Avert your eyes! My Sunday morning look at incompetency, corruption and policy failures:

• Partying at Mar-a-Lago with the New MAGA Media Stars: While major news outlets obsessed over the anticipated release of the Epstein files, Trump-friendly news influencers celebrated how far they’ve come. (Columbia Journalism Review)

• Meta created ‘playbook’ to fend off pressure to crack down on scammers, documents show: As regulators press Meta to crack down on rogue advertisers on Facebook and Instagram, the social media giant has drafted a “playbook” to stall them. Internal documents seen by Reuters reveal its tactics, including efforts to make scam ads “not findable” when authorities search for them. (Reuters)

• Inside China’s Shadow LNG Fleet Offering a Lifeline to Putin: A clandestine operation involving shell companies and high-seas maneuvers is keeping the Sino-Russian energy trade afloat. (Bloomberg)

• Satellites show dozens of U.S. dams are sinking. More could be at risk. Researchers detected subtle shifts in the height of all 41 structures they studied in 13 states and Puerto Rico. (Washington Post)

• Tesla Loses Its EV Crown to BYD as Sales Keep Dropping: Full-year electric vehicle sales figures have dropped for 2025, revealing China’s BYD is now officially global top dog. (Wired) see also China’s BYD set to overtake Tesla as world’s top EV seller: On Thursday, BYD said that sales of its battery-powered cars rose last year by almost 28% to more than 2.25 million. Tesla, which is due to reveal its total sales for 2025 later on Friday, last week published analyst’s estimates suggesting that it had sold around 1.65 million vehicles for the year as a whole. (BBC) see also Tesla’s Vanishing Order Hastens Fall of an $800 Million Fortune: Shares in L&F Co., a producer of high-nickel cathodes used in electric-vehicle batteries, have fallen more than 70% from their 2023 peak, which was fueled by a massive Tesla order then valued at $2.9 billion. On Monday, the company disclosed that the contract value had been restated to just $7,386 — a 99% reduction. (Bloomberg)

• So This Is Why Trump Didn’t Want to Release the Epstein Files: The latest batch includes many new references to Trump—and enough ammunition for Congress to keep pressing. (The Atlantic)

• How Project 2025 kneecapped the US press. The Heritage Foundation’s road map for a conservative presidency proposed sweeping media reforms. Trump carried out most of them—and he has three years left. (Columbia Journalism Review)

• Nick Shirley’s Somali Daycare Fraud Video Is Bullsh*t. Here’s Why It Worked Anyway. A breakdown of the disinformation tactics used in the viral video. (Weaponized)

• Erasing the Verdict: The Ongoing Shock of Trump’s Cocaine Kingpin Pardon: Donald Trump’s pardon of Juan Orlando Hernández, the former president of Honduras, toppled the capstone of one of the most ambitious narcotics investigations in the history of the Department of Justice. (Businessweek) See also The year Trump broke the federal government: How DOGE and the White House carried out a once-unthinkable transformation of the nation’s sprawling bureaucracy. (Washington Post)

• Can We Trust Social Science Yet? Everyone likes the idea of evidence-based policy, but it’s hard to realize it when our most reputable social science journals are still publishing poor quality research. (Asterisk)

Be sure to check out our Masters in Business interview this weekend with Stephanie Drescher, Apollo’s Chief Client and Product Development Officer. She oversees everything from the global wealth business to portfolio management, product development, and client marketing. She is a member of the firm’s leadership team. Since 2020, Barron’s has named her annually to its list of the 100 Most Influential Women in U.S. Finance.

 

The largest start-up losses in history

Source: Deutsche Bank

 

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The Misinformation Inquisition: How Censorship Shields Approved Narratives From Scrutiny

Authored by Tilak Doshi via Substack,

As the year drew to a close, the guardians of climate orthodoxy once again unleashed their ritualistic howls of indignation at the actions of the Trump administration. Last week’s op-ed in The Guardian, Bob Ward and Michael Mann—attack dogs of the alarmist establishment—likened the US government’s decision to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) to tyranny, “paid for” by fossil fuel interests. Their op-ed opens with the astonishing claim that the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin “would have understood and even appreciated” Trump’s actions.

They accuse President Trump of suppressing climate science, evoking the spectre of Lysenkoism, that infamous episode where ideology trumped empirical inquiry under Stalin’s regime. The irony is exquisite even if lost on its progenitors. Here are two figures who have spent their careers calling for the cancelling of dissenters, now projecting their own sins onto a political leader intent on liberating science from ideological captivity.

An Orwellian Malignancy

This latest salvo is no aberration but a symptom of a deeper malaise. The climate alarmist narrative, much like its twin in the COVID-19 hysteria, relies on a censorship complex that brands any deviation as “misinformation.” Ward, a fixture in the environmental NGO circuit, has long specialized in ad hominem attacks on respected academics like Richard Lindzen and Richard Tol, dismissing their peer-reviewed critiques as heresy. Mann, infamous for his “hockey stick” graph that conveniently erased historical climate variability to fabricate a crisis, has faced courtroom rebukes for his litigious zeal. In his defamation suits, judges have accused him and his legal team of misleading tactics, underscoring the fraudulence of his claims. Yet, in the pages of The Guardian—that reliable echo chamber for green ideologues—the pair inverts reality, portraying Trump’s defunding of activist institutions as censorship, when it is precisely the opposite.

Consider the economic and institutional realities underpinning this charade. NCAR, after over five decades, has devolved into a taxpayer-funded propaganda mill, churning out models that predict apocalyptic futures while ignoring the stubborn facts of atmospheric physics and human adaptation. The Trump administration’s move to shutter it aligns with a broader push to restore scientific integrity, as outlined in the president’s “Gold Standard Science“ executive order. This directive mandates transparency in federally funded research, ensuring that models and data are replicable and free from the biases that plague alarmist projections. Far from Stalinist suppression, this is a reclamation of science from the clutches of unelected bureaucrats and their NGO allies, who funnel billions into “climate education” grants that invariably promote one-sided advocacy. NOAA, for instance, routinely awarded multimillion-dollar sums to nonprofits peddling green dogma, all under the guise of environmental stewardship.

The parallels with the COVID-19 debacle are striking, revealing how the misinformation label serves as a blunt instrument for silencing debate across scientific domains. Just as climate skeptics are tarred as “deniers,” COVID dissenters were branded spreaders of falsehoods. Stanford’s Jay Bhattacharya, a leading epidemiologist, recently highlighted this hubris in a post on X: the notion that a cabal of bureaucrats and activist scientists can infallibly discern truth from error on complex matters is not just arrogant—it’s delusional. Bhattacharya himself endured censorship orchestrated by Anthony Fauci who among others in the medical establishment pressured social media platforms to throttle views challenging lockdowns and vaccine mandates.

Across the Atlantic, the European Union’s censorship regime under European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen exemplifies this technocratic overreach. The unelected Eurocrat boasts of safeguarding free speech against “harmful and illegal activities” online with its Digital Services Act. It aims to restrict media platforms which host “disinformation” and critical views on mass immigration, the Ukraine conflict, or the ruinous costs of the green agenda in Europe.

In a rant that would impress Orwell, Ms. Von der Leyen speaks about how “pre-bunking” is preferable to “de-bunking” alleged untruths and where alleged “misinformation” is a virus:

“…we need to build up societal immunity around information manipulation, because research has shown that pre-bunking is much more successful than debunking. Pre-bunking is basically the opposite of debunking. In short, prevention is preferable to cure. Perhaps if you think of information manipulation as a virus—instead of treating an infection once it has taken hold, that is debunking—it’s much better to vaccinate so that the body is inoculated.”

Where have we heard that vaccination/inoculation story before? Perhaps we should not digress into Ms. Von der Leyen’s missing SMS phone messages which sealed the EU’s deal for 1.8 billion doses of corona “vaccine” costing €35 billion negotiated with Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla.

In New Zealand, former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern went further, declaring government sources the sole arbiters of COVID truth, effectively criminalizing legitimate critiques from sceptical doctors and scientists upholding their Hippocratic oath. This Orwellian stance—where state-approved narratives are sacrosanct—mirrors the climate arena, where questioning net-zero fantasies invites professional ruin.

The Trumpian Pushback

The EU’s Digital Services Act plans to coerce social media giants into suppressing content that challenges Brussels’ orthodoxies, leading to a chilling effect on open discourse throughout the world. Earlier in the month, the European Commission fined Elon Musk’s X $140 million for “failing to comply” with regulations. But it is now a Trumpian world which frustrates Eurocrats to no end. America’s commitment to First Amendment principles clashes with Europe’s slide into regulatory authoritarianism. The US house judiciary committee describes the digital regulations as censorship which is “largely one-sided, almost uniformly targeting political conservatives.”

