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?”

•••

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

Trump’s Hall of Blame

Commentary by Jerry Lanson

Hey parents.

You may want to think twice before sending your kids off on that class trip to the White House.

It’s not because of the man occupying the Oval Office or the wreckage of what was the East Wing. It’s because of the propaganda they may be inundated with once they arrive.

PBSreposted a PolitiFact article over the holidays about the plaques Donald Trump has put up, lining a walkway for visitors. They are ugly. Here is the rather refined way in which PolitiFact tiptoed into the issue.

“In a break with tradition, Donald Trump decorated the White House walkway with bronze plaques for each US president. In an even sharper break with tradition, the plaques were written in a style echoing Trump’s Truth Social posts, with misleading or false descriptions of recent Democratic presidents.

Translation: They are loaded with lies.

• President Barack Obama’s plaque calls him “one of the most divisive political figures in American history.” That may be true among those KKK descendants in MAGA-land, but it’s certainly not true for the American public. A 2025 poll identified Obama as the most favorably viewed of the last five presidents, at 59 percent, PolitiFact reported.

• The Obama plaque also says that the Affordable Care Act, known as Obama Care, was “highly ineffective,” although the number of uninsured Americans dropped by 8.6 percent between its passage and his final year in office, PolitiFact notes. Starting January 1, 2026, some 22 million Americans will see their premiums soar because of the GOP’s refusal to extend subsidies designed to keep the cost of insurance affordable. Millions are expected to drop out of the program, leaving them vulnerable and likely driving up overall medical costs in the country.

• President Joe Biden is depicted on the wall with an autopen, not a picture of him. His plaque says he took office in 2021 “as a result of the most corrupt Election ever seen in the United States,” an overt lie made clear by Trump’s failure to overturn the results after five dozen lawsuits. Biden’s plaque also says he oversaw the highest inflation ever recorded in the United States – also demonstrably false (if you’re in your mid-60s or older, you might recall the inflationary struggles of the late 1970s when the country lived through double-digit inflation).

And so it goes.

It’s important to note that, unlike Trump’s regular rants on Truth Social, these words are cast in bronze for visitors to the White House to read. One can only presume Trump hopes visitors will take them at face value. (I wish PolitiFact had reported on what was said about each of the presidents.)

Of course, this information should come without surprise, particularly given the ongoing screes launched by Trump over the holidays. On Christmas Eve, for example, he wrote: “Merry Christmas to all, including the Radical Left Scum that is doing everything possible to destroy our country, but are failing badly.”

On Christmas Day itself, starting in the wee hours of the morning, he posted more than 100 times on Truth Social, Mother Jones reported. This included multiple posts proclaiming that the 2020 election was stolen; attacks on individuals ranging from former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Joe Biden; and a final post that read, “enjoy what may be your last Merry Christmas.”

In keeping with the spirit of the season, Trump followed up on New Year’s Eve day, according to politicalwire.com, by calling Colorado’s Democratic Gov. Jared Polis a “scumbag” and saying he should “rot in hell.”

So as 2026 begins, fasten your seatbelt. Never take your eyes off the road ahead. Every New Year’s Eve, you have to be prepared for some crazy careening around a turn in the road and heading straight toward you. In 2026, that intense defensive driving may well need to extend for days, weeks and months ahead.

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

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SATURDAY 1/3/26

US Runs Venezuela, Owns Its Oil

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro transported to the US on the USS Iwo Jima [Truth Social photo].

•Is Making Venezuela Great Again equal to regime change? Is it MAGA? Is it both? This is your chance to weigh in with your civil comments? Become a Citizen Pundit with an EMAIL to editors@thehustings.news or a comment to our SUBSTACK page and please indicate whether you lean left or right (regardless of your opinion of the Trump administration’s actions).

The Donroe Doctrine Takes Over Venezuela – Operation Absolute Resolve has removed Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, from their compound in Caracas and placed them in US custody on their way to the federal Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. Attorney Gen. Pam Bondi says she will issue a fresh indictment to Maduro – who was indicted in 2020 for narco-terrorism and other crimes – and Flores, The New York Times reports.

Meanwhile, the US is in charge. President Trump told a press conference at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, that the people behind him, meaning Secretary of State Marco Rubio and War Secretary Pete Hegseth, will run Venezuela as US oil companies rush back in to claim their facilities grabbed by Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chávez.

