale to Kohan Retail Investment Group for $55 million in 2021. When you buy a mall for $50 per square foot and still can’t make a profit, you got yourself a dead mall. Kohan has been referred to as “the last owner a mall sees”, investing little in the malls it purchases and allowing mall facilities to deteriorate while trying to sell off out parcels to restaurants and grocery stores. Dead and deteriorating is the correct description of the Montgomery Mall. As we walked around this dank, depressing hulk of cement and glass, my “glass half full” wife suggested they only needed to get a few good tenants to start reviving the mall. I reacted like the clown in Seinfeld when George couldn’t believe he had never heard of Bozo. Malls are either dead or dying. There is no coming back.

I guess I should feel vindicated as I had written dozens of articles about the downfall of retailers and malls since I began writing in 2008, including: Ghost Malls: Coming to Your Town (2008), Extend and Pretend Coming to an End (2012), Available (2013),  Retail Death Rattle Grows Louder (2014), Will Sears Survive Until Christmas (2016). The Covid scamdemic put the final nail in the coffin of the Montgomery Mall, and the rise of Amazon and all online retailing put the coffin in the ground.

By purposely killing malls, they forced more retail online, with only electronic payment as an option. Wait until they institute their CBDCs and then can control your ability to purchase based upon your social credit score. Just observe what is happening in Davos to see your dystopian future. AI will tell you what to buy. Hell, it will buy it for you without asking whether you wanted it at all. No need to think, freedom to choose, or ability to say no.

I see the death of the Montgomery Mall and hundreds of other malls across this land of plenty (of debt) as a metaphor for the imminent death of this American Empire of Debt. The bigger things get, the worse they get. With or without physical malls, credit card debt has risen from $600 billion in 2000 to almost $1.3 trillion today. Meanwhile, the national debt grew from $5.6 trillion in 2000 to $38.5 trillion today. The average American goes deeper into debt each day, as the American empire adds $5 billion of debt each day.

Our cities and infrastructure deteriorate and decay (just like these dead malls), while financial wizards think up new ways to rape and pillage what remains of the national treasury. It’s all a Potemkin facade, propped up by never ending issuance of debt, ceaseless propaganda, increasing surveillance state authoritarianism, and no way out. Mall owners (with their bank partners) have been extending and pretending for over two decades. Our country has been doing the same since 2008. But, eventually the jig is up. The current faux foreign conflicts are designed by the powers that be to distract from the intractable domestic financial disaster coming down the track.

When Dick’s closed up shop in the Montgomery Mall last year, they replaced themselves with a perfectly named outlet which describes the mall and our country.

Trump made history last year as the first sitting president to attend a Super Bowl when he showed up at the game in New Orleans, but on Saturday, he announced he won’t be attending this year. 

Speaking from the Oval Office, Trump blasted the NFL for choosing Bad Bunny and Green Day as halftime performers. Trump told the New York Post that the halftime act represents “a terrible choice” that only serves to “sow hatred.” He confirmed his absence from the game at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California, though he insisted the artists are not the reason. “It’s just too far away,” Trump said, adding that he would attend “if it was a little bit shorter.” 

The president made his feelings about the performers clear. “I’m anti-them. I think it’s a terrible choice. All it does is sow hatred. Terrible,” Trump declared. 

Trump blasted the NFL back in October when Bad Bunny was selected to headline the halftime show.

“The NFL just chose the Bad Bunny rabbit or whatever his name is,” Greg Kelly of NewsmaxTV told him. “This guy, who hates ICE, he doesn’t like you, he accuses everything he doesn’t like of racism.”

Kelly added, “This guy does not seem like a unifying entertainer, and a lot of folks don’t even know who he is.”

“I’ve never heard of him,” Trump said. “I don’t know who he is.”

He nevertheless criticized the selection. “I don’t know why they’re doing it. It’s crazy. And then they blame it on some promoter they hired to pick up entertainment— I think it’s absolutely ridiculous.”

According to Entertainment Weekly, Bad Bunny was “the most streamed artist on Spotify in 2025, but he said he avoided bringing his Debi Tirar Mas Fotos World Tour to the continental United States due to concerns that ICE would target his concerts.”

“There were many reasons why I didn’t show up in the U.S., and none of them were out of hate — I’ve performed there many times,” the musician said last year “All of [the shows] have been successful. All of them have been magnificent. I’ve enjoyed connecting with Latinos who have been living in the U.S. But there was the issue of, like, f—ing ICE could be outside [my concert]. And it’s something that we were talking about and very concerned about.”

Last year, a Cygnal poll showed support for Trump’s deportation of illegal immigrants surged with Hispanic voters.

“Among Hispanic voters, 50 percent supported deportations and 48 percent opposed,” Newsweek reported in July. “There was a seven percent increase in overall support since May among this demographic, with an 11 percent rise among those who said they ‘strongly support’ the policy.”

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced last year that ICE would blanket the Super Bowl. “We’re going to be all over that place,” Noem told Benny Johnson in October, declaring that only “law-abiding Americans who cherish this country” should attend. She added that agents would “enforce the law.” 

Green Day has made attacking Donald Trump a recurring feature of its performances for nearly a decade. Frontman Billie Joe Armstrong has altered lyrics in “American Idiot” to target “MAGA,” displayed a Trump mask labeled “IDIOT” at a 2024 Washington, D.C., concert, and led anti-Trump chants during televised award shows. Armstrong has also compared Trump to Adolf Hitler in interviews. 

Turning Point USA, the conservative group founded by Charlie Kirk, who was shot and killed in September 2025 during an event at Utah Valley University in September, announced it would stage an alternative “All-American Halftime Show” to counter Bad Bunny’s performance. Spokesperson Andrew Kolvet said in October that the counter-show would be “a real production” held in an arena.