The US Secretary of State Marco Rubio shot back last week:

“For far too long, ideologues in Europe have led organized efforts to coerce American platforms to punish American viewpoints they oppose. The Trump Administration will no longer tolerate these egregious acts of extraterritorial censorship. Today, @StateDept will take steps to bar leading figures of the global censorship-industrial complex from entering the United States. We stand ready and willing to expand this list if others do not reverse course.”

The U.S. state department’s sanctions on NGO leaders and a former EU official involved in these efforts underscore the geopolitical rift. Under Secretary Sarah Rogers detailed the individuals and the reasons why they have been barred. On the US state ban list are Imran Ahmed (Centre for Countering Digital Hate), Josephine Ballon and Anna-Lena von Hodenberg (HateAid), Thierry Breton (former EU Commissioner) as well as Clare Melford (Global Disinformation Index).

Let’s go through each of these censors.

Thierry Breton was a key architect of the Digital Services Act. In August 2024, as European Commissioner for Internal Markets and Digital Services, he issued a letter to threaten Elon Musk ahead of his live stream interview with candidate Trump who was campaigning for his second term. The hubris of an EU functionary to warn Mr. Musk that his platform could be charged for amplifying harmful content in the EU can only be described as bizarre.

Undersecretary Rogers accused the UK citizen Imran Ahmed of collaborating “with the Biden Administration’s effort to weaponize the government against U.S. citizens” in a social media post on December 23rd, writing that his organization published the “infamous ‘disinformation dozen’ report” that spurred a campaign to de-platform those questioning the safety of COVID-19 vaccines including the current Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. .

“Leaked documents from CCDH show the organization listed ‘kill Musk’s Twitter,’ and ’trigger EU and UK regulatory action’ as priorities…The organization supports the UK’s Online Safety Act and EU’s Digital Services Act to expand censorship in Europe and around the world.”

It is interesting and not coincidental that Imran Ahmed’s CCDH was founded by Morgan Sweeny, Kier Starmer’s chief adviser. Clare Melford is the founder of the Global Disinformation Index, another British NGO that vigorously pursues anti-“hate-speech” activism, in fact hunting down anyone who has views different from the official dogma on climate change or so-called anti-vaxxers

Anna Lena von Hodenberg is the leader and founder of Hate Aid, a German NGO founded after the 2017 German federal elections to counter conservative groups such as the AfD. Ms. Anna and her NGO is an official “trusted flagger” under the EU’s digital services act. Clare Melford. Ahmed is the CEO of The Center for Countering Digital Hate, and Melford is the founder of the Global Disinformation Index, both two entities extremely active in anti-“hate-speech” activism, in fact hunting down anyone who has views different from the official dogma on climate change or so-called anti-vaxxers,

Morally Bankruptcy of the Eurocrats

Von der Leyen’s pronouncements on “inoculated information” ring hollow amid Europe’s deindustrialization, where energy policies driven by climate ideology have shuttered factories, spiked power prices, and eroded competitiveness. Germany’s Energiewende, once hailed as a model, now stands as a cautionary tale of economic self-harm, with manufacturing output shares plummeting and GDP growth stagnating.

At the heart of this EU-led censorship complex lies a modern Lysenkoism, where ideology masquerades as science. Today’s climate Lysenkoists similarly dismiss empirical inconveniences: satellite data showing no acceleration in sea-level rise, historical records of globally warmer periods like the Medieval Warm Period, or the economic models demonstrating that net-zero targets would cost trillions while yielding negligible climate benefits. But Eurocrats will condemn as “misinformation” self-evident arguments that cheap, reliable energy is the bedrock of human welfare. Witness Asia’s ascent, where coal, oil and gas have fueled GDP growth rates averaging 7% over decades, slashing poverty from 60% to under 5% in regions like East Asia.

The institutional incentives behind climate alarmism are pernicious. Multilateral agencies like the IMF and World Bank, alongside green lobbies, perpetuate myths of “fossil fuel subsidies“ that distort markets, penalizing hydrocarbons while subsidizing intermittent renewables to the tune of $1.3 trillion annually globally. In Africa, the push for “renewable leapfrogging“ ignores the continent’s dire need for baseload power, condemning millions to energy poverty under the banner of climate justice. Western elites, insulated from the consequences, preach degrowth while developing nations in BRICS+ reject such masochism, opting for pragmatic energy mixes that prioritize growth over virtue-signaling.

The contradictions of the censors of “misinformation” are glaring: alarmists decry “misinformation” while propagating doomsday scenarios that fail to materialize—recall the 50 years of apocalyptic predictions. Europe’s precipitous industrial decline exposes the folly of subordinating energy policies to ideology. In the U.S., the virtue signalling ESG investment drive — pushed by BlackRock’s Larry Fink among others — which funnelled trillions into underperforming green assets, is unravelling as returns lag and lawsuits mount over fiduciary breaches.

A New Year’s Gift

Yet, there is cause for optimism in this twilight of technocratic hubris. President Trump’s re-election signals a pivot toward evidence-based policy, unshackling science from the misinformation inquisition. By defunding activist enclaves like NCAR and enforcing transparency via executive order, the administration paves the way for genuine inquiry. Imagine a world where debates on climate sensitivity, the role of solar cycles, or the costs of adaptation are conducted openly, without fear of cancellation.

As Jay Bhattarcharya reminds us, free speech and replication as the standard of truth are necessary conditions for science to flourish. We need rational argument and data, not the censorship of state-defined “misinformation”. The US state department censoring the censors is good news as the New Year beckons.

Tyler Durden Sat, 01/03/2026 - 23:20

Visualizing All Of The World's Oil Reserves By Country

Oil remains one of the most strategically important resources in the global economy. It powers transportation systems, underpins industrial activity, and continues to shape geopolitics and trade flows. While renewable energy is growing, oil still plays a dominant role in meeting global energy needs.

This visualization, via Visual Capitalist's Bruno Venditti, ranks countries by the size of their proven oil reserves at the end of 2024.

The data for this graphic comes from OPEC’s Annual Statistical Bulletin 2025. Figures represent proven oil reserves as of year-end 2024 and are measured in billions of barrels. The data includes conventional crude oil as well as oil sands.

Four Countries Dominate Global Oil Reserves

Global oil reserves are highly concentrated.

Venezuela ranks first with an estimated 303 billion barrels of oil reserves. However, turning this vast resource base into economic and geopolitical power has proven difficult, as ongoing U.S. sanctions and the recent seizure of Venezuelan oil shipments under the Trump administration continue to limit the Maduro government’s ability to export crude and fully monetize its reserves.

Saudi Arabia follows the South American country with 267 billion barrels. Iran, Canada, and Iraq round out the top five.

Rank Country 2024 (Billion Barrels) 1 Venezuela 303,221 2 Saudi Arabia 267,200 3 Iran 208,600 4 Canada 163,000 5 Iraq 145,019 6 United Arab Emirates 113,000 7 Kuwait 101,500 8 Russia 80,000 9 Libya 48,363 10 United States 45,014 11 Nigeria 37,280 12 Kazakhstan 30,000 13 China 28,182 14 Qatar 25,244 15 Brazil 15,894 16 Algeria 12,200 17 Ecuador 8,273 18 Azerbaijan 7,000 19 Norway 6,912 20 Mexico 5,136 21 Sudan 5,000 22 India 4,981 23 Oman 4,971 24 Vietnam 4,400 25 Egypt 3,300 26 Argentina 2,999 27 Malaysia 2,700 28 Angola 2,550 29 Indonesia 2,410 30 Colombia 2,019 31 Gabon 2,000 32 Congo 1,811 33 Australia 1,803 34 United Kingdom 1,500 35 Brunei 1,100 36 Equatorial Guinea 1,100 37 Turkmenistan 600 38 Uzbekistan 594 39 Ukraine 395 40 Denmark 365 41 Belarus 198 42 Chile 150 The Role of OPEC and the Middle East

Many of the world’s largest oil reserves are held by OPEC members, particularly in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates anchor the region’s dominance.

These countries benefit from low extraction costs and large, easily accessible reserves. As a result, Middle Eastern producers are expected to remain critical suppliers even as global demand growth slows.

Oil Sands and Non-OPEC Producers

Canada stands out among non-OPEC countries, ranking fourth globally with 163 billion barrels of reserves. The majority of Canada’s reserves come from oil sands, which are more expensive and carbon-intensive to extract. Russia and the United States also rank among the top 10.

Taken together, the data highlights how unevenly oil resources are distributed and why oil-rich nations continue to have significant economic and geopolitical power.

If you enjoyed today’s post, check out Charted: Global Grid Investment by Country (2020–2027F) on Voronoi, the new app from Visual Capitalist.

Tyler Durden Sat, 01/03/2026 - 22:45

4,400 Starlink Satellites To Move To Lower Orbit

Authored by Jill McLaughlin via The Epoch Times,

SpaceX will move about 4,400 Starlink satellites to a lower orbit this year to better control risks and improve safety, the company announced Friday.

Michael Nicholls, vice president of Starlink engineering, posted the news on X, saying the adjustment would increase space safety in several ways.