The Monroe Doctrine “is now considered the Donroe Doctrine,” Trump asserted.

Large US oil companies will go into Venezuela to take back the oil Chávez’s socialist regime took away, “considered the largest theft from our country in history,” Trump said.

Without offering pretty much any detail, Trump said Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, who was sworn in as interim president Saturday morning, will not prevail. And it won’t be Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, who has not been seen in her country since traveling last month to Oslo, Norway to collect her Nobel Peace Prize (the one Trump wanted). Machado “doesn’t have the respect” to run Venezuela, the president said.

Trump, Rubio and Hegseth, as well as Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who Trump and Hegseth constantly referred to as “Raisin’ Caine,” described an operation months in the making, bringing together all branches of the US Military along with law enforcement and the CIA (which scoped out Maduro’s every move to make for a clean arrest). US Military carried off Operation Absolute Resolve with no casualties and one aircraft hit but not damaged sufficiently to prevent it from returning to base.

Trump said his administration did not confer with members of Congress because congressmembers tend to “leak.”

And his administration is not going to give up any military dominance in Venezuela. Trump cited failed US intervention in Afghanistan and “the Jimmy Carter days,” referring to the Carter administration’s failed US Military rescue of American hostages in Iran in 1980.

“We’re not afraid of boots on the ground,” Trump told the press conference. “We’re going to make sure that country is going to be run properly.”

How is this MAGA (Make America Great Again)? a reporter asked.

“We want to surround ourselves with good neighbors,” Trump replied. “We want to surround ourselves with security and we want to surround ourselves with energy.”

ICYMI, Venezuela has the largest known oil reserves in the world. Trump said America’s largest oil companies – not the US government – will spend a lot of money to update decrepit refinery facilities. –Todd Lassa

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this news item misidentified Venezuela's vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, who was sworn in as president Saturday.

_____
SATURDAY 1/3/26

Operation Maple Syrup

Commentary by Stephen Macaulay

Operation Maple Syrup.

What’s to stop him from doing this?

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

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.

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

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

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.

_____
SATURDAY 1/3/26

So You Want healthcare? Pay Up

Commentary by K.E. Bell

What's the healthcare impact of the Big Beautiful Betrayal? I have first-hand knowledge.

In late December I looked into going on the Affordable Care Act – “Obamacare” -- after also getting a quote in July. Based on the numbers below, the effects of the bill weren’t factored in by last July.

July:

Based on an expected freelance income of about what I was making at my last job and choosing a plan that would include my doctor, my hospital, and my medications, I received the following quote. This is for a man in his late 50s without any serious health issues.

$563 a month with a $7,500 deductible and a premium tax credit of $309 a month for a net of $254 a month, or $3,048 for the year.

December:

Same income, as well as the same doctor, hospital and medications.

$966 a month premium with a $7,750 deductible and no premium tax credit, or $11,592 for the year.

The math says the government now wants me to pay an additional $8,544 per year. The premiums increase by 380% from what they were in July and the deductible goes up by $250.

This is in addition to a deductible that would grow by $5,750 versus the insurance from my job, so really the government wants to take another $14,294 out of my pocket annually.

I shared this information on Facebook, and commenters replied with several similar stories.

Here’s a sampling.

One friend in his early 60s who needs to carry insurance for himself and his wife, said “Just canceled our health insurance for 2026 - $497 [cost in 2025] --> $2,750 a month.”

Another friend who is a YouTuber in is late 20s replied, “Mine went from $545/mo. to $890/mo.” He appears to be the lucky one.

A couple, both freelancers in their 40s, noted their healthcare premiums will exceed their mortgage, going from about $660 to more than $1,600 per month.

These are only anecdotal examples, but it’s clear that the Big Beautiful Betrayal is going to screw anyone involved in the gig economy.

Elect Republicans, who have been trying to claw back Obamacare for years, and fend for yourself.

A couple of commenters on my post who lean right seemed to take it as granted that the ACA just can’t work. However, when a party sabotages something then says it's a disaster it's that party's fault.

Lost in the political bluster since the ACA passed in 2010 is the fact that it was based on a Republican idea, Romneycare, which went into effect in Massachusetts in 2006.

