Reader Comment

On Stephen Macaulay’s ‘What About Priorities at Home?’ -- The average Maga voter *thinks* they chose priorities at home over disastrous military excursions abroad. They did not, of course. https://www.cpr.org/2025/12/30/trump-vetoes-arkansas-river-valley-conduit-funding-bill/. Now the question becomes, does getting smacked in the head with this reality materially change in anything in such a voter? I'm not optimistic. – Joe Wiesner/via Substack

•••

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Also note, you do not have to agree with all prevailing liberal thought to consider yourself “left” nor all prevailing conservative thought to consider yourself “right.” –Editors

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FRIDAY 1/16/26

Tariff Diplomacy

At the White House last week, Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado gave President Trump her Nobel Peace Prize medal. This week, Trump is expected to speak at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

TUESDAY 1/20/26

Trump World Order – Let’s begin on this first anniversary of President Trump's second inauguration with a report by The Globe and Mail, the Great White North’s New York Times, that Canadian Armed Forces have modeled a hypothetical US military invasion of Canada and the country’s potential response.

This includes “tactics similar to those employed against Russian and later US-led forces in Afghanistan,” two senior government officials told the newspaper. It is believed to be “the first time in a century that the Canadian Armed Forces have created a model of an American assault on Canada,” TGaM continues, stressing that this is a “conceptual and theoretical framework,” not a military plan.

Know Board, know peace? … Canada will join President Trump’s Board of Peace Prime Minister Mark Carney says but will not fork over the $1 billion required to renew membership after three years, according to Politico. End of the free introductory offer coincides with the end of Trump’s current term. The charter for the Board of Peace lists “Donald J. Trump” and not “President Trump” as its chairman.

No word on whether nations like Canada taking advantage of the offer of free membership for the first three years will have to plunk down a credit card for an automatic $1-billion renewal.

Prime Minister Emmanuel Macron has rejected outright France’s participation.

“This is very, very far from the Charter of the United Nations,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said in a speech to French academics in Paris.

The Board of Peace (which doesn’t have Trump’s name on it yet) is to be a key feature of the peace brokered between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, but the US president is now promoting the board as an alterna-UN Security Council (which doesn’t have Trump’s name on it, either). Macron and Barrot are concerned that such an organization as chartered by Trump would have extensive powers beyond leading the transition in Gaza, according to Politico.

“The US out of the UN” is an old right-wing idea preceding the Reagan administration. Staunch American conservatives see the UN as usurping US power and interests, much in the same way the hard right in Great Britain considered the European Union before Brexit.

Who’s game? … Before Canada’s Carney accepted the three-year trial, Argentina’s pro-Trump president, Javier Milei, and Hungary’s pro-Putin, pro-Trump prime minister, Viktor Orbán said they would join, The New York Times reports.

Ukraine also has been invited, Ukrayinska Pravda reports.

Trump also has invited Great Britain, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Belarus. The presence of Turkey and Qatar on the board’s subcommittee has prompted “immediate outcry” from Israel, according to the NYT. –TL

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MLK Jr. Day 1/19/26

No Peace Prize, No Peace – Norway did not deny President Trump the Nobel Peace Prize he so much covets. Rather, it was the Nobel Committee based in Copenhagen, that instead awarded its Peace Prize to Venezuela opposition leader Marina Corina Machado – who handed her medal over to the US president at the White House last week (pictured above) in exchange for a DJT gift bag. Perhaps most important to Trump, 17 years ago the Nobel Committee handed its Peace Prize to President Obama.

Nevertheless, Trump did warn Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre that he is ready to give up on peace as it relates to Norway, Europe and NATO, over Greenland. PBS first reported this letter from Trump to Støre Monday (per Mediaite):

Dear Jonas: Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America.

Denmark cannot protect that land from Russia or China, and why do they have a ‘right of ownership’ anyway? There are no written documents, it’s only that a boat landed there hundreds of years ago, but we had boats landing there, also.

I have done more for NATO than any other person since its founding, and now NATO should do something for the United States. The World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland. Thank you! President DJT.

Støre told a Norwegian news outlet that Trump’s letter was a reply to a message he earlier sent to the White House.

The EU+UK Eight … Trump’s letter comes a couple of days after the president promised to hit eight European nations with 10% tariffs on February 1 unless they agree to negotiate Greenland’s sale to the United States (per The New York Times). The eight countries are Denmark, of course, and Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, Great Britain, the Netherlands and Finland.

If these countries don’t give in, the tariff rate would increase to 25% on June 1 “until such time as a Deal is reached for the Complete and Total purchase of Greenland.”

Head start … Meanwhile, as The Guardian reported last week, Friend of Trump and Estée Lauder heir Ronald Lauder already has “acquired commercial holdings” in Greenland.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer told a Downing Street press conference Trump’s trade war threat is “completely wrong” but indicated the UK will not retaliate, the Daily Mail reports.

•••

War on Minnesota – Jonathan Ross, the Immigration and Customs Service agent shown in numerous smartphone videos firing his gun at Renee Good as she tried to drive away from an ICE blockade on a one-way street in Minneapolis earlier this month, is not being investigated. But Good, who died from gunshot wounds in the shooting, is.

And now on Friday, the Justice Department issued subpoenas for Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, both Democrats, in an investigation accusing them of standing in the way of federal law enforcement officers’ abilities to carry out their jobs, The Washington Post reports.

Meanwhile … The Pentagon has placed about 1,500 active duty soldiers from the US Army’s 11^th Airborne Division, based in Alaska, on alert for potential deployment over the widespread protests in Minnesota over ICE presence and Good’s fatal shooting, four defense officials have told The Wall Street Journal. –TL

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FRIDAY 1/16/26

Chinese EVs Into Canada – China will import electric vehicles to Canada in exchange for Canadian canola oil at low tariff rates, Prime Minister Mark Carney announced Friday. The trade deal eliminates tariffs on a number of other products while sidestepping President Trump’s tough-on-China agenda in which he expects allies to match, for example, the US tariff of 100% on Chinese TVs.

Carney revealed the trade deal after hours of meetings in Beijing Friday with Chinese leader Xi JinPing, The Globe and Mail reports. Ontario Premier Doug Ford has criticized the agreement, however, saying it will harm Canadian workers.

•••

ACLU Sues ICE, CBP – The American Civil Liberties Union is suing the Trump administration alleging constitutional rights violations by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) on behalf of three community members. One of the plaintiffs, Mubashir Khalif Hussen, 20, says multiple masked ICE agents stopped him in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood of Minneapolis last December 10. Hussen repeatedly told them, “I’m a citizen. I’m a citizen,” as the agents refused to acknowledge his identification, according to the ACLU.

‘Travesty’... In the wake of last week’s fatal shooting of Renee Good in Minneapolis and the Trump administration’s defense of alleged shooter, ICE agent Jonathan Ross, President Trump has threatened to send the military into Minneapolis where federal agents Thursday shot and wounded a Venezuelan man accused of resisting arrest (per Politico).

Trump Truth Socialed Thursday; “If the corrupt politicians of Minnesota don’t obey the law and stop the professional agitators and insurrectionists from attacking the Patriots of I.C.E., who are only trying to do their job, I will institute the INSURRECTION ACT, which many Presidents have done before me, and quickly put an end to the travesty that is taking place in that once great State.”

Gov. Tim Walz (D) responded on social media; “Stop this campaign of retribution. This is not who we are.”

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey (D) commented on X-Twitter that “Minnesota needs ICE to leave, not an escalation that brings additional federal troops beyond the 3,000 already here” (per The New York Times).

•••

DHS’ ‘White Nationalist’ Rhetoric – The Trump administration’s Department of Homeland Security is dropping in White Nationalist wording into advertisements recruiting new agents for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to CNN.