Elon Musk’s Starlink system contributes more than 9,000 satellites to an increasingly crowded Earth orbit. Of those in the Starlink system, only two are not functioning, according to Nicholls.

Nicholls also noted that the atmospheric changes brought on by solar activity can affect satellite operations. An active sun causes a thicker atmosphere, which can bring spacecraft down faster.

Low solar activity, such as during the solar minimum after 2030, can have an opposite effect.

The number of debris objects and planned satellite constellations at the lower orbit—below 500 kilometers from Earth—is smaller, which reduces the likelihood of collision, Nicholls stated.

If a satellite does fail in orbit, Starlink wants to remove it as quickly as possible, improving the safety of the rest of the satellite constellation, Nicholls said.

Starlink also announced Thursday it had lost contact with one of its satellites and that it would work with NASA to monitor it.

“On December 17, Starlink experienced an anomaly on satellite 35956, resulting in loss of communications with the vehicle at 418 km,” Starlink posted on X.

The satellite was largely intact, tumbling, and is expected to reenter the Earth’s atmosphere within weeks. It poses no risk to the orbiting Space Station or its crew, the company stated.

“As the world’s largest satellite constellation operator, we are deeply committed to space safety. We take these events seriously,” the post said.

Starlink has seen explosive growth in the past five years, expanding into a global internet provider with millions of subscribers and challenging traditional satellite and terrestrial broadband internet providers.

The company connected more than 4.6 million users, according to its 2024 year-end report.

In five years, SpaceX has activated internet for more than 2.8 billion people around the world, including in some of the most remote parts of the planet, according to the report.

The U.S. Air Force is also conducting research to consider integrating Starlink into its Ghostrider gunships or heavy-lift cargo planes. Air Force Special Operations Command published a notice Tuesday requesting information on Starlink and its military version, Starshield.

Tyler Durden Sat, 01/03/2026 - 22:10

Winter Energy Bills Surge, Leaving American Families Struggling

As December BGE bills arrive after a cold winter, many Harford County residents say soaring energy costs are leaving them frightened and overwhelmed, according to Fox Baltimore.

Jenny, who lives in a 1,000-square-foot home and keeps her thermostat in the mid-60s, is facing a bill of about $400 despite working full time and spending most of the day out of the house.

"The fear of being turned off, especially with it being you some mornings in the teens, the being fearful," Jenny said. "Can I afford groceries this month, or do I pay this BGE bill and go to food pantries?"

"Nothing in my life has actually changed. I still work full time. I'm out of the house all day working, and I just think that these rates are outrageous," she added.

Across town, Teresa Stepp received a bill exceeding $1,200.

"Everybody uses more gas and electric for heat in the winter that is not uncommon. It is the norm, so with that being said, still it seems excessive," Stepp said.

BGE reports that for the 30-day period ending Dec. 21, 2025, electric heating customers used 11% more energy than last year, while gas customers used 13% more, driven by colder weather. Higher distribution rates, rising supply costs across the PJM region, state-driven fees, and limited in-state energy generation—Maryland now imports about 40% of its power—have also pushed bills higher.

"What do you pick and choose? I have to have car insurance. I have to get to work. It's just a lot. It's very stressful," Jenny said.

Fox Baltimore writes that recent rate changes add further pressure. A new increase raises the average residential electric bill by $1.07 per month and gas by $2.65. Beginning in February, an additional PSC-approved increase adds 72 cents for electric customers and $1.95 for gas customers each month through 2027.

While lawmakers approved limited relief last year, residents say it falls short.

"And then they say, "Okay, well, we're going to give you a bit of a rebate,"" Stepp said. "It was $40, so the impact is I have medical bills, and those are astronomical. My husband had a stroke last year. We're still bailing out of that. The food bills have tripled. The cost of my car registration has tripled."

"My message is, you're forcing us to leave," she added.
"You are forcing people that have been native to Maryland, that the people that have paid their way, paved the way as a part of the economy for years and years that you're saying we can no longer afford to live here. I can't."

A BGE spokesperson said the company is working to balance affordability with the need to provide safe electric and gas service and noted customers can seek payment assistance at BGE.com/billhelp.

"Please make changes, the governor, BGE, whomever, please change this immediately, because it's affecting all of us," Jenny said. "It's not okay,"

Tyler Durden Sat, 01/03/2026 - 21:35

Made-In-USA Cars Granted Trump Tax Break In IRS Deduction Guidance

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Department of the Treasury issued guidance on Wednesday regarding the deduction for car loan interest payments made by taxpayers.

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) building in Washington on March 25, 2024. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

A statement from the IRS said that the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed into law by President Donald Trump in July, includes a provision regarding auto loan interest paid by car owners.

The provision allows owners who bought vehicles with final assembly in the United States to deduct up to $10,000 in car loan interest from their taxable income for 2025 through 2028.

The deduction applies to interest paid on vehicle loans incurred after Dec. 31, 2024, for the purchase of new, made-in-America vehicles, the IRS said. The tax benefits apply to taxpayers who take the standard deduction and to those who itemize deductions.

The newly issued guidance provides clarity on the eligibility criteria for such deductions, including qualifying loans, the amount of interest paid, and whether the vehicle is bought for personal use.

For instance, the guidance states that in addition to requiring the final assembly of vehicles to be in the United States, a vehicle must meet other conditions to be eligible for interest deductions, such as a gross vehicle weight rating of less than 14,000 pounds, and that the original use of the vehicle must have commenced with the taxpayer.

For determining whether final assembly occurred in the United States, a buyer can check the vehicle identification number at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration website.

As for the $10,000 max deduction limit, it only applies to federal tax returns, the guidance clarified. “If two taxpayers have a Federal income tax return filing status of married filing separately, the $10,000 limitation would apply separately to each taxpayer’s return.”

If the modified adjusted gross income of a taxpayer for a year exceeds $100,000, the deduction limit decreases by $200 for every $1,000 in extra income. For married taxpayers filing a joint return, the cuts in deductions start once income exceeds $200,000.

The guidance clarified that while eligibility for loan interest deduction requires that the vehicle be used for personal purposes, there is no insistence that a vehicle be purchased “exclusively” for personal use.

“Requiring taxpayers to make a determination regarding the exact amount of expected personal use and non-personal use is not administrable and may result in a considerable burden to taxpayers, ” the guidance said.

Regarding deceased owners, some estates, formed to hold a deceased owner’s property for their heirs, may purchase new vehicles. These estates qualify for the loan interest deduction, the guidance said, adding that certain trusts, like qualified funeral trusts, may never be eligible.

Tariffs and Vehicle Sales

In a July 15 post, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy had suggested that the One Big Beautiful Bill Act’s car loan interest deduction would not completely offset the higher auto prices triggered by the Trump administration’s tariffs on these items.

The administration had instituted 25 percent tariffs on auto imports in April, followed by 25 percent tariffs in May on the import of auto parts in a bid to protect American manufacturing and counter the unfair trade practices of its trading partners. The rates have been adjusted for certain nations based on trade negotiations.

“The deduction would offset only 36 to 43 percent of tariff-induced price increases for working-class families while buyers with higher incomes could see offsets ranging up to 85 percent,” the institute said.

“On a $40,000 vehicle, the net price increase would range from $201 to $879 for eligible claimants and would be $1,363 for car buyers ineligible for the deduction.”

However, recent estimates show no decline in car sales in the country despite the implementation of higher tariffs.

According to a Dec. 17 post by industry expert Cox Automotive, new vehicle sales are expected to close 2025 up 1.8 percent year-over-year per estimates from Kelly Blue Book. New vehicle sales for the year are estimated to be 16.3 million, making 2025 the “best sales year since 2019,” it said.

Tyler Durden Sat, 01/03/2026 - 21:00

What Is The Real Reason For The Historic Drop In US Homicide Rates?

Despite a flurry of politically charged violence and a number of Islamic and left-wing motivated terror attacks, 2025 also experienced the largest single-year decline in homicides in US history.  The plunge brings official US homicide rates to near-record lows.

Based on a sampling of preliminary crime statistics from 550 U.S. law enforcement agencies, the year is expected to end with a roughly 20% decrease in homicides nationwide, Jeff Asher, a national crime analyst, told ABC News. 

"So, even taking a conservative view, let's say its 17% or 16%, you're still looking at the largest one-year drop ever recorded in 2025," said Asher, co-founder of AH Datalytics and a former crime analyst for the CIA and the New Orleans Police Department.  

The drop comes after what many law enforcement analysts call the "Pandemic Surge", the Biden era explosion in homicides and overall crime was considered endemic to Democrat controlled cities across the US.  Though, Democrat leaders claimed throughout Biden's term that no such surge was taking place.  

The spike in murders was the largest since the early 1990s at the height of the gang violence era.  However, criminal data collection was incomplete during the Biden years due to a sudden change in the FBI's Summary Reporting System (SRS).  Starting in 2021, the FBI began transitioning to a new method called the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS). 