The individual mandate, which required people without another form of insurance to buy in or pay a fine, was originally an idea from The Heritage Foundation. Yes, the same Heritage Foundation that penned the Project 2025 that is quickly dismantling this country. During negotiations to pass the ACA, Republicans actually improved the bill by adding the individual mandate. That spurred younger people with fewer health issues to buy in and therefore reduce costs for everyone.

Then, in 2019 under the first Trump Administration, they stripped it.

The ACA was working in the sense that it slowed the annual rise in healthcare costs. It was never the best idea for the country because the best idea is Medicare for all, which would remove the insurance middlemen that account for so much of our healthcare costs.

Now it’s clear that universal healthcare is needed more than ever.

But Republicans shout that the government is inefficient and would certainly bungle its rollout.

We love to boast about American exceptionalism, and yet we don't have the confidence in our country to enact a policy that almost all first-world countries have managed to make happen. Which is it?

If one good thing manages to arise from the destruction brought about by President Trump, it will be a real appetite for universal healthcare. It will be a hard thing to create and get right, but today’s skyrocketing healthcare costs show it's the best solution for the American people.

Bell is contributing pundit to The Hustings.

_____________________________________________

Your Turn

Hopes of those to the left of populist-conservative President Donald J. Trump that the 2026 mid-terms will reverse Republican majorities in Congress are being tempered by an economy that has not yet felt the effects of the White House’s love of tariffs.

After missing October numbers thanks to the government shutdown, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported 64,000 new jobs in November – a fairly small number, but a bit higher than economists had expected. Then the BLS reported the Consumer Price Index had slipped slightly from 3% in September to 2.7% in November. Though still above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target, it’s a sign manufacturers and retailers are absorbing more of the Trump tariffs than what they pass on to consumers.

More recently, the Bureau of Economic Analysis reported a healthy Gross Domestic Product growth of 4.3% in the third quarter.

Pundit-at-Large Stephen Macaulay tackles the issue of the Trump tariffs on the economy in his right-column opinion piece, “Of Tariffs & Tipple.”

What do you think? Agree or disagree? We welcome your civilly stated comments for this or the right column. Email us at editors@thehustings.news and please indicate your political leanings (irrespective of the comments within) in the subject line, so we may post them in the proper column. –Editors

_____
TUESDAY 12/30/25

…meanwhile…

WAITING FOR PHASE 2: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Trump talk peace in Gaza -- as the White House's plan remains stuck in Phase 1 -- at a news conference in Palm Beach, Florida, before the new year. [From a White House video.]

•Read the 255-page transcript of the House Judiciary Committee closed-door deposition of former special counsel Jack Smith, released New Year’s Eve HERE. Scroll down center column for details.

Know No Child Care – Right-wing anti-immigrant influencer Nick Shirley’s YouTube video “investigating” Somali-run daycare centers in Metro Minneapolis has prompted the Trump White House to announce it is freezing the federal Child Care and Development Fund, ABC News reports.

Such a freeze will affect not only the 1.4 million children on subsidized care nationwide, but millions more children reliant on the facilities, because they are “not going to be able to remain open inf there are any delays in receiving their subsidies for the children that they care for that fall under the CCDF funding,” National Child Care Funding Director Cindy Lehnhoff told NPR’s A Martinez on Morning Edition. Such childcare facilities have a month at best to remain open, Lehnhoff said.

The CCDF is the largest federal funding source for childcare to states, indigenous tribes and territories, says the Bipartisan Policy Center’s “Explainer.” If Lehnhoff is correct, and the CCDF freeze shuts down centers reliant on the federal subsidies for a significant portion of the children under their care, it could affect parents from a wide swath of socio-economic communities across the United States, much like the end of Affordable Care Act subsidies.

A secondary effect of the freeze is that many parents will find it hard to make it to their offices or other workplaces if subsidized childcare centers are forced to shut down, Lehnhoff told Morning Edition.

In Shirley’s YouTube video, Shirley and an older man identified only as “David” attempt to enter Somalian-run Minneapolis-area day care centers to inquire about signing up Shirley’s “son Joey.” He is refused entry in most cases and concludes there are no children being cared for in the facilities.