The organization has not revealed any performers or details about its halftime show, despite the game taking place in less than three weeks. Public relations manager Aubrey Laitsch told TMZ in January that the show is confirmed, but fans must tune in during the Super Bowl to learn the lineup.  

Authored by Susan Crabtree via RealClearPolitics,

The Supreme Court on Thursday gave California Democrats a week to respond to the California Republican Party’s request to block the new Democrat-drawn congressional district maps from being used in November.

The request for a response, issued by Justice Elena Kagan, who is handling the emergency-injunction request for the court, surprised many court watchers.

Given that the justices allowed Texas Republicans’ gerrymandered map to stand, most thought the Supreme Court would allow the Los Angeles district court’s ruling earlier this month, validating California’s new map to stand as well. California Republicans, however, argue that the new maps violate the Voting Rights Act because at least one of the districts was written to favor Latino voters.

The California Republican Party, joined by the Justice Department, Tuesday filed an emergency application at the Supreme Court in hopes of blocking the state from using the newly approved district maps, which target four to six Republican members of Congress, in the 2026 elections.

The request for a response is just that, however. The Supreme Court could still decline to take up the case. The high court is already deliberating over a voting rights case in Louisiana, the decision in which could impact its decision on the California map. In October, arguments concluded in a landmark voting rights case, Louisiana v. Callais, that will determine whether Louisiana’s 2024 congressional map, which includes a second majority black district, is an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. A high court decision is expected any day.

On Thursday, Mark Meuser, the election law attorney with the Dhillon Law Group who filed the challenge to the maps on behalf of the California Republican Party, celebrated Kagan’s order for California Democrats to respond by 4 p.m. Jan. 29.

“Supreme Court just ordered California to respond to our Emergency Application for an Injunction,” Meuser said in an X.com post. “California must respond by Jan. 29.”

In his brief supporting California Republicans, Solicitor General John Sauer underscored their argument, writing that “California’s recent redistricting is tainted by an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.”

The Supreme Court has allowed gerrymandering, and in the Texas case, approved mid-decade redistricting undertaken specifically to win more seats for Republicans purely for partisan gain. It has not, however, looked favorably on redistricting efforts undertaken to consolidate racial minorities’ power.

“But unlike Texas’s map, the [California] map suffers from a fatal constitutional flaw: one of the districts (District 13) was clearly drawn ‘on the basis of race,’” Sauer wrote in his amicus brief.

The California GOP asked the Supreme Court to rule on its injunction request by Feb. 9, when congressional candidate filing in California begins. The party also asked the justices to schedule oral arguments in the underlying case.

The Supreme Court approved Texas’s map, drawn with an eye toward winning Republicans five more seats in the Lone Star state, last month. California Democrats, led by California Gov. Newsom, aim to offset that with a map that could net Democrats five additional seats.

The national Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries’ political action committees then paid consultant Paul Mitchell to redraw the state’s 52 congressional districts. Newsom, arguing that Democrats must fight President Trump’s efforts to rewrite congressional maps in Republicans’ favor, then called a special election last November, asking voters to approve it.

Proposition 50, as the ballot initiative was called, overwhelmingly passed with 64% of the vote.

Newsom on Thursday didn’t address Kagan’s move but commented on the larger issue in a tweet posted Thursday.

“Donald Trump called up [Texas Gov.] Greg Abbott and demanded more MAGA seats in Congress,” Newsom posted on X.com from Davos, Switzerland. “He thought we’d be good little Democrats and respond with an op-ed. Not this time, buddy.”

“I’m not naïve. These guys are going to try to take me down – not just my state,” Newsom added during an interview at the glitzy international economic gathering of world leaders.

A three-judge panel from the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California rejected Republicans’ racial claims in their Jan. 14 order denying the state GOP’s petition.

“Challengers now seek to enjoin California’s use of the Proposition 50 Map, arguing that the predominant reason for its adoption was not politics but rather unconstitutional and unlawful racial gerrymandering,” the judges wrote.

“We have reviewed briefing from all parties, held a 3-day evidentiary hearing with 9 witnesses (including 6 experts), and reviewed a record that includes over 500 exhibits totaling thousands of pages … We find that [the] challengers have failed to show that racial gerrymandering occurred, and we conclude that there is no basis for issuing a preliminary injunction.”

A Cuban diplomat has accused Washington of “international piracy” as the US moves to choke off Venezuelan oil supplies to the island following the Jan.3rd Pentagon operation that led to the ouster and abduction of President Nicolás Maduro.

Carlos de Céspedes, Cuba’s ambassador to Colombia, told Al Jazeera on Saturday that the United States has effectively imposed a “marine siege” on Cuba and that this is the most threatening and serious action imposed by Washington in decades.

“Cuba is facing more powerful US threats than it has in the 67 years since the revolution,” de Céspedes said, after the island-nation has already endured decades of sanctions.

Washington is openly blocking fuel shipments in the Caribbean, he described. “The US is carrying out international piracy in the Caribbean Sea that is restricting and blocking the arrival of oil to Cuba.”

Havana receives an estimated 35,000 barrels of oil a day from its longtime ally Venezuela, and the Cuban foreign ministry has also respond by saying every country has a right to import fuel “without interference” and that “no one dictates what we do.”

President Trump first unveiled the pressure campaign on January 5: “Cuba is ready to fall. Cuba now has no income. They got all of their income from Venezuela, from the Venezuelan oil. They’re not getting any of it. Cuba literally is ready to fall.”