This transition was officially slated to take up to five years to complete and during the changeover a large percentage of US cities were not required to submit complete crime stats.  Meaning, as bad as the pandemic surge was, the real crime rate was likely much higher than reported.  

By the end of 2024, crime data coverage returned to around 95% of the population.  This is rather convenient for Democrats given they had a convenient excuse to suppress true crime rates through lack of reporting; then, the reporting system went back to normal as soon as Donald Trump returned to office. 

If the stats are accurate for 2025, this means the Trump Administration has overseen the largest ever drop in homicides in the US in it's first year without the benefit of incomplete FBI data.  This is impressive.

But there as some lingering concerns about the accuracy of blue city crime rates.  For example, Washington DC officials have been caught in the midst of active suppression of crime data, using intimidation of precinct commanders as a means to rig arrest records and downgrade offenses while progressive prosecutors and judges keep conviction rates low. 

The exposure of this fraud (due to law enforcement whistleblowers) led to the resignation of D.C. Police Chief Pamela Smith and an ongoing congressional investigation.

The question is, how many other blue cities are involved in the same kind of crime stat suppression and is this the real cause of the drop in criminal activity.  Or, did Trump play a substantial role in cutting down homicides?  Perhaps the mass deportations along with National Guard deployments in place like DC and LA have had a meaningful effect on urban violence. 

Tyler Durden Sat, 01/03/2026 - 20:25

Coal Remains King In India While Exports Optimize Domestic Stock

By Tsvetana Paraskova of OilPrice.com,

Coal India Limited, the biggest coal producer in the world’s second-biggest coal user, opened this year its online coal supply auctions directly to buyers in Bangladesh, Bhutan, and Nepal, as Indian coal supply has swelled amid weaker-than-expected demand in recent months. 

Amid an oversupply of coal and weaker demand, India and its top state coal producer are looking to optimize domestic supply and monetize exports to neighboring countries.
Until 2026, only middlemen could bid in Coal India’s online supply auctions. This has now changed with the new policy. 

“In a first, effective January 1, 2026, CIL has permitted coal consumers located in the neighbouring countries like Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal, who wish to import coal from India, to directly participate in the Single Window Mode Agnostic (SWMA) auctions conducted by the company,” Coal India said in a statement on Friday, as carried by The Economic Times.

“Opening SWMA e-auctions to foreign buyers reflects CIL's calibrated approach to market expansion while fully safeguarding domestic coal requirements. This step enhances transparency, competition and global market integration,” a senior company official told the publication. 

Opening the e-auctions directly to buyers sent Coal India’s shares rallying by 7% on the local stock exchange at close on Friday. 

Coal-fired power generation and capacity installations in India continue to rise and coal remains a key pillar of India’s electricity mix with about 60% share of total power output.

Despite booming renewable capacity additions, India continues to rely on coal to meet most of its power demand as authorities also look to avoid blackouts in cases of severe heat waves.

Coal will still be a key part of India’s power system for the next two decades, Rajnath Ram, adviser for energy NITI Aayog, said in September. 

“We cannot be subjective about coal. The question is how sustainably we can use it,” the official noted.  

Tyler Durden Sat, 01/03/2026 - 19:50

California's Open-Carry Ban Shot Down By Federal Appeals Court

2026 started with a bang for proponents of the human right of armed self-defense, as a US appeals court on Friday ruled that California's de facto statewide ban on openly carrying firearms violates the US Constitution. However, there's reason to think it will flip the other way as the litigation proceeds to the next phase. For now, though, leftists are recoiling. California governor and likely 2028 presidential candidate Gavin Newsom said "Republican activists on the Ninth Circuit" want to "return to the days of the Wild West." 

Then-20-year-old Caitlin Rutherford wearing a Glock at her parents' Virginia home (Washingtonian) 

As with other recent victories for gun rights, this one springs from the test prescribed by the impactful 2022 US Supreme Court ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. In that case, the court said firearm restrictions are only permissible if they are consistent with the country's "historical tradition of firearm regulation." The three-judge panel ruled against the open-carry ban in a 2-1 ruling, overturning a lower-court judge's interpretation. As Judge Lawrence VanDyke wrote in the majority opinion: 

“The historical record makes unmistakably plain that open carry is part of this nation’s history and tradition. It was clearly protected at the time of the founding and at the time of the adoption of the 14th Amendment. There is no record of any law restricting open carry at the Founding, let alone a distinctly similar historical regulation... for the first 162 years of its history open carry was a largely unremarkable part of daily life in California.”

California law forbids open carry in any county with a population of more than 200,000 people, a threshold that covers 95% of the population. In practice, however, it's a 100% ban. Technically, Californians in sparsely-populated counties are allowed to apply for a license to carry openly in their home county, but, as noted in the 98-page ruling, "California admits that it has no record of even one open-carry license being issued, and one potential reason is that California has misled its citizens about how to apply for an open-carry license." 

The opinion also points to the 19th century, which saw plenty of concealed carry restrictions but few on open carry (and those that did exist were usually struck down) pic.twitter.com/0yvJqiTU6B

— Kostas Moros (@MorosKostas) January 2, 2026

The sole judge in the minority, George W. Bush-appointed N. Randy Smith, said the ban passed constitutional muster because California lets residents carry concealed firearms, if they can get a permit. “A state may not prohibit the public carriage of firearms by eliminating both open and concealed carry, but a state can lawfully eliminate one manner of carry to protect and ensure the safety of its citizens, as long as they are able to carry in another manner,” he wrote in his dissent. 

The majority opinion skewered California's strained attempt to find some tangential way to characterize the open-carry ban as consistent with the "historical tradition of firearm regulation," and thus pass the Bruen test:   

"Open carry remains open carry, just as it was at the Founding. And concealed carry remains concealed carry, just as it was in 1791. To get around that reality, the analogical argument that California would have us adopt really boils down to the idea that today a state can ban all open carry because some other states regulated some other things at the Founding in some other ways. That is too sloppy a fit. Bruen requires a closer relationship between “how” and “why” a historical regulation burdened the right to bear arms and “how” and “why” a modern analogue burdens that right."  

The victory will likely be short-lived, according to Kostas Moros, Director of Legal Research and Education for the Second Amendment Foundation. "With near certainty, it will be en banc'd and reversed," Moros wrote in a thread on X in which he analyzed the ruling. Pointing to a previous, dubious ruling, he said, it's "hard to see how the Ninth Circuit would ever let this ruling stand." 

Tyler Durden Sat, 01/03/2026 - 19:15

USDA: Undercover Investigators To Make Sure Retailers Comply With New Food Stamp Restrictions

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Undercover investigators with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) are going to check whether stores are complying with new restrictions on food stamps, the department said in a new notice to state and regional officials.

A woman walks by a sign advertising the acceptance of food stamps, in Miami, Fla., on Oct. 31, 2025. Joe Raedle/Getty Images

The USDA’s Office of Retailer Operations and Compliance carries out federal oversight of retailers that accept funds from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), colloquially known as food stamps. The office “initiates and conducts undercover investigations to determine if a retailer is complying with program requirements,” the USDA said in the Dec. 30, 2025, notice.

Once new SNAP restrictions take effect in states, investigators “will incorporate attempts to purchase restricted items according to the state’s SNAP Food Restriction policy, beginning 90 days after the implementation date,” the notice states.

Retailers that are not in compliance will initially receive a warning letter advising corrective action. If retailers are found to be out of compliance again, then officials will revoke their authorization to keep accepting SNAP.

USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins in 2025 approved requests from 18 states to diverge from normal SNAP operations and impose various restrictions on which items participants can buy.

The first five states—Indiana, Iowa, Nebraska, Utah, and West Virginia—began restricting purchases on Jan. 1. The next restrictions take effect in Idaho, Louisiana, and Oklahoma in February. Restrictions in other states may not start until as late as Oct. 1.

Many of the states have targeted soda and other soft drinks. Some have barred SNAP funds from being used for energy drinks, candy, and prepared desserts.

Some 42 million Americans participate in SNAP. Eligibility is primarily based on household income.

Federal law says SNAP’s main purpose is to “safeguard the health and well-being of the Nation’s population by raising levels of nutrition among low-income households.”

The waivers “further that purpose, as part of broader state and federal government efforts to fight the obesity epidemic and Make America Healthy Again,” Patrick Penn, a USDA official, told state and regional officials in the new notice.

Each waiver has definitions of restricted items. Due to the varying definitions and implementation dates, close coordination between state agencies and retailers is needed, Penn said. Retailers have to take steps such as updating equipment and training employees.

Penn also said that the USDA plans to approve additional waivers in the future.

The Food Industry Association, whose members include retailers, said in a statement it appreciated that USDA clarified there is a 90-day grace period before the agency will enforce the new restrictions, and guidance from federal and state officials.