Shirley has built his YouTube following by posting “anti-immigrant” clips, according to The Intercept_, and is calling for investigation into Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, running mate in 2024 to presidential candidate Kamala Harris. One of the facilities covered in his video, Nokomis Day Care Center in Minneapolis, was burgled early Wednesday morning, its manager, Nasrulah Mohamed, told Fox News America Reports on Wednesday.

•••

Trump v. Boebert? – Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) took to X-Twitter to strike back at President Trump for the first veto of his second term Tuesday, December 30, with which he blocked a “long-awaited” lower Arkansas Valley project to deliver clean water to approximately 50,000 residents of Southeast Colorado, according to Colorado Politics. Trump said the state, and not the federal government, should pay for the project.

Boebert, who has been as staunch a Trump-MAGA supporter as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), said in her social post that Trump vetoed a “non-controversial, bipartisan bill that passed both the House and Senate unanimously. Why? Because nothing says ‘America First’ like denying clean drinking water to 50,000 people, many of whom voted for Trump in all three elections.”

Boebert hinted that Trump’s veto was political retaliation for her support of the discharge petition that forced the House to vote on releasing the Epstein Files.

The veto also is seen as retaliation for Democratic Gov. Jared Polis to release former Mesa County Clerk and Recorder Tina Peters from prison, where she serves a nine-year sentence for tampering with election equipment in 2020. Colorado is a politically split state, leaning red east of the Rocky Mountains and leaning blue west of them.

Trump also has announced he will dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder.

•••

Smith ‘Secrets’ Revealed – Ex-special prosecutor Jack Smith’s December 17 deposition before the House Judiciary Committee was held behind closed doors, but the committee released a 255-page transcript on New Year’s Eve, leaving Smith, who investigated President Trump’s part in the January 6^th attack on the US Capitol and his absconding classified documents to Mar-a-Lago after his first term, to explain the work he was able to complete.

It began with the explanation that Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-OH) “requested this deposition as part of the committee’s oversight of the Biden-Harris administration’s weaponization of the Justice Department and its misuse of Federal law enforcement resources for partisan political purposes.”

OK then.

“I was taught as a young prosecutor to follow the facts and the law, and to do so without fear or favor, to do the right thing, the right way, for the right reasons,” Smith began. “For nearly three decades I have been a career prosecutor. I have served during both Republican and Democratic administrations and I’ve been guided by those principles in every role I’ve held. I continued to honor those principles when I was appointed to serve as special counsel in November of 2022.

“The decision to bring charges against President Trump was mine, but the basis for those charges rests entirely with President Trump and his actions, as alleged in the indictments returned by grand juries in two different districts.

“Our investigation developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in a criminal scheme to overturn the results of the 2020 election and to prevent the lawful transfer of power.

“Our investigation also developed powerful evidence that showed that President Trump willfully retained highly classified documents after he left office in January of 2021, storing them at his social club, including a ballroom and a bathroom. He then repeatedly tried to obstruct justice to conceal his continued retention of those documents.”

•••

Get Off Our Lawn – The White House on December 16 issued Proclamation 10949 to fully restrict entry of nationals from Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. Proclamation 10949 partially restricts or limits entry of nationals from Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela.

________________________________________________

NGOs Out of Gaza – Israel’s ministry of diaspora affairs Tuesday told 37 Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) they would have to cease operations in Gaza within 60 days unless they meet stringent new regulations, including disclosing personal details of their staffs. This is ostensibly to prevent NGOs from employing staff with connections to extremist organizations and to ensure Hamas does not exploit international aid, though the Association of International Development Agencies, which represents more than 100 NGOs operating in Gaza and the occupied West Bank already vets its staff there “strenuously,” its executive director, Athena Rayburn, told The Guardian.

“We have such strong measures in place already and have proposed alternatives to the Israeli authorities that would meet the requirements, and they have refused,” Rayburn told the newspaper.

Meanwhile … Israel has become the first country to recognize Somaliland, the breakaway region of Somalia, as an independent nation, the right move “for all the wrong reasons,” while continuing to refuse recognition of Palestine, according to analysis by Zvi Bár el of Haaretz. Somaliland leans toward democratic rule and is one of the most stable entities on the Horn of Africa, Bár el writes, but Israel is more interested in its economically strategic location on the Gulf of Aden, the maritime route linking the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean.