ICYMI, as we did, Mediaite reports that CNN’s Dana Bash called out on Inside Politics Thursday “coded language” echoing “neo-Nazi” and “White Nationalist’ rhetoric.”

DHS advertising language has used far-right Replacement Theory language and promotes a form of ethnic cleansing, according to CNN, such as:

•“America has been invaded by criminals and predators. We need to get them out.”

•“Will have our home again” … “Join ICE.” • “The stakes have never been higher and the goal has never been more clear, re-immigration now.” –Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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FRIDAY 1/16/26

Trump v. Powell: We May All Lose — Big

Commentary by Stephen Macaulay

Numbskull.

Moron.

Fool.

Knucklehead.

Stupid guy.

Really dumb.

Total stiff.

Those are just some of the terms that Donald Trump has used to describe Jerome Powell, chairman of the Federal Reserve.

“You talk to the guy, it’s like talking to a nothing. It’s like talking to a chair. No personality, no high intelligence, no nothing.”

Oh, and it is worth noting that Powell was first appointed chair by. . .yes, Donald Trump, back in November 2017.

He picked the guy.

The Justic Department is threatening the Federal Reserve with a criminal indictment. Why, you might wonder is Team Bondi suddenly interested in the central bank?

Well, the alleged reason is because of testimony Powell made this past summer about the $2.5 billion building renovation project for the Federal Reserve HQ.

Yes, we all remember last fall when the president of the United States stood in front of the General Assembly at the United Nations and held forth:

“Many years ago, a very successful real estate developer in New York, known as Donald J. Trump, I bid on the renovation and rebuilding of this very United Nations complex.

“I remember it so well. I said at the time that I would do it for $500 million, rebuilding everything. It would be beautiful. I used to talk about, ‘I'm going to give you marble floors, they're going to give you terrazzo." The best of everything. "You're going to have mahogany walls, they're going to give you plastic.’ But they decided to go in another direction, which was much more expensive at the time, which actually produced a far inferior product. And I realized that they did not know what they were doing when it came to construction and that their building concepts were so wrong, and the product that they were proposing to build was so bad and so costly, it was going to cost them a fortune. And I said, ‘And wait until you see the overruns.’ Well, I turned out to be right. They had massive cost overruns and spent between $2 and $4 billion on the building and did not even get the marble floors that I promised them.”

(The absurdity of his going on about that to the General Assembly is an indicator of the man’s thinking.)

Perhaps Powell’s real crime is not hiring the Trump Organization for the building project at the Fed.

There are probably terrazzo floors.

On Sunday, January 11, Jerome Powell posted a video on social media.

In it, Powell claims:

“This new threat is not about my testimony last June or about the renovation of the Federal Reserve buildings. It is not about Congress's oversight role; the Fed through testimony and other public disclosures made every effort to keep Congress informed about the renovation project. Those are pretexts. The threat of criminal charges is a consequence of the Federal Reserve setting interest rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the public, rather than following the preferences of the President.”

A word about what the Federal Reserve is.

It describes its purpose:

“The Federal Reserve System performs five key functions that serve all Americans and promote the health and stability of the US economy and financial system. It conducts the nation’s monetary policy, promotes financial system stability, supervises and regulates financial institutions, fosters payment and settlement system safety and efficiency, and promotes consumer protection and community development.”

Stability.

One of the things that is widely accepted that Trump’s economic approaches aren’t is stable.

Look at the roiling that has occurred vis-à-vis tariffs on countries.

Look at how impetuousness drives his so-called policy.

A recent example: Trump calls executives from oil companies to the White House on January 9 to discuss the Venezuelan oil industry, a decrepit, broken system that needs billions of dollars and many years to reconstruct before it starts showing any kind of an ROI.

ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods, who probably knows more than a little more about the oil industry than Trump, called the situation “uninvestable.”

So what did Trump say during a press gaggle on Air Force One Sunday, January 11?

"I didn't like Exxon's response. You know, we have so many that want it. I'd probably be inclined to keep Exxon out. I didn't like their response.”

He didn’t like their response. A response that’s based on knowledge of the oil industry.

Let’s not let facts get in the way of how things are run.

Which brings us back to Powell and the Federal Reserve.

Trump has repeatedly said that the Fed needs to make more, deeper cuts to the interest rates it controls.

Trump’s idea is that if the Fed rate is cut that will lead to reduced rates for consumer loans.

In other words, money would be “cheaper” for consumers, who would then go out and buy big ticket items, which would juice the economy.

And this is a case of the classic “yes, but.”

Yes, they might be inclined to buy more things, but can they afford them?

Consider that at present, 20% of new vehicle buyers are paying more than $1,000 a month for that shiny new vehicle — which won’t be shiny or new when it is paid off because the average length of a loan is 69 months.

That means the average price being paid is $69,000. The median household income in the US is $83,730.

So that $69,000 is 82% of that median income.

Now the average auto loan rate is 6.7%. Even knocking that down a couple percentage points is not going to make it all that more affordable.

It is worth noting that the repo rate, 1.73 million vehicles per year, is the highest it has been since 2009.

Is it a good idea to encourage people to take on more debt?

You may recall Trump floating the idea of 50-year mortgages. That would have the effect of slightly lowering the monthly payment — but nearly doubling the amount of interest paid over the life of the loan. It doesn’t address the real reason that housing costs are high: Low supply.

But fixing something like that isn’t as easy as putting something on the so-called Truth Social.

Because the Fed, an independent federal agency, provides stability to the US financial system, foreign countries are confident in the US financial system so they buy securities from the US Treasury.

This is real money. Like Japan buying as much as $1.15 trillion, the UK $899 billion and even China $784 billion.

Powell:

“This is about whether the Fed will be able to continue to set interest rates based on evidence and economic conditions — or whether instead monetary policy will be directed by political pressure or intimidation.”

What happens when these countries determine that the US central bank is being manipulated by the political whims of the president? They’re probably going to be inclined to start cashing in some of those notes. And how is that going to work out for the economy?

Not only does Trump show himself to be infantile by calling Powell the names listed above (and let’s face it: there are plenty of other people he’s called worse things), but there is an impetuousness to his actions that are not helpful.

Nor is it helpful that it is absolutely clear he is using the Department of Justice to go after people he doesn’t like (e.g., James Comey, Letitia James, Jack Smith, Adam Schiff, etc.).

In the case of Powell this is much worse because it is putting in doubt “the full faith and credit of the United States.”

Something the country can ill afford.

Macaulay is pundit-at-large for The Hustings, where he writes primarily for the right column.

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FRIDAY 1/16/26

The Killing of Renee Nicole Good

Commentary by Jerry Lanson

I keep trying to move on, to write about something less unsettling. But I can’t.

I am haunted by this vibrant, 37-year-old mom, shot dead in broad daylight in a Minneapolis neighborhood and then dismissed by Donald Trump and all his bullies as some kind of radical agitator.

I am sickened by a mainstream news media that makes believe it is practicing quality “fair” journalism by doing things like interviewing a Democratic congressman and a Republican congressman (The Washington Post) for their “interpretation” of what they each see on the amalgam of videos in the minutes and seconds before Renee Nicole Good was shot dead at point-blank range.

Look at the videos yourself. Trust your own eyes and ears.

The brainwashing in this country has to stop. It’s so pervasive that people are hiding from themselves, looking for a way to doubt their own senses. Not everyone, of course. I’m heartened that more than 300 people stood out in my town Saturday in Renee Nicole Good’s honor. Tens of thousands more did so nationwide.

But what about the millions who slept in, bought a latte, watched football -- looked away?

What’s going on in this country is shocking, and what happened in Minneapolis on Wednesday epitomizes the very worst of it. Yet increasingly I sense that people are checking out. Either they are numb or too scared to look up. So much for a nation and people born of revolution, forged in a Declaration of Independence, built on the mantle of Constitutional democracy. A nation that endured a bloody Civil War, crushed the Nazis and, step by step, worked toward something approaching equality.