“While receiving this guidance and assurance of a 90-day grace period is critical, our members have additional questions and need assurance that ‘involuntary withdrawal’ following a second offense mentioned in the guidance will be limited to retailers knowingly and intentionally not following the restriction, not an accidental error on one of 21,000 or more products that must be coded as restricted in each state,” Jennifer Hatcher, an association officer, said.

The National Grocers Association, a trade group representing independent supermarkets, said in a statement on Dec. 22, 2025, that the waivers present challenges because they mean that SNAP funds can no longer be spent on tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of items.

That will force grocers to reprogram systems, track items, retrain workers, and talk to customers, the group said.

“These regulatory burdens have the potential to disrupt store operations and slow checkout lines as retailers work in good faith to implement and enforce the new rules,” the association said. “For SNAP reforms to Make America Healthy Again, policymakers must provide clear, consistent definitions and a realistic implementation timeline. Independent grocers are proud economic drivers, creating local jobs and generating tax revenue, but they need certainty and common sense, not more costly red tape handed down by bureaucrats.”

Tyler Durden Sat, 01/03/2026 - 18:40

FT Exposes The Literal Definition Of Ponzi-Scheming In Private Equity

In what can only be described as the financial industry's most brazen act of self-dealing since the last crisis, private equity giants are now openly selling assets to themselves at record pace, propping up their crumbling empire with a tactic that reeks of pure Ponzi desperation.

According to the Financial Times, roughly one-fifth of all private equity exits this year involved firms raising fresh cash from new suckers investors to buy portfolio companies from their own aging funds.

That's a sharp jump from the 12-13% seen in prior years, with Raymond James' Sunaina Sinha Haldea predicting a staggering $107 billion in these incestuous transactions for 2025, blowing past last year's $70 billion.

These so-called "continuation vehicles" let PE barons hand money back to restless limited partners in older funds while keeping control of the assets - and, crucially, resetting the clock on lucrative management fees and carried interest.

It's the ultimate have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too scam: cash out the old money, lock in the new money, and keep milking the same cow indefinitely.

"This year is set to break all records," Sinha Haldea crowed, calling it a "popular and effective win-win-win liquidity solution" in a market where real exits remain frozen.

Translation: when you can't find a greater fool outside your own circle, just invent a new fund and pass the hot potato internally.

Jefferies' Skip Fahrholz chimed in that global volume will hit close to $100 billion, confirming the feeding frenzy.

The FT reports the roster of perpetrators reads like a who's-who of the buyout racket: PAI Partners flipped part of its stake in ice cream giant Froneri (think Häagen-Dazs) to a continuation vehicle for the second time in a €15 billion-valued deal. Vista Equity, New Mountain Capital, and Inflexion all deployed multibillion-dollar continuation funds to cling to their crown-jewel investments rather than face the harsh light of public markets or genuine third-party buyers.

Even EQT's CEO Per Franzén, who hasn't yet dipped into this particular trough, recently admitted he wants in - purely to generate extra fees on existing holdings, naturally.

But beneath the sanitized industry spin lie the glaring conflicts: the same PE firm sits on both sides of the trade, deciding the price at which assets move from one of its pockets to another.

Pension funds and other LPs are rightly furious, fearing managers low-ball valuations to screw departing investors while setting themselves up for fat future carry on the "new" fund.

The Abu Dhabi Investment Council just sued U.S. firm Energy & Minerals Group over exactly this alleged grift: EMG tried to undervalue gas driller Ascent Resources in a self-sale that would have boosted its ownership and restarted fee collection.

The deal collapsed amid the lawsuit, and now outside bidders are circling.

What was once a last-resort lifeboat for dogs nobody wanted has morphed into a preferred tool for hoarding winning assets, all while the broader exit environment remains a graveyard.

Bain & Co's latest survey found nearly two-thirds of LPs still prefer old-fashioned exits—actual sales to outsiders or IPOs—over this circular money-shuffling charade.

Yet with no real buyers in sight, expect continuation vehicles to become the new normal: a glorified Ponzi mechanism dressed up in GP-LP alignment jargon, keeping the private equity bubble inflated just a little longer - until the music finally stops.

Tyler Durden Sat, 01/03/2026 - 18:05

Chinese EV Exports Are Exploding, And The West Has No Way To Stop Them

Authored by Michael Gauthier via carscoops.com,

• Chinese EV exports are booming and were up 87% last month.

• Mexico was the top export market in November with 19,344 units.

• Over 600,000 Chinese EVs have been exported to Europe in 2025.

Chinese cars were once the butt of jokes, but they’ve become a major threat to Western automakers. That’s clear today as data from China’s General Administration of Customs has revealed exports of electric vehicles soared 87 percent in November.

That’s a huge increase compared to last year and the most popular destination in November was Mexico. Chinese EV exports to the country soared 2,367 percent to total 19,344 units. While the numbers don’t reveal which vehicles were responsible for the boost, the BYD Dolphin Mini has been a hit south of the border.

The small EV measures just 148.8 inches (3,780 mm) long and features a front-mounted motor developing 74 hp (55 kW / 75 PS) and 100 lb-ft (135 Nm) of torque. Customers can also get 30.1 and 38.8 kWh battery packs, which provide a NEDC range of up to 236 miles (380 km).

Mexico was followed by Indonesia and Thailand as the top markets for Chinese exports last month. The former country imported 17,503 vehicles, while the latter took in 13,517.

Focusing on Europe, exports to the UK soared 113 percent last month to 9,096. This means 121,555 Chinese EVs have arrived since the beginning of the year and this is an increase of 24 percent .

That pales in comparison to Belgium, where 195,309 Chinese EVs have been imported in the first 11 months of the year. However, it’s worth noting this is a 15 percent drop compared to 2024.

Where Most Chinese EVs Are Going

Asia remained the biggest market for Chinese EVs as exports climbed 71 percent to 110,061 units in November. They were followed by Europe and Latin America (including the Caribbean).

While Asian countries have imported nearly 1 million Chinese EVs through November, the big story is Europe’s 604,105. That’s 12 percent more than 2024 and the number shows why European automakers and politicians are so worried.

Tyler Durden Sat, 01/03/2026 - 17:30

Visualizing The Distribution Of Household Income In America

High income households in America capture a large share of the nation’s earnings, and this gulf has widened over time.

In 2024, the top 20% - with an average household income of $316,100 - took home 52.2% of all national income, up 8.7 percentage points from 1974.

Meanwhile, the bottom 20% received just 3.1%, further shrinking over the period.

This graphic, via Visual Capitalist's Dorothy Neufeld, shows U.S. household income distribution in 2024, based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

Trends in U.S. Income Distribution (2024 vs. 1974)

Below, we show how household income is divided across different income brackets:

In 2024, the bottom fifth of U.S. earners averaged $18,460 in household income. While small, their share of total national income has fallen sharply, declining by about 28% since 1974.

Moreover, this group includes workers earning the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour, as well as the roughly 760,000 workers who earn below this level. In particular, younger workers make up a large portion of this bracket, with 43% of those earning minimum wage or less being 25 years old or younger.

As we can see, the middle fifth of earners received 13.9% of U.S. household income in 2024, down from 17% in 1974. With an average household income of $84,390, this bracket largely reflects median-wage workers, spanning occupations such as civil engineers, computer programmers, and clinical psychologists.

On the other hand, the top 5% of earners, averaging $560,000 in income has seen it share expand by 6.6 percentage points. Moreover, it is the only income bracket, along with the top 20%, to see its share of national income grow compared to 1974.

To learn more about this topic, check out this graphic on real wage growth by state.

Tyler Durden Sat, 01/03/2026 - 16:55

The Unreported Story Of Grid Scale Battery Fires

Authored by Francis Menton via the Manhattan Contrarian,

The geniuses who are planning New York’s energy future think that they can make intermittent wind and solar generators work to power the electrical grid by the simple device of providing some battery storage. The idea is that when there is abundant wind and sun, they can store up the power for use during those calm and dark periods in the winter. How much battery storage will that take? It’s a simple arithmetic calculation, but none of our supposed experts have taken the trouble to crunch the numbers.

A fire burns at Vistra’s battery storage facility in Moss Landing, California, on Jan. 17.Photographer: Nic Coury/Bloomberg

Nevertheless, without any kind of feasibility study of whether this will work, they soldier forth building large grid-scale battery storage facilities. The battery building program is under way, at least to some degree, and a few such facilities are actually complete and operating out in the rural parts of the state. Meanwhile, there are plans for some much larger such facilities in New York City, including right in some of its most densely-populated sections. Is there any problem with this that we ought to know about?

In a post back in March 2024, I reported on the progress of our two “climate leader” states with developing grid-scale battery storage. It turned out that the big problem was that these facilities were subject to large and dangerous fires on a regular basis. In some cases the same facility would catch fire multiple times. That post reported on major fires in California at a site called Valley Center in San Diego County in September 2023, and at another one called Moss Landing south of San Francisco in September 2022. In January 2025, the Moss Landing facility had another major fire. From the EPA website:

On January 16, 2025, the Moss Landing 300 battery energy storage system at the Moss Landing Vistra power plant (Monterey County, Calif.) caught fire.