Oil flows from Venezuela to Cuba have virtually already collapsed at this point. But the US administration is still yet weighing a full energy blockade against Cuba, which could unleash humanitarian catastrophe. Politico details of an economy and population under immense pressure:

Conditions on the island have indeed worsened, triggering blackouts and shortages of basic goods and food products. But the regime has weathered harsh U.S. sanctions — and the sweeping trade embargo — for decades and survived the fall of the Soviet Union after the Cold War. Meanwhile, concerns remain that the sudden collapse of the Cuban government would trigger a regional migration crisis and destabilize the Caribbean.

Critics of the Cuban government will likely celebrate the proposal if implemented by the White House. Hawkish Republicans had already embraced the idea of completely blocking Cuba’s access to oil.

Likely there is ratcheting paranoia within the halls of power in Havana at this very moment. We detailed earlier that the White House is also working to identify people inside the Cuban government who could be ripe for making a deal in which they use their position to help oust the current leadership, including President and First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba Miguel Diaz-Canel.

This would be along the lines of a ‘Venezuela model’ – but it is also the case that Cuban intelligence is a lot more experienced in dealing with the American adversary, after many decades of being locked in a shadow war and fight for survival.

Update (1900ET):

The good news for those across the southern US and the Mid-Atlantic is that the massive snowstorm turned ice storm will wind down this evening. In the Northeast, snow will continue overnight. The bad news: much of the eastern half of the country is set for a week of dangerously cold temperatures.

The end is finally here friends!

This last round is DUMPING big flakes on top of it!

We get BRUTALLY cold tonight it feel like -25 in the morning so be ready!

-Michael pic.twitter.com/V2AaPMbSHD

— BAM Weather (@bam_weather) January 25, 2026

Winter weather has disrupted air travel across the eastern half of the US, with nearly 12,000 flights canceled at two dozen airports.

In total today, airlines have canceled nearly 12,000 flights in the United States and more than two dozen airports are closed entirely.

Today’s cancellations:
American 3874
Delta 2367
United 1964
Southwest 1339
JetBlue 592 pic.twitter.com/SFLX2736ls

— Flightradar24 (@flightradar24) January 25, 2026

Government weather forecasters have been in nonstop crisis mode over the last few days, as urgent internal forecasts issued by the National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center reached unprecedented levels. This cold snap and snowstorm represent a high-impact winter weather event.

@NWSSPC meteorologists issued 26 winter mesoscale discussions (MDs) in the past 48 hrs. The most winter MDs for any 2 day period in our database (2008-present).

Previous record:
20 (Feb 21-22, 2011)

Nearly 8000 winter storm reports issued by @NWS offices during the same period. pic.twitter.com/1MnhDdGyLQ

— NWS Storm Prediction Center (@NWSSPC) January 25, 2026

In markets, New York natgas futures surged another 16.6% as winter activity and extreme cold triggered production freeze-offs. If these gains hold, January will mark the largest monthly jump on record.

Natural gas prices are now at their highest level since late 2022.

Reporting on the freeze-offs:

Lower 48 dry gas production is 100.1 Bcfd today, down 9.7 Bcfd from the baseline of 109.8 Bcfd. Cumulative freeze-offs 36.3 Bcf. #NaturalGas #NatGas #GasProduction pic.twitter.com/1L1PTC7bR5

— GasFundies (@RealGasFundies) January 25, 2026

Ice accumulation is a concern for the Haynesville in the next 24 hours, and that could further exacerbate the freeze off impacts beyond the limited regional impact seen through this morning.

The overall interstate drop since Friday has totaled -987 Mmcf/d, with losses spread… pic.twitter.com/5IrtN2b7gI

— Criterion Research (@PipelineFlows) January 25, 2026

Oh shit it’s getting worse…down to 97 Bcf/d…Permian off a cliff, lost 6, Haynesville down 3, NE somehow holding in with @Shalennial out there thawing frozen pipes $natgas #freezeoffs https://t.co/yC4pmw4jrf pic.twitter.com/g8LVI9XEc7

— AuxReignots (@Reignots) January 25, 2026

All eyes remain on freeze-offs this week and the risks to power grids.

* * * 

The major winter storm we’ve been tracking all week is now blanketing much of the eastern half of the U.S., with snow falling from Oklahoma through Louisville, Cleveland, Washington, DC, Baltimore, and Philadelphia, and now reaching Boston.

🚨 Our Winter Storm is in full LUDICROUS MODE, unleashing insane Snow and catastrophic Ice across the Eastern U.S.

❄️ This storm is every bit as big and impactful as forecast – a true Once in a Decade Winter Storm, and it’s nowhere near done.

🌨️ Snow is absolutely DUMPING… pic.twitter.com/0hPHbcMzjw

— Brady Harris (@StormCat5_) January 25, 2026

Impacts are already significant, with the largest surge in flight cancellations and delays since the Covid era: Airlines have canceled more than 10,00 U.S. flights for Sunday, according to the flight-tracking site FlightAware. Most in single day since Covid era. 

every flight at DCA is canceled today. https://t.co/OsAss5Khft

— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) January 25, 2026

FlightAware’s Misery Map of delays and cancellations shows severe travel disruptions across major airports, from Dallas and Atlanta to Washington, DC, New York City, and Boston.

“Extremely cold air will follow, prolonging dangerous travel and infrastructure impacts into next week,” the National Weather Service wrote in an early morning weather update.

Attention now turns to energy risks, as extreme cold raises the threat of natural gas production freeze-offs and reduced pipeline flows, increasing the potential for power grid stress from Texas through the Mid-Atlantic and into the Northeast.