Until the haters regrouped, took power and systematically pointed us toward white nationalism by scrubbing our streets of brown immigrants.

If that’s OK with you, so be it.

But if not, let’s not fool ourselves anymore. For the record, Renee Nicole Good was white, a citizen, well-educated, family-oriented. Her neighbors back in Kansas City – as mom and apple pie as it gets – liked her and her little boy a lot and noted that she steered clear of politics, according to a New York Times profile, “Who Was Renee Good, Killed by an ICE Agent in Minneapolis?”

Now she is dead. Do you think she deserved her fate? If not, ask yourself: What have you done or said or reflected on about the events last Wednesday in Minneapolis?

Let’s tackle what happened head-on. Renee Nicole Good made some mistakes that fateful day. Her actions before she was shot put her in a vulnerable position. First, she parked her car perpendicularly across a one-way street for several minutes, partially obstructing traffic. She provoked notice.

She may have done this as a form of protest after ICE agents as 2,000 of them flooded her city, clearly and overtly provoking and intimidating its residents. She and her wife were part of a group that records ICE roundups on their phones. That’s absolutely legal, though such observers can’t obstruct ICE actions.

But let’s put this in perspective. You and I sometimes double-park our cars. And sometimes we drive 75 mph or even 80 mph in a 65-mph speed zone. We take a chance, in our hurry to get somewhere, that we might get a ticket. We certainly don’t expect to be shot and killed for these actions. In cold blood.

What else do the videos of Renee Nicole Good show? When the ICE agent who killed her walked around her vehicle, she said out her open window – a minute or two before he pulled the trigger, “That’s fine dude. I’m not mad at you.”

As another ICE agent approached her driver’s door and Renee’s wife, Rebecca Good, could be heard, saying, “drive, baby, drive.” The videos show Good backing up her car several feet and then turning her wheel sharply to the right – away from the ICE agent who killed her – before driving forward. Within seconds, the agent fires through the front window, first once, then twice more. The car, Good now mortally injured or dead behind the wheel, crashes into another parked car.

It is unclear on the videos just how close Good’s car came as it drove past Jonathan Ross, the ICE agent who killed her. Some media analysts suggest it may have brushed into him. Others, including The New York Times, say no.

But it is clear that her wheel was turned the other way, veering away from him, when he opened fire. Ask yourself. Why would an officer hold a camera in one hand, videotaping, and a gun in the other, shooting, if a car was bearing down on him? Wouldn’t he jump out of the way? And if the car was bearing down on him, why wouldn’t it have plowed into him after he fatally shot Good? Instead, its trajectory took the car away from him.

Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, the president and the vice-president attacked the victim and exonerated the shooter before any investigation began. They’ve refused to share evidence with state or local law enforcement. If this stands and Americans shrug and move on, no one in this country will be safe. Renee Nicole Good was killed at 9:30 in the morning blocks from her home.

Referring to the whistles used by immigrant rights’ groups to monitor ICE roundups and warn people of the agency’s approach, Rebecca Good, Renee’s wife, wrote, “We had whistles. They had bullets.”

She might have added that the “they” are federal law enforcement officials. Neither carrying a badge nor wearing a mask gives them license to kill. And the video makes explicitly clear that is precisely what happened.

No wonder the federal government of Donald Trump is refusing to allow state and local police to participate in the investigation. We must sustain pressure until that response changes.

Republished by permission from Lanson’s From the Grassroots Substack.

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TUESDAY 1/13/26

NATO’s End?

Inflation Sticks at 2.7% – Month-over-month inflation was 0.3% in December for a 2.7% Consumer Price Index comparing consumer prices versus December 2024. This was steady from November’s CPI. Shelter was the largest factor, the Labor Department says, at +0.4% month-over-month, with food +0.7% and energy +0.3%. [Chart: Bureau of Labor Statistics]

THURSDAY 1/15/26

Cosmetic Diplomacy – Troops from France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Norway and Sweden Thursday have been deployed to Greenland in a “show of support” to defend the world’s largest island against the Trump administration’s desire to take it over, according to the AP. This comes after Foreign Ministers Vivian Motzfeldt of Greenland and Lars Lokke Rasmussen of Denmark met with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance at the White House Wednesday over the president’s threat to take Greenland by force, if necessary.

Motives behind the president’s desire to claim Greenland become a bit clearer as The Guardian reports that Estée Lauder heir and longtime Friend of Trump Ronald Lauder has “acquired commercial holdings” there. “Lauder is also part of the consortium whose desire to access Ukrainian minerals appears to have spurred Trump to demand a share of the war-torn country’s resources.”

Meanwhile, Art of the Deal Elsewhere … The main account holding $500 million in revenue from the sale of seized Venezuelan oil is in Qatar and remains controlled by the US, Trump administration officials told Semafor. According to the news outlet’s scoop, Trump’s advisors remain confident oil companies will make more deals for purchase. Chevron is the only US oil company that remains operational in Venezuela.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told the Economic Club of Minnesota last week that the Treasury Department “will oversee the accounts” and “then at the president’s direction [and] Secretary Rubio’s direction” will be in charge of revenue disbursements that are returned to Venezuela. –TL

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WEDNESDAY 1/14/26

Greenland, Denmark in the (White) House – Foreign Ministers Vivian Motzfeldt of Greenland and Lars Lokke Rasmussen of Denmark meet with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance at the White House Wednesday to discuss Greenland’s future.

President Trump has been clear about his intentions: “The United States needs Greenland,” he Truth Socialed. “If we don’t take Greenland, Russia and China will,” Trump told reporters, according to The New York Times.

Last week, the president said the US was “going to do something on Greenland, whether they like it or not.”

Also last week, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said Trump’s threats “should be taken seriously” and warned a US attack would end the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Though Trump said he would not rule out military force, Secretary of State Rubio, clinging to his Voice of Reason role in the White House, said Trump plans to buy Greenland – not invade it.

Trump won’t miss NATO … Russian dictator/President Vladimir Putin won’t, either.

Whatever the means for taking over Greenland, it would achieve Trump’s world vision of the US ruling its part of the hemisphere, from the arctic island south by southwest to Venezuela and probably points south of that. There would be a post-NATO European alliance of some sort struggling to hold back Putin’s Russia (as takes Ukraine and looks further west) while China rules the East (and probably significant parts of Africa, where China’s Silk Road project has already made significant inroads).

[It’s one of those Trump White House inconsistencies that the president doesn’t like European Union governments, but he does like European immigrants.]

Saving NATO … Can Congress assert a bill to stop a Trump administration military invasion of Greenland? There’s fair warning to give time to prepare, at least, unlike the attack on Venezuela and capture of its president, Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, the weekend after New Year’s.

Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) have introduced the NATO Unity Protection Act, which would prohibit use of Defense Department or State Department funding to “blockade, occupy, annex, or otherwise assert control” over any sovereign territory of a NATO member state, The Hill reports, while Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) has joined House Democrats to introduce the No Funds for NATO Invasion Act.

Florida plan … These bills follow Trump loyalist Rep. Randy Fine’s (R-FL) two-page Greenland Annexation and Statehood Act, according to Axios. Drawback for the GOP is that if Greenland were to become the 51^st US state (and not Canada) it would certainly send two Democratic senators and one Democratic representative to Capitol Hill. –TL

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TUESDAY 1/13/26

Minnesota Federal Prosecutors Resign Over Investigation – Joe Thompson, assistant US attorney for the District of Minnesota, has resigned after top Justice Department officials pushed the office to investigate the widow of Renee Good, Minnesota Public Radio’s MPR News reports. Five other US attorneys, including Melinda Williams, Harry Jacobs and Thomas Calhoun-Lopez also resigned.