• The 300-megawatt system held about 100,000 lithium-ion batteries.

• About 55 percent of the batteries were damaged by the fire.

There were prior fires at the Moss Landing facility in September 2021 and February 2022.

Back here in New York, my March 2024 post reported on no fewer than three major fires at grid battery storage facilities in this state that had taken place during 2023. The following quote came from a piece at Canary Media from August 2023:

New York state is grappling with how to adjust its ambitious buildout of clean energy storage after fires broke out at three separate battery projects between late May and late July [2023]. . . . First, on May 31, a battery that NextEra Energy Resources had installed at a substation in East Hampton caught fire. . . . Then, on June 26, fire alarms went off at two battery units owned and operated by Convergent Energy and Power in Warwick, Orange County; one of those later caught fire. On July 27, a different Convergent battery at a solar farm in Chaumont caught fire and burned for four days straight.

Might you have the idea that these fires are becoming less frequent over time? If so, that’s only because these fires are one of those things — like the Somali welfare fraud in Minnesota — that the liberal media just don’t choose to report. It turns out that the Convergent Energy facility in Warwick, New York had another big fire just last week. From Etica AG, December 22:

Late on the evening of December 19, 2025, a fire occurred at the Church Street Battery Storage Facility in Warwick, New York, operated by Convergent Energy & Power. While no injuries were reported and the fire was confined to a single container, the incident remained active into the following day and prompted a multi-agency response, air quality monitoring, and renewed scrutiny of battery energy storage system (BESS) safety in the community.  For Warwick residents and local leaders, the fire carried added weight. The town has experienced multiple battery storage incidents in recent years, and each new event raises difficult questions about risk, emergency response, and whether existing BESS designs are suitable for locations near homes, schools, and small businesses. 

I can’t find any mention of this battery fire at the New York Times or at major media sites like CNN or the major television networks.

The Convergent Energy Warwick energy storage facility has a capacity of 12 MW and 57 MWh. Meanwhile, back here in New York City, there are plans, well advanced (although not quite yet under construction), to build a much larger grid battery storage facility in Ravenswood, Queens. That would be right on the East River, directly across from East Midtown and the Upper East Side of Manhattan:

You can see on the map how close much of Manhattan is to this facility. To be fair, the wind usually blows the other way, but the parts of Queens near this facility are also very densely populated. Something called Queensbridge Houses — the largest public housing project in the country — is immediately adjacent.

The planned capacity of the battery storage facility in Ravenswood is 316 MW/2528 MWh — some 25 or more times the size of the facility in Warwick that has now caught fire at least twice.

A New York agency going by the name NYSERDA (New York State Energy Research and Development Authority) is leading the charge to build these energy storage facilities, including in densely populated areas like Queens. On their website, they have a page touting the new battery storage project at the Ravenswood location. Believe it or not, their sales pitch is that the new battery facility is cleaner and greener than the prior natural gas power plants on the site. Here is a quote they take from Queens Borough President Donovan Richards:

“The days of environmental and economic injustice in Western Queens, especially for our historically marginalized public housing families, are coming to an end. As we prepare to transform the Ravenswood Generating Station into a clean energy producer, it’s critical that the surrounding community reaps the benefits of that transition,” said Borough President Richards.

Somehow, both NYSERDA and Donovan omit to mention the issue of the fires.

Tyler Durden Sat, 01/03/2026 - 16:20

Democrats Melt Down Over Capture And Arrest Of Dictator Maduro

President Donald Trump ordered a midnight military raid that captured Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. U.S. forces pulled off the job without a hitch, hauling in the pair.

“The United States of America has successfully carried out a large scale strike against Venezuela and its leader, President Nicolas Maduro, who has been, along with his wife, captured and flown out of the Country,” Trump announced on Truth Social at 4:21 EST. “This operation was done in conjunction with U.S. Law Enforcement. Details to follow.”

Hours later, Attorney General Pam Bondi announced the pair had been indicted.

“Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, have been indicted in the Southern District of New York,” she explained in a post on X. “Nicolas Maduro has been charged with Narco-Terrorism Conspiracy, Cocaine Importation Conspiracy, Possession of Machineguns and Destructive Devices, and Conspiracy to Possess Machineguns and Destructive Devices against the United States. They will soon face the full wrath of American justice on American soil in American courts.”

Bondi then thanked President Trump for “having the courage to demand accountability on behalf of the American People,” as well as a “huge thank you to our brave military who conducted the incredible and highly successful mission to capture these two alleged international narco traffickers.”

While Venezuelans hit the streets in wild celebration, popping bottles and celebrating freedom, Democrats in Washington, D.C., clutched their pearls and went into full meltdown mode, accusing Trump of getting us into a war and violating the Constitution.

“Trump’s unilateral operation last night was an illegal act of war without Congress’s authorization,” Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) claimed.

“Maduro is a brutal dictator who has oppressed the Venezuelan people, but our constitution does not yield for bad people. If Congress is to survive as an institution, the Republican majority must join us exercising our power to hold this administration accountable for this flagrant violation of the constitution.”

He wasn’t the only Democrat to claim that Trump acted illegally.

“Without authorization from Congress, and with the vast majority of Americans opposed to military action, Trump just launched an unjustified, illegal strike on Venezuela,” Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) claimed.

“He says we don’t have enough money for healthcare for Americans—but somehow we have unlimited funds for war??”

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) also chimed in.

“President Trump’s unilateral military action to attack another country and seize Maduro — no matter how terrible a dictator he is — is unconstitutional and threatens to drag the U.S. into further conflicts in the region,” she argued.

“The American people voted for lower costs, not for Trump’s dangerous military adventurism overseas that won’t make the American people safer.”

Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) similarly accused Trump of getting the United States into an “illegal” war.

“This war is illegal, it’s embarrassing that we went from the world cop to the world bully in less than one year,” he said.

But these claims don’t hold water.

“Trump does not need congressional approval for this type of operation,” explains constitutional scholar Jonathan Turley. “Presidents, including Democratic presidents, have launched lethal attacks regularly against individuals. President Barack Obama killed an American citizen under this ‘kill list’ policy. If Obama can vaporize an American citizen without even a criminal charge, Trump can capture a foreign citizen with a pending criminal indictment without prior congressional approval.”

Turley likened the operation to the 1989 capture and prosecution of Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega. U.S. courts upheld the “abduction” model and rejected head‑of‑state immunity and extradition‑treaty objections. 

“Legally, Trump has the upper hand in this case. Maduro will replay the arguments from the Noriega case. However, he presents an even weaker case on the merits under the controlling precedent than did Noriega,” Turley explained. 

 

Tyler Durden Sat, 01/03/2026 - 15:45

North America Leads Largest LNG Export Surge Since 2022

Authored by Tsvetana Paraskova via OilPrice.com,

Surging liquefied natural gas exports from new North American export plants likely pushed global LNG shipments in 2025 by the most since 2022, Kpler data showed on Tuesday.

The annual rise in 2025 would be the steepest increase in global LNG exports since 2022, when shipments grew by 4.5% compared to 2021, the data showed.

North America was the key supplier of new LNG volumes, as Canada’s first-ever export facility, LNG Canada, started shipments in the middle of 2025, and Plaquemines LNG in Louisiana launched operations and ramped up shipments throughout the year.

Thanks to rising capacity and volumes, the U.S. is set to become the first LNG exporter in the world to have passed in 2025 the threshold of 100 million tons of LNG exports in one year.

Additional LNG supply is poised to hit the market between 2026 and 2030 as more U.S. export plants come online and Qatar begins shipments from its huge capacity expansion of the North Field export facilities.

The U.S. is set to export 14.9 billion cubic feet per day of LNG in 2025, up by 25% from 2024, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) said in its latest Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO) for December. With new projects ramping up, the EIA expects U.S. LNG exports to jump to an average of 16.3 billion cubic feet per day in 2026.

Despite warnings of a near-term global LNG glut, top exporters in the Middle East, including Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), see strong demand going forward and flag insufficient investment in supply in the medium to long term.

The UAE is growing its LNG exports to meet surging global demand that will outpace investment in supply, Energy Minister Suhail al Mazrouei told Reuters earlier in December.

“I agree with his excellency, Minister of Qatar, that the demand is going to be much, much more than the projects that we are seeing,” the UAE official added.

Earlier this month, Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi, QatarEnergy’s CEO and the Minister of State for Energy Affairs of Qatar, said that global LNG demand will grow, led by increased power needs from AI-related data centers.

Tyler Durden Sat, 01/03/2026 - 15:10

Not The Bee: Woke City Appoints Convicted Murderer Who Shot Teen Girl To Police Review Board

Kyle Hedquist, a convicted murderer who was sentenced to life in prison for shooting a teenage girl to death in cold blood, has been reappointed to serve on Salem, Oregon’s police review board - all in the name of his so-called “perspective” on the criminal justice system.