///

Another Prize for Trump – First there was the newly invented FIFA Peace Prize as consolation for the Nobel Committee’s snub of our president. On Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the Israel Prize would go to a non-Israeli for the first time ever: President Trump.

Netanyahu’s announcement came in a press conference in Palm Beach, Florida (above) after the PM and the president held talks about moving the Trump administration’s Abraham Accords on to Phase 2, despite lingering issues with the Phase 1 ceasefire. To wit; Hamas has not given up arms, nor has it handed over the remains of its last hostage, Ran Gvili, for burial in Israel. Nor has the Israeli Defense Force ceased missile attacks on Gaza, nor has it allowed the level of food, aid and supplies into Gaza as proscribed by Phase 1.

For its part, Hamas says it cannot locate Gvili’s remains because those who know where it is are dead.

That did not keep Netanyahu from praising Trump at the beginning of their press conference.

“I think we have a partnership, if I can quote you, second to none, I think it has allowed us to do enormous things,” Netanyahu said.

Trump issued a non-binding statement afterward that says the Abraham Accords would be expanded to more countries – this means Saudi Arabia – at an undefined point in the future, Haaretz reports.

“At some point, they’ll sign the Abraham Accords,” Trump said.

The president went on to say that if Hamas fails to disarm as Phase 1 requires, “It would be very, very bad for them.”

He also warned of a potential Israeli strike against a Hezbollah stronghold. They are “behaving badly, so that will probably happen.”

Trump also warned of another strike on Iran aimed at its allegedly revived nuclear weapons program (which was to have been obliterated by the last US strike on the country during the Trump administration).

“If it’s confirmed, they know the consequences,” Trump said, “and the consequences will be very powerful, maybe more powerful than the last time.”

Trump did not directly address the issue of voluntary exile of Gazans to a third country, nor did he say anything about reports of violence by far-right Israeli activists in Palestinian villages on the West Bank, Haaretz notes.

Thus stands the art of Phase 1 of the Abraham Accords peace deal.

Netanyahu remains in Florida for the rest of the week, along with his wife and son, and minimal press access, Haaretz reports, in what “appears to be a vacation in disguise.”

•••

Meanwhile, in Venezuela – The CIA hit a port in Venezuela purportedly used for shipping narcotics, with a drone strike last week, CNN reports, citing two unnamed sources. There were no casualties nor injuries, as nobody was on the dock at the time.

According to CNN’s Monday scoop, US Special Operations Forces provided intelligence support, underscoring their continued involvement in the Trump administration’s apparent efforts to remove Venezuelan President Nicholás Maduro. Spokesperson Allie Weiskopf denied Special Operations Force involvement.

On WABC radio last Friday, President Trump told station owner and major Republican donor John Catsmatidis US forces took out a “big facility” in Venezuela.

“We just knocked out – I don’t know if you read or you saw – they have a big plant, on a big facility, where ships come from, two nights ago, we knocked that out. So we hit them very hard,” Trump said.

•••

Election Denier – The Virginia man charged with planting pipe bombs at both the Republican and Democratic party headquarters near the Capitol on January 5, 2021, Brian J. Cole Jr., told the FBI he needed to “speak up” when he began to suspect the 2020 presidential election that President Trump and many of his supporters continue to claim was stolen from him, had been “tampered with.” The apparent motive for planting the pipe bombs was revealed in papers filed by the Justice Department in federal court in Washington, The New York Times reports. – Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

_____
TUESDAY 12/30/25

Of Tariffs & Tipple

Commentary by Stephen Macaulay

“To go from a 10% across the board to 15%, for the broad base of countries, not a huge impact.”-- Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan, CBS News Face the Nation, December 28, 2025

Moynihan is talking, of course, about the tariffs that President Donald Trump applied in a willy-nilly manner before and after April 2, “Liberation Day.” One wonders what it is “liberation” from — economic sanity?

That Moynihan seems rather, as the kids say, “chill” about a 15% tariff isn’t entirely surprising, given that he is the top exec of the second-largest bank in the country.

According to the latest figures from the Yale Budget Lab, “Consumers face an overall average effective tariff rate of 16.8%, the highest since 1935.” While that is only off 1.8% from Moynihan’s broad characterization of things, a percentage here and a percentage there and pretty soon it is real money:

The latest figures from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York have it that in Q3 2025 there was an increase of $197 billion in household debt in Q3 2025, so the total now stands at $18.59 trillion.