And so it begins. Per today’s early-cycle pipeline data, I calculate that #natgas production will tumble by 4.7 BCF/d from Friday to 101.4 BCF/d, down -1.8 BCF/d vs last year for the first year-over-year decline in over a year. Expect additional weakness a temporary freeze-offs… pic.twitter.com/KcZ4VDJcbF

— Celsius Energy (@CelsiusEnergyFM) January 24, 2026

Related:

• NatGas Futs Erupt As Arctic Air Invasion Penetrates Deep Into U.S. South

• US NatGas Spikes Most Since Ukraine Invasion On Arctic Blast, Major Winter Storm Threat

• US NatGas Poised For Biggest Weekly Spike On Record As “Blizzard Of ’96” Fears Resurface

• Appalachian NatGas Output Faces “Intense Losses” As Arctic Blast Drives Power Grid Risk Higher

• NatGas Jumps 75% As Extreme Cold, Blizzard Risks Threaten Appalachian Gas Supply

• NatGas “Tightening Shock” Sparks Historic Weekly Rally As Major Winter Storm Imminent

• Winter Storm Threatens Appalachian NatGas With ‘Freeze Offs’ As Data Center Demand Tightens PJM Grid

Earlier, the Department of Energy issued a special emergency alert to “mitigate blackouts in the Mid-Atlantic” by allowing power plants operate above “environmental permits or state law.”

“As Winter Storm Fern brings extreme cold and dangerous conditions to the Mid-Atlantic, maintaining affordable, reliable, and secure power in the PJM region is non-negotiable,” said Secretary of Energy Chris Wright.

West Virginia’s coal fired power plants are saving the eastern electric grid this morning pic.twitter.com/ISgR8BuXKy

— savage daughter (@DonnaPrissyrn1) January 24, 2026

Wright noted, “The previous administration’s energy subtraction policies weakened the grid, leaving Americans more vulnerable during events like Winter Storm Fern. Thanks to President Trump’s leadership, we are reversing those failures and using every available tool to keep the lights on and Americans safe through this storm.”

PJM Interconnection is the regional grid operator that runs wholesale electricity markets and grid reliability across much of the Mid-Atlantic and parts of the Midwest and South

The power generation mix on PJM is mostly NatGas, coal, and nuclear, with unreliable renewable power such as solar and wind barely producing power. In other words, fossil fuels and nuclear power are keeping the grid from collapsing as heating demand surges.

Power outage tracking website PowerOutage.com shows nearly 900,000 customers from Texas to Virginia without electricity. Tennessee has the highest number of outages at nearly 300,000, followed by Mississippi with about 150,000.

*Developing. 

Amid the escalating violence in Minnesota, we calmly ask you to cast your mind back a few years – we know it’s hard, but just try…

President Obama gave his ICE chief an award for deporting 409,000 illegals (in 2012).

President Trump’s ICE chief has deported 290,000 (in 2025) and he is called a Nazi.

The ICE chief… the same guy – Tom Homan.

The difference is Democrats’ rhetoric and the industrial crisis-manufacturing complex.

And that is why President Trump is calling for some “common sense” from officials:

“I am hereby calling on Governor Walz, Mayor Frey, and EVERY Democrat Governor and Mayor in the United States of America to formally cooperate with the Trump Administration to enforce our Nation’s Laws, rather than resist and stoke the flames of Division, Chaos, and Violence:

1.    Governor Walz and Mayor Frey should turn over all Criminal Illegal Aliens that are currently incarcerated in their State Prisons and Jails to Federal Authorities, along with all Illegal Criminals with an active warrant or known Criminal History, for Immediate Deportation.

2.    State and Local Law Enforcement must agree to turn over all Illegal Aliens arrested by Local Police.

3.    Local Police must assist Federal Law Enforcement in apprehending and detaining Illegal Aliens who are wanted for Crimes.

4.    Democrat Politicians must partner with the Federal Government to protect American Citizens in the rapid removal of all Criminal Illegal Aliens in our Country. Some Democrats, in places like Memphis, Tennessee, or Washington, D.C., have done so, resulting in safer streets for ALL.

Additionally, President Trump calls for an end to Sanctuary cities:

“In addition, I am hereby calling on the United States Congress to immediately pass Legislation to END Sanctuary Cities, which is the root cause of all of these problems.

American Cities should be Safe Sanctuaries for Law Abiding American Citizens ONLY, not Illegal Alien Criminals who broke our Nation’s Laws.”

And all in the name of “common sense”:

“All of these requests are rooted in COMMON SENSE, and will provide the best possible circumstances to, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!

The Trump Administration is standing by, and waiting for ANY Democrat to do the right thing, and work with us on these important matters of MAKING AMERICA SAFE like it is in all sections of our Country where we are, together with Local Leadership, participating and involved.”

We anxiously await the Democrats’ “common sense” response… which we expect to be “nope! Racist!”

Mainstream media outlets rushed to paint Alex Pretti as a blameless ICU nurse gunned down by heartless Border Patrol agents in Minneapolis on Saturday. They highlighted his work caring for veterans and seized on video snippets showing him holding a phone. The New York Times ran with that angle, running the headline “Man Killed by Federal Agents in Minneapolis Was Holding a Phone, Not a Gun,” and claimed that footage captured Pretti only with his phone in hand, insisting that agents had no reason to believe he was armed during their encounter.

Media outlets are also quick to point out that Pretti held a valid Minnesota concealed carry permit and legally owned the gun, as if that absolved him for his actions against the Border Patrol agents.

Others point out that he had no criminal record, just traffic tickets.

This, they argue, proves he was an innocent victim, not an agitator. 

Walz: “To Americans who are watching this, I’ve got a question for you: What side do you want to be on? The side of an all powerful federal govt that can kill, injury, menace, and kidnap its citizens off the streets? Or on the side of a nurse at the VA hospital who died bearing… pic.twitter.com/NQW4MqkYU1

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 25, 2026

But what the mainstream media isn’t telling you is that Pretti wasn’t just some random bystander.