Thompson also had objected to the Justice Department’s decision to keep the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension from taking part in the investigation of the shooting and the department’s reluctance to investigate Jonathan Ross, the ICE agent pictured in multiple smartphone videos of the alleged shooting of Good, according to persons familiar with Thompson’s decision to step down.

•••

Iran Irony – After 16 days of protests in Iran, 646 people have been killed, consisting of 505 protestors, 133 military and law enforcement personnel, one prosecutor and seven non-protesting citizens, according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency. These are likely bare-minimum numbers due to a digital blackout that has used military jammers reportedly supplied by Russia to cut off Elon Musk’s Starlink Internet, Forbes reports.

President Trump has cancelled talks with Iranian leaders, warning that those responsible for such violence would “pay a big price,” according to Newsweek. Last week Mark Dubowitz and Behnam Ben Talebu in The Atlantic wrote that Trump could topple Iran’s repressive regime if he acted fast.

On Monday, Trump announced that countries that do business with Iran will be subjected to a 25% tariff “immediately” if they trade with the US, an added tariff that would hit China and India hard, according to The New York Times.

Iran along with North Korea is probably the most oppressive regime in the world. This latest uprising against Iran’s theocracy [looking at you, too, Christian Nationalism advocates] marks the latest, and possibly greatest hope that its citizens can finally topple the 47-year-old regime.

However, Trump’s support for his government’s position – pre-investigation – that Renee Nicole Good was “weaponizing” her Honda Pilot against ICE when ICE agent Jonathan Ross fatally shot her in Minneapolis last week must be mentioned in this context. The overall context that ICE’s imposing presence in Minneapolis and other major cities is even more noticeable for fears by most pundits outside the MAGAsphere that this is “practice” for a crackdown on voters for suppression in blue urban areas ahead of the November 3 midterm elections.

Shortly after the tragedy, Vice President JD Vance called Good’s fatal shooting the result of her own actions as “part of a broader left-wing network to attack, to dox, to assault and make it possible for our ICE officers to do their job.”

After Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey (D) told ICE to “get the fuck out of Minneapolis” Homeland Security Sec. Kristi Noem announced last Sunday that the Trump administration will send “hundreds more” federal agents to the city “today and tomorrow” to support the work of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

NPR’s Morning Edition reported on Tuesday that Minnesota and Illinois are suing the federal government over tactics used by immigration agents, after the fatal shooting of Good.

According to “gun-violence journalism” news outlet The Trace, the Gun Violence Archive in Washington, D.C. has identified 16 incidents in which immigration agents opened fire and another 15 incidents in which agents held someone at gunpoint as the current administration begins its sixth cumulative year in power. Four have been killed, including Good, and seven injured, according to the report. –Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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TUESDAY 1/13/26

This Is Not a Quiz

Commentary by Stephen Macaulay

The thing that gets lost in what’s happening because of the Trump administration is that its multitudinous bizarre and disturbing activities, activities that are occurring at a never-ending pace, are having the effect of normalizing bizarre and disturbing things, things that aren’t what this country is truly about. We are about freedom. About standing up for the little guy. About doing things that are right because they are right, not because there is a financial advantage to be gained. About supporting our friends around the world. About having power but not abusing power. About being decent and honest.

Which leads to a series of questions, and I am confident that you have more:

Since when is it appropriate for a president of the United States to repeatedly produce unhinged social media posts in which he attacks anyone who disagrees with him with language and epithets that are normally the stuff of elementary school playgrounds?

Or for the president of the United States to threaten to have the FCC pull the licenses of broadcast networks because they’ve aired something he doesn’t like?

Or for the president to sue a major newspaper because it reported on him in a way he doesn’t like?

This is not the behavior of someone who has sworn an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, is it, you know, First Amendment and all that?

How is it normal for the president to have a portion of the White House torn down without getting the permits that anyone in the District of Columbia needs in order to do work on their homes, to say nothing of any of the vetting required to do something to historic buildings?

Is it a sign of anything outside of self-aggrandizement for the president of the United States to have his name not only affixed to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, a name that was passed by Congress and signed into law in 1964, but to have it placed in front of the name of a president who died while in office?

When did it become acceptable for the president to send armed personnel into American cities over the objections of the people responsible for governing those cities?

How is it that the president of the United States can claim without any evidence and plenty of evidence to the contrary that a woman in Minneapolis who was shot to death “violently, willfully and viciously ran over the ICE officer”?

Why is it OK for the president of the United States to attack a sovereign country and seize its president and wife, at first claiming the attack was predicated on concerns about “narco-terrorism” (a made-up term that sounds scary), then admitted it was because he wants the oil in that country?

How is it even thinkable that a president of the United States would consider additional imperialist actions like seizing Greenland, an autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Denmark — a NATO ally?

When will all of this be admitted to be what it is, which is something decidedly not good for any of us?

Macaulay is pundit-at-large for The Hustings.

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TUESDAY 1/13/26

Nitpicking the Job Market

Commentary by Stephen Macaulay

In another context this would be considered an example of evasion, deflection and, well, bullsh*t, but this is simply indicative of the way Trump World tries to deny reality:

On January 2 The Washington Post ran a story titled “Trump says the job market is booming for US-born. The data doesn’t show it.”

Two key words there: “says” and “data.” One is a claim. The other is quantifiable.

So here are three paragraphs from the story by Lauren Kaori Gurley, paragraphs taken from the story as presented, not cherry-picked for some rhetorical advantage:

“In fact, data shows that US-born workers are doing moderately worse under Trump than they were under President Joe Biden because the labor market has weakened — partly due to a sharp slowdown in immigration.

“’The unemployment rate has been rising for both native-born and foreign-born adults,’ said Jed Kolko, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and a former Commerce Department economist.

“Taylor Rogers, a White House spokeswoman, said in a statement to The Washington Post that ‘mindless nitpicking doesn’t change the simple fact that President Trump has done more for American workers than any president in history by cracking down on visa program abuses, successfully negotiating new trade deals, securing our border, and carrying out the largest mass deportation of illegal aliens.’”

So let’s review:

The issue is jobs for US-born workers.

Kolko refers to jobs data. According to information from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and Federal Reserve Economic Data, the unemployment rate for US-born workers is 4.3%. It was 3.9% last year.

For foreign-born workers the unemployment rate is 4.4%. An 0.1% difference.

But what about Rogers? What is it she talks about? What is “nitpicking”? Citing data?

How is this “mindless,” when mindlessness would seem to be more along the lines of just saying stuff and hoping that some of it may be true?

How many US-born workers have been displaced by visa program abuses or have benefitted from “the largest mass deportation of illegal aliens”?

Why is there no substance behind these claims?

“Ah,” you might think, “the Post (or Macaulay) conveniently left them out.”

Yes, so Trump World would wish.

One of the things that the “trade deals” and the tariffs were supposed to achieve is an increase in manufacturing employment.

According to the Center for Economic and Policy Research, 73,000 manufacturing jobs have been lost in the US between November 2024 and November 2025.

No, these jobs weren’t loss en masse before Biden woke up and packed up. The largest percentage occurred after “Liberation Day.”

And let’s consider jobs across the board.

On December 4, 2025 global outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas reported that US-based employers announced 71,321 job cuts in November. That’s a 24% increase over the number of job cuts announced in November 2024.

Yes, job cuts.

If Trump World could get any solace in that number it is this: In October there were, Challenger, Gray & Christmas calculated, 153,074 who lost their jobs.

What’s more — and it is a lot more — the firm noted that through November, “employers have announced 1,170,821 job cuts, an increase of 54% from the 761,358 announced in the first 11 months of last year.” Yes, the last year of the Biden presidency.

That 1,170,821 is the highest number since 2020, when the number was 2,227,725, the last year of the first Trump presidency.

When Donald Trump talks about jobs, make sure your resume is up to date.