Hedquist, an Oregon native, was convicted of the aggravated murder of 19-year-old Nikki Thrasher, whom he lured down a remote rural road and shot in the back of the head to prevent her from revealing his involvement in a series of robberies. In 2022, then-Governor Kate Brown (D) played a key role in securing Hedquist’s early release, insisting that the killer “shouldn’t be locked up for life” simply because he was 17 years old at the time he executed Thrasher.

At the time of the commutation, Nikki’s mother, Hollie Thrasher, rightly condemned the decision to free her daughter’s murderer.

“I am upset. I wasn’t even told,” she told KOIN 6. “He took the life of my daughter in cold blood. It was a cold-blooded murder. He planned it.”

The New York Post has the details behind the city’s decision to hire Hedquist:

Defending his reappointment to the board — whose members train with police and take part in ride-alongs — a Salem councillor praised Hedquist for the “perspective” he brings.

Hedquist “brings a perspective that most of us don’t have,” Ward 6 City Councilor Mai Vang said in a video shared on Facebook following the Dec. 8 vote.

“As someone who’s been through the criminal justice system, he understands community safety from a different angle. He’s one voice among nine — he’s not running the show, but his experience matters,” she added.

While certain soft-on-crime ideologues may applaud this bizarre and tone-deaf appointment, law enforcement professionals are understandably appalled.

“To think that we’re providing education on kind of how we do what we do to someone with that criminal history, it just doesn’t seem too smart,” the Salem Police Employees’ Union declared in an interview with KATU2.

Salem Professional Fire Fighters Local 314 has likewise denounced the move.

“As police and fire professionals in the Salem community, we are asking Salem residents to stand with us,” their statement read.

Tyler Durden Sat, 01/03/2026 - 14:35

At the Calculated Risk Real Estate Newsletter this week:

Click on graph for larger image.

• Case-Shiller: National House Price Index Up 1.4% year-over-year in October

• FHFA’s Q3 National Mortgage Database: Outstanding Mortgage Rates, LTV and Credit Scores

• Freddie Mac House Price Index Up 1.0% Year-over-Year in November

• Inflation Adjusted House Prices 2.7% Below 2022 Peak

This is usually published 4 to 6 times a week and provides more in-depth analysis of the housing market.

The $60 Billion Question: Is Venezuela Secretly A Bitcoin Superpower?

Authored by Bradley Hope and Clara Preve via whalehunting.projectbrazen.com,

Alex Saab may control $60 billion in Bitcoin for the Maduro regime. As Trump's naval blockade tightens, the real battle is being fought on the blockchain.

Nicolás Maduro is in U.S. custody. In the early hours of Saturday morning, Delta Force operators dragged the Venezuelan president and his wife from their bedroom in Caracas and flew them to the USS Iwo Jima, now steaming toward New York where Maduro will face drug trafficking and weapons charges in federal court.

But as Washington celebrates the most dramatic U.S. military operation in Latin America since the 1989 Panama invasion, a more urgent question is emerging in intelligence circles: Where is the money?

For years, Maduro and his inner circle systematically looted Venezuela—billions in oil revenue, gold reserves, and state assets—and, according to sources with direct knowledge of the operation, converted much of it into cryptocurrency.

The man who allegedly orchestrated that conversion, who built the shadow financial architecture that kept the regime alive under crushing sanctions, is not on that ship.

His name is Alex Saab.

And he may be the only person on Earth who knows how to access what sources estimate could be as much as $60 billion in Bitcoin—a figure that, if verified, would make the Maduro regime's hidden fortune one of the largest cryptocurrency holdings on the planet, rivaling MicroStrategy and potentially exceeding El Salvador's entire national reserve.

The claim comes from HUMINT sources and has not been confirmed through blockchain analysis, but the underlying math is provocative.

Venezuela exported 73.2 tons of gold in 2018 alone — roughly $2.7 billion at the time. If even a fraction of that was converted to Bitcoin when prices hovered between $3,000 and $10,000, and held through the 2021 peak of $69,000, the returns would be staggering.

Sources familiar with the operation describe a systematic effort to convert gold proceeds into cryptocurrency through Turkish and Emirati intermediaries, then move the assets through mixers and cold wallets beyond the reach of Western enforcement.

The keys to those wallets, sources say, are held by a small circle of trusted operatives—with Saab at the center.

What Washington didn't know—and what court documents would later reveal—was that Saab had been a DEA informant since 2016, even as he built Maduro's shadow financial empire.

Now, with Maduro captured, the question becomes: Will Saab cooperate again? Or will he disappear with the keys to Venezuela's stolen fortune?

Alex Saab embraces Nicolas Maduro upon his return to Caracas, December 2023. With Maduro now in U.S. custody, Saab may hold the keys to Venezuela's hidden crypto fortune.

In the official Venezuelan narrative, Alex Nain Saab Morán is a patriot, a diplomat, a martyr of U.S. imperial overreach. In Washington, he is the opposite: a professional sanctions-evader who built a labyrinth of offshore companies that enriched Nicolás Maduro's inner circle while Venezuela collapsed.

Now he may be something else entirely: among the most valuable people on earth.

But Saab is not the only person who knows where the money went. Whale Hunting has learned that a key figure in the gold-to-crypto pipeline—a man who allegedly served as a physical courier, flying gold bars from Venezuela to Turkey and Dubai—was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury in 2019 but has never been publicly charged.

His name is David Nicolas Rubio Gonzalez. He is the son of Álvaro Pulido, Saab's longtime business partner. And his story may be the key to understanding what happened to Venezuela's stolen fortune.

The Courier

On September 17, 2019, the U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control added David Nicolas Rubio Gonzalez to its sanctions list. The designation identified him as controlling at least three companies: Corporacion ACS Trading S.A.S. in Colombia, Dimaco Technology, S.A. in Panama, and Global de Textiles Andino S.A.S. in Colombia.

His father, Álvaro Pulido, had been indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice two months earlier, charged alongside Alex Saab with laundering more than $350 million from fraudulent Venezuelan state contracts. But David was not charged. He was sanctioned—his assets frozen, his ability to do business with Americans severed—but he faced no criminal prosecution.

Why?

According to sources with direct knowledge of the operation, David Rubio Gonzalez was not just a businessman. He was a courier. These sources describe a network that physically moved gold along a route from the Dominican Republic through Venezuela to Turkey and Dubai. Each trip, they say, netted the courier $1 million for his services.

The gold originated in the Arco Minero del Orinoco, a vast mining zone in eastern Venezuela. It was purchased by the state-owned mining company Minerven, processed by CVG Minerven—whose president maintained close ties to Saab—and transported abroad by private aircraft or Turkish Airlines commercial flights. But moving gold at scale requires trusted hands. Someone has to physically carry it, clear customs, deliver it to the refineries and brokers who convert it to cash.

David, sources say, was one of those hands.

Venezuelan gold moved through Turkey, the UAE, and Iran before conversion to cryptocurrency. Couriers like David Rubio Gonzalez allegedly earned $1 million per trip.

The question that haunts investigators is simple: If David was important enough to sanction, why wasn't he important enough to indict? His father faced eight counts of money laundering. David faced none.

There are only a few explanations. He could be cooperating with U.S. authorities—providing information in exchange for immunity or a reduced role in any future prosecution. He could be under sealed indictment, his charges hidden from public view until the moment of arrest. Or he could have simply slipped through the cracks, a secondary player deemed less important than the principals.

But if our sources are correct about his role as a courier—a man who physically handled the gold that became the regime's crypto fortune—then David Rubio Gonzalez may know exactly where the money went. And with Maduro captured, that knowledge has never been more valuable.

The Gold-to-Crypto Pipeline

The $60 billion didn't materialize from thin air. It was built through one of the most audacious financial operations in modern history: the systematic conversion of Venezuela's gold reserves into untraceable cryptocurrency.

In 2018, as Venezuela's economic crisis deepened and access to hard currency narrowed, the Maduro regime turned to gold. The country had been exporting gold for years, but now the operation scaled dramatically. Venezuela exported 73.2 tons of gold in 2018 alone—roughly $2.7 billion at the time.

Maduro placed the operation under the supervision of his close ally Tareck El Aissami, whom he appointed Minister of Industries and National Production. Alex Saab emerged as a central facilitator. The gold flowed to Turkey, where it was refined and sold. It flowed to the UAE, where it entered the global market. And in April 2020, tons of Venezuelan gold were flown to Iran on Mahan Air as part of a gold-for-gasoline swap.

Iran International reported that a Lloyd's Insurance leak revealed the scheme was coordinated by the IRGC Quds Force and Hezbollah. Gold sold in Turkey and the Middle East generated proceeds that funded Hezbollah operations. Some nine tons of Venezuelan gold were exported in a single month, according to Bloomberg. In return, five Iranian oil tankers delivered an estimated 1.5 million barrels of gasoline to Venezuelan ports.