According to Jeanne Massey, a neighbor, Pretti was part of a “Signal ICE” group chat of volunteers who organized a sophisticated operation to track ICE activity in real time and alert each other when agents were in the area. 

These folks patrol streets, blow whistles, alert residents, and film operations to disrupt arrests.

That puts him not on the sidelines but plugged into the very network that coordinated responses to federal enforcement operations.

Mother Jones profiled the group just last week.

“A new activist twist on neighborhood watch is taking shape in Minneapolis and other cities under occupation by federal immigration agents: ICE Watch,” the outlet reported.

“As Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel drive around these cities, they’re often tailed by people in the neighborhoods. The idea is to make sure witnesses are present for any immigration arrest, to catch incidents on video, and to protest—or at least get the detainee’s name.”

The article described the “ICE watchers” as “passionate, determined, and just about everywhere—and ICE is getting frustrated.”

🚨 HOLY CRAP. They have a full-blown lengthy training manual for leftist insurrectionists stalking, harassing and ambushing ICE and Border agents in Minneapolis

This is a well-organized and well-funded network.

These people need to be in PRISON.pic.twitter.com/RGpNsOlh2b https://t.co/YGJ5CwRY8Y

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) January 25, 2026

Massey and Pretti were part of the Kingfield neighborhood ICE Watch.

Massey spoke on behalf of her neighbors, saying, “Let me be clear: we are horrified, we are furious, and we are not going to pretend this is anything but what it is — another senseless act of violence carried out by federal agents in our city.”

“This is the third time in just weeks that someone has been shot during these so-called enforcement operations, and it’s devastating to see another life taken while our community is trying to stand up for justice and safety.”

Massey explained that she was one of many Minneapolis locals who flocked to the scene where the man was shot dead this morning.

She said that she was there when the ICE agents stormed the crowd and tear gassed the bystanders.

“People here are terrified, but we are also angry — angry that federal agents continue to operate with impunity, with lethal force, with no accountability,” Massey claimed.

“Our city is under siege. No one here feels safe, and that is unacceptable.”

The mainstream media seems to be uninterested in reporting on Pretti’s involvement with his local ICE Watch group.

Similar gaslighting took place after the shooting of Renee Good after she attempted to run over an ICE agent with her car earlier this month. She was immediately portrayed as a scared “Minnesota mom” who had just dropped her son off at school and accidentally found herself in the middle of an active ICE operation.

In reality, she was a committed anti-ICE activist who deliberately sought to obstruct federal immigration enforcement, and was part of her local “ICE Watch” group as well, with which she received training on how to obstruct federal agents.

Finally, here’s how Dana Loesch put it:

Yes, you absolutely can carry at a protest.

Anyone who tells you otherwise is an anti-2A statist. 

No, you absolutely cannot interrupt a federal op while armed and tussle with LEO.

That’s how tragic things happen. 

This isn’t rocket science.

Hard to argue with that.

By Peter Tchir of Academy Securities

The Fed

On the betting apps, it looks like Rick Rieder has become the odds on favorite to win. I like the idea of mixing things up at the Fed and think that having a market practitioner in charge would be an interesting change. If he gets the nomination, expect more of a focus across the yield curve (our view all along of how the Fed will operate in 2026). The balance sheet is less likely to be used as a blunt, lumbering tool (prescribed amounts for well-telegraphed time periods), but rather something to shape the curve to fit policy more frequently.

The Fed – Coordination Should Be Encouraged, Not Feared

I think coordination and cooperation between the Fed, Treasury, and the admin is good. It doesn’t defeat “independence” and has happened in the past – typically, in times of stress, with COVID being the most recent example. I continue to believe the announcement that the Fed would buy fixed income ETFs changed the trajectory of the corporate bond market overnight. For those of you following the T-Report, you know I strongly believe in the ETF Spiral™, where ETFs trading at a discount to NAV help create more selling pressure. It might seem counterintuitive, but that is a hill I will stand on and fight to the end (and have a few times). At the time, even VCSH (a short-dated corporate bond ETF) was trading at a large discount to NAV (more than 3% if I remember correctly). That ETF Spiral™ was adding to the problems at the front-end of the corporate bond market. When the announcement came that the Fed would buy these ETFs, the problem corrected itself quite literally overnight, and the corporate bond market began to heal, rapidly.

I bring this up because:

• The Federal Reserve did not have the mandate to buy corporate bond ETFs. They just didn’t.
• The Federal Reserve did not have the “plumbing,” in any case, to buy ETFs. They weren’t set up to do it at all.

But…

• The Treasury could take that risk, but didn’t have the funds to buy a lot.
• The solution was a “CLO” type of structure, where Treasury provided the “equity” capital. They would take the losses. The Fed could leverage that money, something within their repertoire.
• Voila – the ability to buy corporate bond ETFs was created through a clever interaction of the Treasury and the Fed, both using tools in their toolkit. (I am sure I have overly simplified this, but the gist of the story remains the same).
  • They still didn’t have the “plumbing” and I think it took a month before any corporate bond ETFs were purchased, but that didn’t matter, as the problem resolved itself overnight. That shows the power of the balance sheet on markets (which we witnessed recently again, when the agencies announced greater purchases of mortgage-backed bonds and spreads collapsed even before the first additional bond was purchased).

The morals of the story are:

• Coordination should be welcomed and does not eliminate the independence of the Fed.
• The balance sheet is an incredibly powerful tool, and taking a new approach to its usage, could unlock some interesting new ways to shape the curve.