Listen to any spokesperson or Cabinet member or Congressperson answer a question related to something that Donald Trump has or hasn’t done and you’ll hear a full-throated encomium about the wonders that he has achieved. There will be little, if any, substance to back that up.

After all, that’s probably just nitpicking.

Macaulay is pundit-at-large for The Hustings.

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FRIDAY 1/9/26

Powell Punches Back

‘Investigation’ or Interest Rates? – Last Friday the Justice Department served the Federal Reserve with subpoenas, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell announced in a two-minute video posted Sunday. Both the DOJ subpoenas and the normally reserved Fed chairman’s response are unprecedented, according to The Wall Street Journal.

But with just four months before President Trump names Powell’s replacement, the otherwise measured Fed chair took his gloves off. The DOJ investigation ostensibly is a reaction to the Fed’s renovation of its Marriner S. Eccles Building and adjacent Federal Reserve East Building near the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Cost of the renovation has ballooned by 30% from a $1.9 billion initial cost to $2.5 billion.

Powell testified about the renovation costs before the Senate Banking Committee last June.

Trump wants the Fed’s Open Market Committee to cut interest rates to the bare minimum in order to boost his economy. As inflation eased, but not to the Fed’s 2% target rate last year, the FOMC cut rates by 0.75% in three sessions to 3.5-3.75%.

Part of what Powell said in his Sunday video:

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

“This is about whether the Fed will be able to continue to set interest rates based on evidence and economic conditions—or whether instead monetary policy will be directed by political pressure or intimidation.”

Trump told NBC News Monday he knows nothing about an investigation into the Fed or Powell.

“I wouldn’t even think of that,” the president said.

Meanwhile, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) said he would block any nominee to replace Powell when he steps down in May until the investigation is resolve (per WSJ). –TL

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SAT-SUN 1/10-11/26

Unemployment Steady at 4.4% -- There’s a shibboleth about the tavern industry that it’s a good business to be in when the economy is on the skids as much as when it’s healthy. The Labor Department lists “drinking places” as a sector that fueled growth of just 50,000 jobs last month, along with food services, health care and social assistance. Despite the holidays, retail trade jobs were down.

•Limitations of Our Page Design … places Pundit-at-Large Stephen Macaulay’s column, ‘Nitpicking the Job Market’ in the left column, with Contributing Pundit Rich Corbett’s hopes for 2026 in the right column. Please be sure to read both. Email your comments on either, or both, to editors@thehustings.news and please indicate your political leanings in the subject line.

Protests in Iran Intensify – Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Kamanei has announced a crackdown on protesters flooding the streets of at least 180 cities as the protests reach the two-week mark, The Wall Street Journal reports.

The Iranian army has joined the crackdown heretofore handled by police and paramilitary groups and “firmly safeguard national interests, strategic infrastructure and public property,” and blamed Israel and “terrorist groups” for fomenting unrest. Attorney Gen. Mohammad Movahedi Azad said even those who help protesters would face “enemy of God” death-penalty charges.

President Trump responded via social media: “Iran is looking at FREEDOM perhaps like never before. The USA stands ready to help!!!”

At least 65 people have been killed in the protests, according to the group Human Rights Activists in Iran, and more than 2,300 people have been arrested.

Meanwhile, Reza Pahlavi, 65, son of the Shah of Iran deposed in 1979 said on X-Twitter that the Islamic Republic would be brought “to its knees,” The Independent (UK) reports.

“Our goal is no longer merely to come into the streets; the goal is to prepare to seize city centers and hold them.” –TL

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FRIDAY 1/9/26

Border Patrol Shooting – Portland, Oregon Mayor Keith Wilson told a press conference Thursday that Immigration and Customs Enforcement should halt all operations in his city until a “full and independent investigation can take place” of the shooting of two men in a car by Border Patrol, per The Independent. The Department of Homeland Security says the driver was “weaponizing” the car against Border Patrol agents, and said he is believed to be a member of Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua gang.

The two men in Portland were hospitalized for injuries from the shooting a day after Renee Nicole Good was fatally shot by ICE agent Jonathan Ross in Minneapolis, where Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarity and Minnesota Attorney Gen. Keith Ellison announced an independent investigation after the FBI announced federal investigators alone would look into Good’s shooting. Minnesota officials have called on any citizens with evidence in the case to come forward with it.

Homeland Security Sec. Kristi Noem said Minnesota investigators “have not been cut,” The Minnesota Star Tribune reports. But she added, “They don’t have any jurisdiction in the investigation.” –Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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FRIDAY 1/9/26

A Conservative Reflection: Rekindling the Flame in 2026

Commentary by Rich Corbett

As we bid farewell to 2025 and step into 2026, America stands at a crossroads amid ongoing political tempests. The past year has seen continued clashes between those championing a return to foundational freedoms and forces pushing for ever-expanding government control. Drawing from timeless wisdom, it's time for conservatives to resolve anew: let's reclaim the principles of the Declaration of Independence as our guiding light, especially as we approach its 250^th anniversary. This document, born in 1776, isn't just history—it's a blueprint for countering today's chaos with reason, reality, and restrained governance.

Consider the firestorms we've endured. The Trump administration has focused on slashing regulations, boosting economic growth, securing borders and trimming federal bloat, while the Biden administration ballooned bureaucracy to 3.02 million federal employees by the end of his term. These battles aren't mere policy disputes … they stem from a deeper rift. On one side, a vision of America where natural laws and inherent rights prevail. On the other, ideologies that elevate subjective human will above objective truth, leading to societal unraveling. We've witnessed education systems sidelining history and classics, science twisted to deny basic realities like biology or mathematics … and cultural shifts that mock traditional family structures. Reproduction rates plummet below replacement levels, streets go untended and law enforcement faces unprecedented hostility — all symptoms of a nation drifting from its roots.

At the heart of this decay is government overreach, a progressive hallmark that has swollen the federal apparatus far beyond the Founding Fathers' intent. Today, unelected agencies churn out tens of thousands of pages of regulations annually, dwarfing Congress's output and wielding what amounts to kingly powers. This violates the core of our founding: government derives from the "Laws of Nature and Nature’s God," exists solely to secure unalienable rights like life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness through work, learning and conscience. These rights aren't granted by bureaucrats but inherent to our humanity. As historical thinkers like John Locke emphasized, legislative authority can't be delegated to the unaccountable — yet that's precisely what's happened, centralizing power and eroding local control.

Conservatives know this isn't sustainable. The Declaration reminds us that equality means shared human dignity, not enforced sameness or outcomes. It calls for a government that's representative, limited and divided — legislative, executive and judicial branches mirroring a balanced order. In 2026, as we mark this seminal document's milestone, let's make it our New Year's resolution to celebrate and apply it vigorously. Teach the young that truth is real: two plus two equals four, biological distinctions matter and freedom thrives when power is decentralized. Reject the malleable "truths" of radical movements, whether Marxist or otherwise, that war against nature and each other.

Looking ahead, this means advocating for policies that shrink the administrative state, protect borders and foster self-reliance. It means honoring those who embody these values — educators, leaders and everyday Americans who serve with strength and look upward for guidance. By rediscovering the Declaration of Independence, we can douse the firestorms of division and rebuild a nation where individuals flourish under just laws, not imposed wills.

In this new year, conservatives have a clear path: embrace the Declaration's enduring truths to save our republic. It's not just a celebration — it's to save our nation.

Contributing Pundit Rich Corbett writes and publishes My Desultory Blog.