But gold is heavy. It's traceable. It can be seized. The next step was converting it into something that couldn't be touched.

Sources describe a systematic effort to convert gold proceeds into Bitcoin through OTC brokers in Turkey and the UAE—brokers who asked few questions and operated outside the traditional banking system. The Bitcoin was then moved through mixers, software that obscures the origin of cryptocurrency transactions, and into cold wallets: offline storage devices that exist beyond the reach of any government or exchange.

The timing was fortuitous. Venezuela began moving gold in earnest in 2018, when Bitcoin traded between $3,000 and $10,000. By the time the price peaked at $69,000 in November 2021, any holdings accumulated in those early years had multiplied by a factor of seven to twenty. If the regime converted even $3 billion in gold proceeds to Bitcoin at an average price of $5,000, those holdings would be worth $40 billion today.

PDVSA headquarters. By December 2025, Venezuela was collecting 80% of its oil revenue in USDT.

The crypto infrastructure didn't stop with gold. Venezuela's own PDVSA-Cripto corruption scandal revealed that Saab's partner Álvaro Pulido—David's father—used Tether-based settlement systems to divert billions in oil-sale proceeds. Between 2020 and 2022, PDVSA increasingly required intermediaries to settle oil cargos in Tether, routing payments through OTC brokers and private digital wallets.

The scandal revealed ships loaded with more than $20 billion worth of oil departing Venezuelan ports without payment ever reaching PDVSA. By December 2025, Venezuela was collecting 80% of its oil revenue in USDT. Tether has frozen 41 wallets containing $119 million linked to Venezuela—but that represents only what authorities have been able to trace.

The Architect

To understand how this system was built, you have to understand the man who built it.

Alex Saab was born in Barranquilla, Colombia, in 1971. He spent the 1990s running modest textile businesses. His career changed when he partnered with Álvaro Pulido, who was involved in drug trafficking and invited Saab to do business in Venezuela. Colombian left-wing senator Piedad Córdoba—who died in January 2024—introduced Saab to Maduro.

The contracts that followed were staggering in their brazenness. In 2011, Saab agreed to supply parts for 25,000 prefabricated houses under "Gran Mision Vivienda Venezuela." The contract paid up to four times the actual cost. His company received $159 million to import housing kits but delivered only $3 million worth of products.

In 2016, when the regime launched the CLAP program to distribute subsidized food to families in need, Saab and Pulido built a network to exploit it. They sourced low-quality food from foreign suppliers, assembled the boxes abroad, and shipped them to Venezuela at inflated prices. To move funds and conceal the scheme, they used shell companies in Hong Kong, the UAE, and Turkey. The U.S. Treasury designated these networks in July 2019, calling them a "corruption network stealing from Venezuela's food program."

Alex Saab's network spans shell companies, government officials, and international intermediaries across multiple continents.

Zair Mundaray, a former Venezuelan prosecutor who investigated Saab, told Whale Hunting that Saab slipped into Maduro's inner circle precisely because he had no loyalties outside it. Unlike other power brokers in Caracas, Saab was not tied to any traditional political families or factions.

"Saab fits the profile of someone with no links to Venezuela's traditional castes or power groups, whose only real connection is to the presidential family," Mundaray said. "In Venezuela, power operates much more like a criminal cartel than an institutional structure. That creates a climate of mutual distrust and internal power struggles."

Saab's goal was simple: to make money, "and he found the perfect platform in a president who is himself a criminal."

But Saab became more than a contractor. He became the guarantor of Maduro's fortune.

"As the public and private spheres ultimately merge, there's no distinction," Mundaray said. "Saab is the guarantor of Maduro's fortune — money dispersed across multiple countries and stored in different convertible assets that ensure him a life of luxury for generations, without ever lifting a finger."

In April 2018, Maduro made it official, appointing Saab as Special Envoy with "broad powers to carry out actions on behalf of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela." He was no longer a contractor. He was a diplomat.

The Double Agent

Saab was arrested during a refueling stop in Cabo Verde, off the coast of West Africa, en route to Iran.

On June 12, 2020, Saab's plane touched down on the volcanic island of Sal in Cabo Verde for what should have been a routine refueling stop. He was en route to Iran. Instead, local authorities arrested him at the request of the United States.

The U.S. Department of Justice had unsealed an eight-count indictment charging Saab and Pulido with laundering more than $350 million through U.S. bank accounts. But then came the twist that no one expected.

Court documents reviewed by Whale Hunting revealed that Saab had also cooperated with U.S. law enforcement—providing information on bribe payments made to high-level Venezuelan officials.

Saab entered into a cooperative source agreement with the Drug Enforcement Administration on June 27, 2018—the same year Maduro appointed him Special Envoy. He met with U.S. law enforcement officials in August and September 2016, November 2017, June and July 2018, and April 2019. He also made four payments totaling over $12.5 million to DEA-controlled accounts to disgorge profits from his bribery schemes.

He was building Maduro's shadow financial empire while simultaneously informing on it.

In December 2023, President Biden negotiated his release in exchange for ten American prisoners held in Venezuela, including one close to our hearts: Leonard “Fat Leonard” Francis (subject of our Fat Leonard podcast, listen here). Saab received a presidential pardon and was required to leave the United States permanently. He landed in Caracas to a hero's welcome. Maduro embraced him publicly. Within weeks, Saab was appointed Minister of Industry and National Production.

He was once again at the center of Venezuela's survival architecture. Until this morning.

Who Has the Keys?

Venezuela's crypto infrastructure may outlast the regime that built it.

With Maduro in custody and facing drug trafficking charges in Manhattan, the question is no longer whether the regime can survive. It's whether its stolen fortune can be recovered—or whether it will vanish into the blockchain, accessible only to those who hold the keys.

The old sanctions-evasion toolkit—ships, banks, front companies—still exists. But the new one runs on stablecoins, OTC brokers, private digital wallets, and bilateral deals with governments that have no incentive to cooperate with U.S. enforcement.

Sources describe a Swiss lawyer who allegedly controls access to the wallets. The keys may be distributed across multiple people, multiple jurisdictions, multiple layers of security designed to survive exactly this scenario: the capture of the regime's leader.

David Nicolas Rubio Gonzalez was sanctioned in 2019 but never publicly charged. His father was indicted. He was not. If sources are correct that he served as a courier—physically moving the gold that became the crypto fortune—then he may know exactly where the money went. Is he secretly cooperating with U.S. authorities? Under sealed indictment? Or has he disappeared with knowledge that could unlock billions?

And then there is Saab himself. A man who has already cooperated with the DEA once. A man who was pardoned by one American president and may now be the most valuable intelligence asset for another. A man who, according to a former Venezuelan prosecutor, is "the guarantor of Maduro's fortune."

Where is Alex Saab?

Where is David Rubio Gonzalez?

And who has the keys to as much as $60 billion in Bitcoin?

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

Tyler Durden Sat, 01/03/2026 - 14:00

9.3 Million Americans Work Multiple Jobs To Make Ends Meet

Imagine getting home from your nine-to-five job to have dinner with your family, maybe read a bedtime story and put your kids to bed.

But instead of winding down on the couch afterwards, you get ready and start your second workday.

That’s the daily reality for millions of Americans, for whom one job is no longer enough to pay rent, put food on the table and cover other expenses.

As Statista's Felix Richter reports below, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 9.3 million Americans reported working multiple jobs in November 2025 – the highest number ever recorded since the BLS started tracking multiple jobholders in 1994.

You will find more infographics at Statista

In relative terms, 5.7 percent of employed Americans worked more than one job last month, which is also the highest share in 25 years.

Only in the mid-1990s, when the workforce was considerably smaller than it is today, was the share of multiple job holders higher, peaking at 6.5 percent in November 1996.

But whereas in 1996, around two thirds of multiple jobholders were not college-educated and presumably worked in low-wage occupations, half of those working more than one job now do hold a college degree, indicating that even an advanced degree no longer guarantees a job that pays well enough to make ends meet.

There are several reasons behind this trend, the most important one being economic necessity: several years of elevated inflation have left a legacy of high prices while wages have barely kept up. Housing costs, for example, have risen 28 percent over the past five years, while wages have only increased 24 percent. That leaves many families financially strained, especially as the prices of other necessities, food in particular, have also outpaced wage growth.

Another reason for the rise in multiple jobholders is the changing labor market: for one, the rise of remote jobs has made it easier for many people to work a second job, possibly from home.

Then there’s the availability of jobs in general: for large parts of the past few years, the number of job openings has vastly exceeded the number of job seekers, leaving workers willing to earn an extra paycheck with plenty of options.

And finally, the gig economy has created new opportunities for people to complement their income, offering flexible work schedules and relative freedom. As our chart shows, most multiple jobholders have one full-time and one part-time job, while two full-time jobs is the rarest form of multiple employment.

Tyler Durden Sat, 01/03/2026 - 13:25