The Fed Won’t Cut, But They Should

The bond market is pricing in a 0.03% chance of a cut in January (which is also, sadly, the realistic probability of the Bills ever winning a Super Bowl). So, we will not get a cut this week. We are also unlikely to see a cut slated for the meeting in March.

I think the case that the “Neutral Rate” is lower than where the Fed seems to think it is, is a strong one. Miran surprised me with that argument, but I actually like it and agree.

January jobs could be strong. We continue to believe the data overstates jobs in Jan/Feb and understates jobs in the summer, as the seasonal adjustments no longer reflect seasonal reality. Construction has shifted from Northeast-centric to Southern-centric. The “gig” economy has shifted how “seasonal” workers are hired, which along with the earlier start of shopping (especially on-line, where “Black Friday” sales start before Thanksgiving) means the BLS adds too many jobs back in January. In any case, I will admit, I expect a strong jobs report for January, but it will be “adjustment” driven more than reality driven, and my case for cutting depends on other arguments.

The ”crowd-sourced” data doesn’t paint a pretty picture.

The QUITS rate in the JOLTS data remains weak. It has improved a smidge and has been affected by the government shutdown (in terms of preparation of the data), but is still below the average of the past decade. This just tells me that people with the sorts of jobs that can say “take this job and shove it” aren’t saying that. They are keeping their head down and keeping their job because they know how difficult it is to find another job.

While I think the jobs data warrants attention and gives the Fed the ammunition they need to at least look for cuts, I think they are stuck in some mythical world of higher inflation.

Again, many of these committee members were in camp “transitory” which turned out not to be transitory. Many of the people on this Fed were still doing QE when they were already talking about hiking rates. QE does not need to be well telegraphed. For the life of me, I cannot understand why we would be doing QE when hikes are on the table.

Finally, for those who manage risk, you often have “stop losses” because when something goes wrong on a view, it is difficult to change your mind. You don’t necessarily think well. So, stop losses force change. Corporations tend to see “heads roll” if a major strategic blunder occurs. I still do not think anyone from “team transitory” lost their job.

So, we are stuck, I believe, with a Fed that is fighting their own past mistakes. They are too worried about being wrong to act.

Why does OER still exist?

Had the Fed just looked at Zillow Rent, we would have cut off QE much sooner and probably started hiking sooner. Maybe, with the shutdown, and being forced to look at alternative data, the Fed will be more wholistic in their choice of data to be dependent on? OER is fraught with issues. (Only a portion of the market is evaluated each month, and the premise that most rentals are single family homes, is now ludicrous). Even the Cleveland Fed has developed a real-time rent estimate. Why not rely more heavily on that? Housing in CPI is currently overstated and will certainly come down in the next few quarters (just math). So cut now, rather than waiting for this particularly bad data set to conform to reality.

Maybe Truflation is on to something?

Truflation only attempts to capture part of the inflation story. But wow, it is telling a very different story than core PCE (the Fed’s preferred measure). I wouldn’t pay attention, except Truflation showed more inflation, sooner than CPI did back during time “transitory.” Again, had the Fed given this data set some serious consideration, we would have stopped QE earlier and hiked sooner.

The Fed should cut, but they won’t.

Electricity Inflation

If you want to get a room with a hundred or more people engaged and focused on one topic, this is the chart to use (as I learned in Baltimore on Friday).

It has slowed of late (kind of, I guess), but is and will be one of the biggest issues politicians face in coming elections. Enough on that for now, but that is why our ProSec™ theme focuses on power generation, from solar, to coal, to gas, to fission, to fusion (I don’t see wind getting traction under this admin).

Does the EU Need Change?

The German Chancellor said that the EU was the “world champion of overregulation.” If you haven’t seen the Venn diagrams of who leads what between China, the U.S., and the EU, they are funny. There is overlap between the U.S. and China while the EU stands alone on “regulation.”

Hungary blocked the EU from sending a “joint statement” to the U.S. in response to Greenland. Sure, sticks and stones may break my bones, but joint statements will never hurt me, so it was likely to be an ineffective tactic to begin with. But sometimes ineffective is better than nothing. Hungary, at $220 billon of GDP, got to determine EU policy? I get inclusion, but this is going to be difficult if the “weakest” link has control, thereby elevating it to the “strongest” link.

You know that I felt Europe had “one job” in regards to Russia. Their job was to seize the frozen assets and come to the U.S. with “oodles” of money to spend on weapons for Ukraine (with no need to fund the purchases, etc.) Belgium said no. Maybe Hungary and Slovakia did too (can’t tell from AI or from memory).

Not saying that “might is right,” but if Germany and France and others are aligned, doesn’t that mean something?

No idea how Europe will react to so much of what is going on, though I think Europe is going to adopt ProSec™ far sooner than I had expected.

ProSec For Housing Affordability

We could do a whole section on housing affordability and we will. But today it is too cold and the report is already getting too long (though I somehow find myself in Palm Beach this weekend, so guess I should stop writing about the cold). So far, the evidence is largely anecdotal, but I’ve had several really encouraging discussion on this subject.

Production for Security has the potential to create jobs in areas that currently are not overly crowded and very expensive.

Some areas have a high cost of land. That makes it difficult to create affordable housing. While construction costs (especially the materials) don’t vary as much region to region, they do vary (especially labor).

If we can create pockets of new jobs in new areas, it could reduce the average cost of home prices in the U.S. without causing existing home prices to drop much.

That is the key – building new homes in areas that are less expensive to build in makes the average go down, without hurting existing home prices too much (there will be some drag as people move out of some expensive areas).

Just starting to explore this idea, but look at the housing boom that occurred in conjunction with the shale boom. 1Could we be at the early stages of a self-correcting housing affordability solution? New jobs in new areas?