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FRIDAY 1/9/26

Your Turn

On ‘Tariffs & Tipple’ (12/30/25) – The John Deere numbers are staggering -- $600 million this year jumping to $1.2 billion next year shows these costs compound rather than stabilize. What strikes me is how the reciprocal tariff framing completely misses the point about long-term trade relationships. Once Canada and the EU shift to other suppliers for spirits and wine, those distribution networks and consumer preferences just don’t snap back. I’ve seen this with a cousin who used to export craft goods overseas; once buyers find alternative sources they rarely return even when prices improve. --Neural Foundry, via Substack

•••

Read Contributing Pundits on Venezuela – Scroll down this page with the far-right trackbar to get to our “Five Years” January 6^thfront page to read Pundit-at-Large Stephen Macaulay’s “Operation Maple Syrup” in the right column and “About that Donroe Doctrine” with comments on the arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduras in the left column. To read any or all of the three columns, please use the individual trackbars for each – center, right and left – columns. A bit clunky and complicated, we agree, but worth it.

Become a Citizen Pundit – Submit your own civil, fact-based comments to editors@thehustings.news and please indicate in the subject line your political leanings – irrespective of the leaning of the comment within – in the subject line so we post your opinions in the proper column. –Editors

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WEDNESDAY 1/7/26

‘No Decency’?

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey (D) holds a news conference after the fatal ICE shooting of Renee Nicole Good.

THURSDAY 1/8/25

Fatal Shooting by ICE – It is by no means a stretch, given the Trump White House’s history on elections, to be concerned that his deployment of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in “liberal” cities will end in a clampdown on legally registered voters in the November 3 midterm elections.

An ICE agent’s fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old mother of three and described in various news accounts as a 'legal observer' of the agency's actions, in a neighborhood less than a mile away from the spot where police officer Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd in May 2020, will intensify this fight over how fair elections will be “enforced” for the next 10 months.

Multiple smartphone videos show Good attempting to drive off from a confrontation with ICE agents on a snowy one-way street as one agent attempted to open her driver’s door and another shot at her from her SUV’s left-front corner. The agent fired one shot through her windshield and two or three shots inside her open window, sending the vehicle off to hit two parked cars. She was pronounced dead at the Hennepin County Medical Center.

Both the FBI and state law enforcement are investigating.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem told a press conference Wednesday that Good had “attempted to weaponize her vehicle” and said the shooting was the “result of an act of domestic terrorism.”

One eyewitness told NPR’s Morning Edition that ICE agents had given Good conflicting commands.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey (D) responded to Noem’s remarks about ICE agents acting “defensively” in a press conference Wednesday, The Minnesota Star Tribune reports.

“There’s little I can say that will make the situation better, but I do have a message for our community, our city, and I have a message for ICE,” Frey said, according to the Star Tribune’s transcript. “To ICE, get the fuck out of Minneapolis. We do not want you here. Your stated reason for being in this city is to create some kind of safety, and you’re doing exactly the opposite. People are being hurt. Families are ripped apart. Long-term Minneapolis residents that have contributed so greatly to our city, to our culture, to our economy are being terrorized and now someone is dead.”

In a separate press conference, Gov. Tim Walz (D) encouraged safe and peaceful protest. Walz suggested that “Maybe we’re at our McCarthy moment,” and evoked attorney Joseph N. Welch, who in a June 9, 1954 Army-McCarthy hearing investigating alleged Communists in the US State Department said to Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-WI); “at long last, sir, do you have no decency?”

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Trump to Rebuild Venezuela, Renovate White House – The US will be running Venezuela and extracting its oil for years, President Trump told The New York Times in a wide-ranging Oval Office interview Wednesday evening.

“We’re going to be using oil, and we’re going to be taking oil,” Trump said. “We’re getting oil prices down, and we’re going to be giving money to Venezuela, which they desperately need.”

Asked whether the US will be involved with Venezuela six months, a year? Trump replied, “I would say much longer.”

That wide range of subjects in the NYT interview included ICE’s fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis, immigration and even further plans for White House renovations.

•••

February SOTU – President Trump is expected to hold the first annual State of the Union address of his second term on Wednesday, February 4, according to Roll Call, which reports that Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) says he has formally invited the president to address a joint session of Congress. –TL

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WEDNESDAY 1/7/26

Deal for Greenland – The Wall Street Journal Wednesday scoops a closed-door meeting in which Secretary of State Marco Rubio tells lawmakers that the Trump administration’s goal is to purchase Greenland from Denmark, rather than take it by force. That’s according to people familiar with the briefing who spoke to the WSJ, which did not report that the private meeting was exclusively for Republican congressmembers, though that’s the way to bet.

The scoop counters White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller’s refusal on CNN’s The Lead with Jake Tapper to rule out military action to take over the nation of 30,000 people – which would essentially amount to aggression on NATO.

As with Venezuela’s oil, US takeover of Greenland is more about access to critical minerals, according to the WSJ, than as a strategic military operation base, though Denmark already has indicated the United States would have open access to such natural resources.

But the WSJ scoop also quotes Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), a close ally of President Trump, especially on foreign relations subjects, saying “we need to have the legal control and protections to justify building the place up and putting our people on the ground.”

•••

US Seizes Russian-Flagged Oil Tanker – The US Coast Guard Wednesday boarded a Russian-flagged tanker in the North Atlantic that was transporting oil from Venezuela, The New York Times reports, “sharply escalating” the Trump administration’s rift with Moscow after the ouster of Nicolás Maduro. The oil tanker for about two weeks had evaded US efforts to “crack down” on Venezuela’s oil exports, according to the report.

Meanwhile, at a Goldman Sachs energy conference in Greater Miami Energy Secretary Chris Wright said the US intends to maintain “significant control” and oversee the sale of Venezuela’s oil production “indefinitely.”

“Going forward we will sell the production that comes out of Venezuela into the marketplace,” Wright said.

•••

Minnesota’s Day Care Scandal – Trump White House-connected right-wing influencer Nick Shirley is taking a “victory lap” after his 42-minute video alleging widespread fraud at Minneapolis-area daycare centers run by the Somali diaspora led to the administration freezing federal funding for daycare, including about $10 billion to five Democratic-led states, plus Minnesota Democratic Gov. Tim Walz dropping out of his 2026 bid for a third term.

Walz said he was ending his bid for a third term as governor to concentrate on investigation of the daycares.

But Shirley & Co. may want to keep that victory lap in check, as Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) now may drop into the gubernatorial race in place of Walz, Axios reports. The rumors started last weekend when The New York Times reported on a private meeting between Klobuchar, who has been in the Senate 19 years and ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020, and Walz, who was the Democratic vice-presidential candidate in 2024.

Minnesota’s GOP already has a crowded field of gubernatorial candidates for the August 11 state primary. A state Republican Party straw poll Axios covered last December had two-time gubernatorial candidate Kendall Qualls leading state House Speaker Lisa Demuth, 93 votes to 90 votes. MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell was a distant third at 49 votes, but that’s not a bad showing considering the Trump acolyte had just entered the race.

No doubt Klobuchar would relish taking on Lindell. And it seems plausible that if Klobuchar does run to become her state’s governor, she would name Walz as replacement to fill her Senate term, which ends in 2031. – Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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WEDNESDAY 1/7/26

Operation Absolute Corruption

Commentary by Stephen Macaulay

On January 4, 2026, while speaking to reporters on Air Force One, Donald Trump said that he had spoken to oil company executives both “before and after” Operation Absolute Resolve.

Why this has not become the headlines on publications across the political spectrum is a mystery.

He didn’t tell Congress before it happened. Trump said at the January 3 press conference at Mar-a-Lago “Congress has a tendency to leak.”

He did tell oil company executives. Presumably they would share the information only among their boards and banks.

How is that an acceptable thing to do?

From the point of view of the right, Trump told reporters the oil companies who go into Venezuela would be underwritten by the US government and then the US would be “reimbursed for everything we spend.”*

In other words, this would, in effect, be a situation where the government is controlling the means of (oil) production. This is an approach that was near and dear to Vladimir Lenin’s heart.

Realize that in a matter of a couple days Operation Absolute Resolve has gone from being about bringing a bad man to court to one predicated on pumping oil.