Something to ponder (in a positive way).

ProSec Is Going Global After Davos

During the President’s speech/lecture/admonishment/address/whatever you want to call it, he did specifically say something to the effect of:

• The earths and minerals are NOT rare, it is the processed earths and minerals that are rare.
• This is the point we have been trying to make, and it seems like it is finally being addressed properly. The real bottleneck is in the processed and refined versions. See last weekend’s Production, Security, and Resilience for more on that.

For what it is worth, I think there is more to the Greenland and Venezuela story on rare earths and critical minerals. I think the “surprise” will be not just extracting more from these two countries, but also processing and refining more there. It fits the theme of keeping production of “things” we need in the Western Hemisphere where the U.S. has a renewed focus.

Bottom Line

Stay warm. The Fed won’t cut, but they should

January has been a long month already, only 11 more months to go until 2027.

It was last July 9, when we told readers all about “The Coming Rare Earth Revolution And How To Profit: All You Need To Know About The “Ex-China Supply Chain.” It was here that we said MP Materials (and to a lesser extent USA Rare Earth Corp) was best positioned to capitalize as global rare earth trade flows and pricing adjust over the coming years (also, as a reference, that’s when USA Rare Earth was trading below $10/share).

One day later, anyone who listened to our advice made their year, when MP Materials soared 50% after the US shocked markets by announcing the Pentagon had become the largest shareholder in the rare earths company. 

MP Materials Shares Surge 50% As Pentagon To Become Largest Shareholder https://t.co/qltUY1sHL3

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) July 10, 2025

Since then we had repeatedly pounded the table on USAR as the “other” major domestic REE company, pointing out repeatedly…

USA Rare Earth Shares Jump After Accelerating Timeline For Commercial Production By Two Years https://t.co/ufJ9i27s6e

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) December 10, 2025

… both that USAR is next on the Trump Capital, LP investment list, and warning the record number of shorts in the name to take cover while they have the chance, culminating with our note from Friday in which we pointed out abnormal buying activity in USAR calls. 

USA Rare Earth (USAR) gamma squeeze (or just takeover bet): more than 8k of June $43 calls were bought for up to ~$3

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) January 22, 2026

Less than 48 hours later we hit jackpot, after the FT reported that in its second major rare earth investment, the Trump administration would inject $1.6BN  into USA Rare Earths, just as we had said all along – surpassing the “mere” $400 million preferred stock investment by the Pentagon in MP Materials – the largest US investment in the sector to date, as it scrambles to shore up supplies of key minerals.

In exchange for the investment, the US government will receive a 10% stake in the Oklahoma-based USA Rare Earth, which controls significant US deposits of heavy rare earths. 

The government investment and a separate $1bn private financing deal are expected to be announced on Monday.

According to FT sources, the government would get 16.1 million shares in USA Rare Earth and warrants for another 17.6 million, both at a price of $17.17. The government agreed to pay $277mn for the equity, giving it an implied gain of $490mn for the equity and warrants based on the current share price of $24.77.

The deal marks the latest example of the Trump administration’s efforts to intervene in parts of the private sector viewed as critical to US national security, including taking a 10% stake in Intel, which we also called ahead of time. 

The Pentagon took a stake in US rare earth miner MP Materials… when will it do the same with Intel

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) August 7, 2025

USA Rare Earth will also receive $1.3bn in senior secured debt financing at market rates from the government. The money will come from a finance facility created for the commerce department as part of the CHIPS and Science Act passed in 2022. A commerce official said the department completed the transaction directly with the company.

While the commerce department declined to discuss the deal, an official in the Chips office – a part of the commerce department housed at the National Institute of Standards and Technology that led the negotiations – said it was “focused on onshoring critical and strategic mineral essential to the semiconductor supply chain and US national security”. 

Or precisely what we said in July before the first MP Materials investment was disclosed

USA Rare Earth has separately tapped Cantor Fitzgerald, the Wall Street firm previously owned by commerce secretary Howard Lutnick and now run by his sons, to raise more than $1bn in fresh equity financing, the people said. It is not directly related to the deal with the government.

As the FT notes, a condition of the government investment in USA Rare Earth was that the company raise at least an additional $500mn from investors. It is on track to raise more than $1bn because of high demand for the financing deal, which uses a mechanism known as a private investment into a public equity, often called a “Pipe”.

Cantor’s involvement comes as the investment bank once led by Lutnick, one of Trump’s most prominent cabinet members, has expanded its investment banking capabilities to benefit from the president’s “America first” agenda. Cantor did not play a role in advising on the US government investment in USA Rare Earth.

USA Rare Earth, which has a market value of $3.7bn, is developing a huge mine in Sierra Blanca, Texas that it says contains 15 of the 17 rare earth elements underpinning production of cell phones, missiles and fighter jets. It also plans to open a magnet production facility in Stillwater, Oklahoma. 

Last year, the Trump administration invested in at least six minerals companies, including MP Materials, Trilogy Metals and Lithium Americas. But its investment in USAR Is by far the biggest. 

Shares in USA Rare Earth have more than doubled this year, helped by a 40% jump this week, and are up 150% since we first recommended the stock last July.

And now that the company has the explicit backing of the US government, if the Intel deal is any indication of what is coming, expect USAR stock to more than double from here, although when adding the record short interest in the equation…

… we just may see a historic surge in the stock when it opens for trading on Monday.

Submitted by Thomas Kolbe

The mid-19th century Gold Rush earned California the nickname “Golden State.” Over generations, the region became a place of aspiration— a projection screen for ambition and prosperity. Here, the American Dream coalesced into tangible stories of social mobility. Today, the state has become the stage for a political experiment that mirrors Europe’s globalist ideology.

This year’s World Economic Forum in Davos was entirely overshadowed by Donald Trump’s speech. The U.S. President declared the centrally planned EU-style climate socialism a failure, sending a chill through those who had benefited economically from the past years’ policies and fully embraced the green transformation agenda.

A politician who seems particularly devoted to this European-style centralist approach is California Governor Gavin Newsom. The day after Trump’s grand Davos performance, Newsom had the chance to present his perspective—a performance that quickly struck observers as bizarre. He labeled the Western leaders’ response to Trump’s policies as pathetic, accusing them of cowardice and bowing to the Trump administration. Symbolically, he carried a pair of bright red Trump Signature Knee Pads as a political prop, claiming he should have brought a full set for every world leader.

This hardly reflects the conduct of a serious statesman, particularly as his policies at home have generated genuine economic problems and deep social upheavals.

California on a Green Course

Newsom, a prospective Democratic presidential hopeful, governs the world’s fourth-largest economy—if California were its own nation.

He stages himself as a champion of the supposedly progressive, preferring the role of climate activist over that of a sober governor. The 2024 California wildfire disaster was apodictically attributed by him, in a blunt “Basta-style,” to climate change—opportunistic, eager to push through his climate agenda in the immediate shock of catastrophe.

Repeatedly, the state-induced water shortages in California are stylized as consequences of extreme drought linked to CO₂ emissions. California finds itself trapped in a familiar argumentative loop: every storm, every hail event is reinterpreted as a climate catastrophe, while normal conditions recede behind a veil of media-induced panic.

Newsom would prefer to exclude skeptics of the CO₂ debate from political discourse—a faint echo of Daniel Günther, but in woke-American design. Under his governance, California has become North America’s LGBTQ mecca: gender politics over academic excellence, paternalistic state control replacing the principle of autonomous individual action. The American spirit of the minimal state, which respects private life, is disappearing piece by piece in Newsom’s California.

Since taking office in 2019, California has mirrored the European Union in textbook fashion. The state has become the U.S. model for the most radical implementation of the Green Deal. Regulatory codes for industry, agriculture, and transportation read like translations of Brussels’ bureaucratic playbook.

As in the EU, California’s green transformation and debt-financed subsidy machinery have rapidly driven up public debt: over the past three years, the budget deficit reached roughly $110 billion, and the total debt now stands at $1.8 trillion—including unfunded social obligations.

Debt King Newsom governs his ideal state on clay feet.

One wonders at the audacity of his Davos performance as a supposed savior of the American Dream. Of course, it was home turf. In the WEF halls, at the heart of globalist think tanks, there is still faith in a centrally planned Net-Zero economy—without crashing the existing economic model or provoking a severe societal crisis.

In California, CO₂ emissions are to end by 2045. The cult lives, beneath the state’s radiant sun, which has simultaneously spawned a veritable homeless industry alongside its green art economy.

During Newsom’s tenure, a hybrid system of state-funded private homelessness care emerged. The number of beneficiaries managed by California’s social complex has multiplied tenfold to 180,000. Much like in Minnesota, where a network of Somali immigrant-run daycares created a tax-extraction model, California has a comparable system: poverty is managed and monetized, with major beneficiaries being Democratic Party members—a vast political donation machine ensuring campaign financing for future elections.

Ever-Increasing Taxes

California’s increasingly centralist regulatory policies are matched by aggressive fiscal measures aimed at delaying the inevitable economic collapse. Alongside heavy burdens on the middle class, businesses, and rising social contributions, a so-called billionaire tax is nearing enactment—a populist instrument, mirroring Germany’s current policy moves. In the 2026 super-election year, Germany’s ruling coalition seeks moral credibility by blaming the wealthy for social and economic decay. Similarly, future inheritance taxes on mid-sized corporate assets are planned. It sells well, a sound of social justice, distracting from the true culprits of the crisis.

This is Newsom in full form. California — a slice of Europe on the American West Coast.

Of course, Newsom’s billionaire tax is a Trojan horse. Once codified, the initially one-time plunder of the private wealth of roughly 200 California billionaires will soon be recast as a recurring “public welfare” levy: five percent of total net worth, payable once, or stretched over five years.

As usual, politics disregards that this capital is often tied up in corporate investments, funding the future of the state and securing jobs. Newsom needs liquidity. The green transformation must be funded—especially as the Trump administration in Washington deregulates the energy sector, prompting businesses to flee California in droves. The Red States are in demand now more than ever.

California billionaires voice unified disapproval. Larry Page, former CEO of Alphabet/Google, spins off parts of his companies to Delaware. Elon Musk had long since relocated Tesla. Peter Thiel, co-founder of Palantir, moves capital to Miami, Florida. David Sachs of Craft Ventures also leaves California for Austin, Texas.

The green transformation chaos has become a boost for U.S. business locations that value private property and market freedom.

We know this industrial exodus from Germany—a near-identical outcome under the same policies. And, like the German government under Friedrich Merz, which layers media spectacles over economic decline alongside the EU Commission, Newsom stages his media skirmishes with Donald Trump. The NGO-prince Newsom rhetorically flees into moralism. His tax-funded social state shields him from economic reality, capital flight, and growing criticism over misplaced priorities.

In Europe, this sound is all too familiar. It preempts criticism that grows louder as Net-Zero policies produce severe collateral damage and social upheaval. The solutions preferred by Newsom and the EU complex follow the same controlled green socialism principle: social scoring models based on individual carbon footprints, a maximalist censorship apparatus in social media, and digital central bank currencies granting the state total power over the private sector. Society is forcibly molded to fit the political ideology—regardless of the cost. Woke softening rhetoric attempts to paint this new socialism in gentle tones, masking its brutal reality.