Mercantilism trumps justice.

Not that this is something new in terms of what the Trump Administration is doing.

It cut a “deal” with NVIDIA that has it that when the chip manufacturer sells an H20 processor to China, it must provide the government with 15% of the revenue.

When NVIDIA sells H200 chips to China — chips that are integral to many AI developments -- essentially this is the Trump administration, which had to provide permission for the export of these chips, leveling the playing field with China, a playing field that had been tilted to the benefit of the US. NVIDIA has to give the government 25%.

Again, the government involves itself with what was once free enterprise.

In order for Nippon Steel to acquire U.S. Steel this past June (for which it paid a non-trivial $14.9 billion), the Trump Administration demanded that it get a “Golden Share.” This means that Trump, or someone he designates, can have veto power over whether plants are to be closed or acquisitions are to be made, or other aspects of doing business.

Consider: If at some point a decision is made to close a plant where there is an election, the Federal Government can come in and deny it so that it can get an electoral edge.

The CHIPS and Science Act designated $5.7 billion for Intel to help this American company advance its technological and production capabilities in the US. It was determined that it is good for the country to have industrial champions like Intel.

But Trump didn’t like the idea of providing something for “free,” so instead an additional $3.2 billion from a Department of Defense account was used to buy a 9.9% equity stake in Intel.

Some people, particularly those of a conservative stripe, used to be wholly opposed to “industrial policy.”

What the Trump Administration is doing is industrial policy on steroids. And it seems that the way things are going — more than 150 aircraft, thousands of warfighters — it is becoming roid rage.

From the point of view of the left, since when is it acceptable to provide inside information to corporations, to say nothing of all of these other acts of extorting money or power from companies?

All of this seems very un-American.

But apparently what is “American” is being redefined by the Trump administration.

*While some people might think, “That’s just fine. It will mean prices will go down at the pump,” there are two things to keep in mind. One is that it will take many years for the oil production infrastructure to start pumping, so there will be more outflows from the Treasury before there is any oil wealth back in. Second, realize that “cheap oil” is not in the interest of oil companies. If the price of a barrel gets too low, they’re not going to be making money, which is something they’re not going to facilitate. So don’t count on cheap gas any time soon.

Macaulay is pundit-at-large for The Hustings.

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WEDNESDAY 1/7/26

About That ‘Donroe Doctrine’

Left-column comments from our contributing pundits are overwhelmingly negative about the Trump administration’s takeover of Venezuelan, even if there’s agreement removal of President Nicolás Maduro is a good thing. Please be sure to scroll down with the trackbar in this column to read all pundits’ comments, and don’t miss Pundit-at-Large Stephen Macaulay’s comments in the right column. Email your own to editors@thehustings.news and please indicate whether you’re right or left in the subject line.

Final Days -- According to reports from The Guardian, Delcy Rodriguez quickly changed her tone after Trump's "warning," which sounded more like a threat. Apparently, everyone is afraid of him and his administration seems unwilling to rein him in. We are witnessing the last days of democracy. –Sharon Lintner

Step One in the New ‘Donroe Doctrine’ -- It's hard to say why we removed Maduro from Venezuela. What is for regime change, to steal the oil (that was somehow ours even though it was nationalized just as Saudi Arabia's oil was nationalized), to stem the flow of drugs from a country that contributes far less to that problem than other South American countries, or as a signal to Russia that we'll exchange influence over Venezuela for Russian dominance over Ukraine?

I think it was most likely step one in the new "Donroe Doctrine" that calls for the U.S. to attack any South or Central American country with a left-leaning leader and replace him or her with a far-right government.

Is this what we want? A constant state of war in the Western Hemisphere, while we let China take Taiwan and Russia take Ukraine then move on to other Eastern European countries? Welcome to the new world order. –K.E. Bell

Déjà Vu – This is déjà vu all over again. In 1990, the United States conducted a similar operation when it kidnapped Panamanian dictator Mãnuel Noriega. The current intervention appears to be a violation of international law, but as in Noriega’s case, the courts will no doubt rule in favor of the US. –Joe Lintner

Feels Kind of Good, Until … Doesn't it all feel good, even in some slightly shameful way, even to us center-lefties, that an undeniably bad man has been ousted by our techno-military excellence with almost no cost to (US) resources and no loss of (US) life? (And, it seems, minimal-as-war-goes cost in Venezuelan lives.)

I confess, it does. Until I see President Trump say Ms. Machado "doesn't have the respect," which means "doesn't have [his] respect," which reminds me how despicably his respect is won. Until JD Vance talks about legality and calls it a PSA. Until I see Hegseth credited as, well, honestly, as having anything whatsoever to do with this operation. Honestly, what would I give to be a fly on the wall of Secretary Rubio's frontal cortex? -- Hugh Hansen

Done with colonialism -- Venezuela is a sovereign nation. The administration’s apparent belief that it can openly covet — and even seize — other countries and their natural resources is both outrageous and without modern precedent, defying established diplomatic norms. One can only question whether the invasion of Venezuela sets the stage for similar hostilities toward Greenland, a territory President Trump has previously and explicitly stated should belong to the United States.

The age of colonialism is long past, and the former global powers that pursued it ultimately paid a steep price, both politically and morally. As John F. Kennedy observed, “The United States has repeatedly disavowed colonialism. This nation was born in revolution against it.” Any return to such thinking would inflict incalculable damage on America’s global reputation and credibility and must come to an end. –Joel Postman

Stop the President – If Congress and the judiciary don’t shut (the president) down we are one step closer to losing our democracy. Also, this gives dictatorships an open invitation to invade where they will. He’s not only hurting Americans. He’s going for the world. A clueless, old narcissist with some serious mental issues in the most powerful job in the world. It’s terrifying. And to think, there are citizens of this country who still support him. –Kate McLeod

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MONDAY 1/5/26

Five Years

It’s the fifth anniversary of what President Trump calls a ‘day of love’ and which ex-special prosecutor Jack Smith says was "a criminal scheme to overturn the results of the 2020 election and to prevent the lawful transfer of power.” After his inauguration last January 20, Trump granted clemency to nearly 1,600 of his followers awaiting trial or sentencing or convicted for offenses related to the January 6^th US Capitol attack.

TUESDAY 1/6/26

This is No Satire – President Trump meets with Republican congressmembers from both chambers at the Kennedy Center Tuesday to discuss details about the military attack on Venezuela Saturday in which President Nicolás Maduro was deposed to the US, and to discuss our nation’s role in the country going forward, NPR reports.

Notably, NPR's news item refers to the “Kennedy Center” and not the “Trump-Kennedy Center” as its new Trump-seated board has renamed it.

In his news conference at Mar-a-Lago last Saturday, Trump said his administration did not alert Congress ahead of Operation Absolute Resolve because Congress tends to leak. But on The Daily Show Monday, Comedy Central’s ostensibly satirical news show, Jon Stewart played news footage of Trump and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) in a press gaggle aboard Air Force One in which the president says that oil company executives were in on the plans before and after Absolute Resolve.

In analysis of the Trump administration’s “Donroe Doctrine” for aggressive Western Hemisphere dominance, The Globe and Mailnotes that Trump referenced the taking of Venezuelan oil “at least 20 times” in his news conference Saturday. This was an explicit warning to China, according to Canada’s national newspaper, because China is the biggest foreign player in Venezuela, accounting for more than 80% of its oil exports.

The newspaper also notes that Trump can thank the New York Post for coining “Donroe Doctrine.”

Returning to satirical media, The Onion is running a story with the headline: “Nicolás Maduro Charged with Felony Oil Possession.”

Who’s Next? … Trump told Fox News last Saturday that Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum is not running the country.

“The [drug] cartels are running Mexico, [Sheinbaum’s] not running Mexico,” Trump said. “We have to do something.”

Sheinbaum has called on the United Nations to “stop Trump” immediately, the BBC reports.

“We categorically reject intervention in the internal matters of other countries,” Sheinbaum told a press conference Monday, The New Republic reports. “It is necessary to reaffirm that in Mexico the people rule, and that we are a free and sovereign country. Cooperation, yes; subordination and intervention, no.”

Trump more pointedly has mentioned Colombia, Cuba and Greenland as next targets for the Donroe Doctrine of Western Hemisphere dominance.

About Greenland … Former White House aide Katie Miller, wife of White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, posted on social media hours after Operation Absolute Resolve a picture of the map of Greenland covered in the red, white & blue. When CNN’s Jake Tapper asked Stephen Miller whether the Trump administration would rule out military action to take over Greenland, Miller would not say “yes,” and said that the country has a population of just 30,000.

“What is the basis of Denmark’s claim?” Miller retorted, asserting that the US as head of NATO and “obviously” should have Greenland.

Tapper quoted Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen’s comments to Bloomberg; “I believe we should take the American president seriously when he says he wants Greenland. But I will also make it clear that if the US chooses to attack another NATO country militarily, then everything stops, including NATO and then the security that has been established since the end of the Second World War.” –TL

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MONDAY 1/5/26

UPDATE: Erstwhile President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela pleaded not guilty in Manhattan federal court Monday, telling the court "I am still president," BBC Radio reports.

Not Us, Yet – Secretary of State Marco Rubio told NBC News Meet the Press host Kristen Welker Sunday that the US is at war with a drug trafficking organization, not against Venezuela. US Military aiding the US Coast Guard will continue to seize oil shipments under sanctions against the country.

The Upshot … “Here’s the bottom line on it,” Rubio told Welker. “We expect changes in Venezuela. Changes of all kinds. Long-term, short-term. But the most immediate changes are the ones that are in the national interests of the United States. That’s why we’re involved there. Because of how it applies as a direct impact in the United States.”

Here, Rubio evoked President Trump’s “Donroe Doctrine,” in which the US controls the Western Hemisphere. And so, the Trump administration cannot allow a country in our hemisphere to “become an operating hub” for Iran, Russia, China, Hezbollah and Cuban intelligence agencies already in Venezuela, he said.

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, were arraigned in federal court in Manhattan Monday, the New York Daily News reports. His vice president, Delcy Rodřiguez, was sworn in as president Saturday after US Military captured Maduro and Flores at the presidential compound.

The US expects to see cooperation with Venezuela’s government in the next two to three weeks, or two to three months, Rubio said on Meet the Press, where Welker noted Rodriguez has called for the US to release Maduro.

Venezuela will not become a colony, Rodřiguez said, initially. What would it take to keep US Military boots off Venezuelan ground?

For the relationship between Venezuela and the US to change, Rubio replied.

Trump threatens Rodřiguez … In a phone interview with staff writer Michael Scherer Sunday, President Trump told The Atlanticthat if Rodriguez “doesn’t do what’s right, she is going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro.”

It worked. By late Sunday, Rodřiguez softened her tone, inviting in a statement “the US government to work together on an agenda of cooperation.”

No Nobel winner … The Trump administration continues to refuse to consider installing María Corina Machado, who apparently has been in Øslo, Norway since picking up her Nobel Peace Prize there last month. Machado had advocated for Edmundo González to be sworn in as Venezuela’s president after he won the election last year and Maduro’s government refused to count ballots in his favor.

Is Greenland next?... Also in that Atlantic magazine interview, Trump told Scherer that “We do need Greenland, absolutely.” It is in our hemisphere, after all, and Trump believes it is necessary for the United States’ defense.

To which Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen urged Trump to stop making threats over Greenland.

“The US has no right to annex any of the three countries in the Danish Kingdom,” Frederiksen said, according to The Independent(UK).

Congressional push-back … A few moderate Republicans as well as Democrats have been pushing back on the Trump White House assertion that this is about Maduro’s drug trafficking , not least because the president just pardoned ex-president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernández, who was serving a 45-year prison sentence for “one of the largest and most violent drug-trafficking conspiracies in the world.”

Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) told CBS News’ 60 Minutes Maduro’s removal is a positive thing. But Kelly, a member of the Senate Intelligence and Armed Services committees, said the question of who is going to run Venezuela remains a serious question, leaving open the danger the country could fall into “some form of chaos.”

“I think this president needs to do a much better job articulating to the American people what is the plan going forward here,” Kelly said. “And then explain to the American people what is it really about? Is it about law enforcement, is it about drug smuggling into the United States? Is it about regime change, or is it about what the president said 20 times yesterday; this is about extracting mineral rights, oil, from a foreign nation? He hasn’t made that clear.”

•••

Walz Out – Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democrat who was presidential candidate Kamala Harris’ running mate last year, has dropped his bid for a third term in this November’s election, The Wall Street Journal reports. Walz has faced a massive welfare fraud scandal in Minnesota. –Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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MONDAY 1/5/26

Operation Maple Syrup

Commentary by Stephen Macaulay

Let’s say for the sake of argument that Donald Trump has had enough of Canadian prime minister Mark Carney and claims — without any evidence — that the amount of fentanyl coming over the border is a case of narco-terrorism. So he calls Gen. Dan “Raisin’” Caine to the Situation Room and tells him to fly to Ottawa to grab Carney.

Operation Maple Syrup.

What’s to stop him from doing this?

This is not a case of drawing an equivalency between Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and Carney but to raise a point about what seems to be the policy and procedure that the Trump Administration is undertaking.

Let’s not put too much credence in the 2020 drug trafficking charges against Maduro that Pam Bondi is going to be pursuing.

Remember that former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández was convicted in US federal court in March 2024 for various felonies, including smuggling cocaine into the US — the federal prosecutors said 400 tons — and collaborating with the Sinaloa Cartel.

Let’s break this down:

Hernández
400 tons of cocaine into the U.S.
Working with one of the largest drug cartels in the world
Sentenced to 45 years in prison and fined $8 million

On December 1, 2025, Donald Trump pardoned Hernández, blaming this all on Biden.

The Trump Administration is blowing up boats in the Caribbean that allegedly are carrying fentanyl but are apparently carrying cocaine. If these were specially engineered drug smuggling vessels, it would take 267 of them if each carried 1.5 tons to hit the 400-ton mark.

Trump says that the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua is under the direction of Maduro, which US intelligence agencies have disputed. (Perhaps Vladimir Putin told Trump of the link between Maduro and Tren de Aragua.)

And, again, Hernández was convicted in US court, in part, because of a link to the Sinaloa Cartel.

Trump gave Hernández a get-out-of-jail free card and he sent the Delta Force — supported by more than 150 military aircraft (including B-1 bombers) — and personnel from 20 different bases to grab Maduro and his wife.

None of this is to say that Maduro is a good guy.

But it is to say that it seems rather odd that Trump releases a convicted drug trafficker who was operating on a massive scale -- cocaine sold on the street is generally cut with substances like Levamisole, an animal dewormer, and as the average street purity of product is on the order of 40% to 60%, this means the 400 tons is increased some 40% to 60% -- and then initiates a major military maneuver to seize a “narcoterrorist” and his wife.

Now, he says, the US will be running Venezuela. That country has a lot of oil. Trump says that that’s American oil because US oil companies that established facilities there were ejected from the country. When? Oh, 2007.

And what isn’t mentioned is that Chevron still operates there.

The president has Article II powers that puts him in control of the military.

Congress is the only body that can declare war, but the US is not going to war with Venezuela, so that seems to be a moot point.

But one wonders: Are there any limits on the president’s powers or can he act at will?

Maybe by the time you read this Canada will be the 51^st state.

Macaulay is pundit-at-large for The Hustings.

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MONDAY 1/5/26