One of the functions of operations like Bank of America is to loan households money. No wonder Moynihan is sanguine about how things are going.

To be sure, there were many people (including me) who thought there would be a bigger impact from the tariffs by now. But for a variety of reasons — like companies buying lots of pre-tariff inventory that they’ve been selling off since, or companies absorbing tariff costs so as to maintain market share — things haven’t gotten as bad as anticipated.

For now.

Writing in Project Syndicate on December 29, Jeffrey Frankel, professor of Capital Formation and Growth at Harvard, put it:

“But firms will not let tariffs erode their profit margins indefinitely. Assuming the tariffs remain, the US can look forward to more price increases, and downward pressure on real incomes, in 2026.”

Or put another way: What was expected to have happened will happen.

And the “reciprocal tariffs” that have been put in place by Trump — because seemingly all the countries in the world have been “ripping us off” — haven’t simply had the people in those countries saying “Thank you, sir, may I have another” but many of them have simply decided they’re no longer interested in products imported from America.

Case in point: the Canadians saying “No” and “Non” to beverages like bourbon.

Here’s this from Chris Swonger, president and CEO of the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, upon the release of the organization’s mid-year report on exports:

“After celebrating a record year for US spirits exports in 2024, this new data is very troubling for US distillers. Persistent trade tensions are having an immediate and adverse effect on US spirits exports. There’s a growing concern that our international consumers are increasingly opting for domestically produced spirits or imports from countries other than the US, signaling a shift away from our great American spirits brands.”

The organization found “particularly steep” declines in exports to markets including the European Union (which accounted for half of all spirits exports in 2024), Japan, the United Kingdom and Canada.

US spirits exports to Canada are down 85%.

In this case causation may be correlation: Jim Beam announced it will not be operating its main distillery in 2026. It will operate other distilleries, and it will use the time to improve its Clermont, Kentucky, facility, but it goes to the point that businesses like Beam have more than enough issues to deal with without having the government adding more.

On December 8 the US Department of Agriculture announced it will be making $12 billion in “one time bridge payments” to farmers “in response to temporary trade market disruptions and increased production costs.”

So let’s see: Other countries decided to source agricultural products from places not in the US because of the tariffs. What makes anyone think this is “temporary” — unless Trump will rescind tariffs on other agricultural products like he did for coffee, bananas, tomatoes and more?

Increase production costs? Well, there were the price increases farmers faced for fertilizers because of the tariffs, until Trump suspended those, too, on November 13.

But if farmers want some new equipment from John Deere — which makes its gear with steel and aluminum, both of which have 50% tariffs — they’re going to have to pay more for that: John Deere announced it anticipates a $600 million hit to its profits in 2025 — and double that hit, to $1.2 billion in 2026.

Going back to the topic of alcoholic beverages, in the announcement of the bridge payments there is a “List of Trade & Market Access Wins to Date.” It includes this: “Wine exports to Mexico are up 30% in 2025, reaching $18 million.” Sounds good, right?

According to the very same US Department of Agriculture, in 2024 the total value of wine bought from the US by Mexico was $25.4 million.

Perhaps they thought the Mexican people would buy a whole lot more wine between December 8 and December 31.

By the way: In 2024 the number one buyer of US wine by a huge margin over number two EU was Canada, at $459.55 million.

According to the Wine Institute, as of mid-October wine exports to Canada from the US were down 91%. That would be down about $418 million. Sure puts that $18 million the USDA is so chuffed about into perspective.

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

_____
TUESDAY 12/30/25

Justice Will Have to Wait

Commentary by K.E. Bell

It certainly appears the coverup is unfolding right before our eyes. First, on February 21, Attorney General Pam Bondi said she had the Epstein client list on her desk, then she said there is no such list.

Next, according to a Bloomberg report in March, FBI Director Kash Patel ordered up to 1,000 FBI agents to scour the Epstein files and redact Donald Trump’s name because he was a private citizen when the Epstein case was opened.

The public face of the coverup kicked into high gear when in July Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, President Trump’s former personal attorney, met with convicted Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell, seemingly to ensure she wouldn’t expose Trump or the other high-powered men surrounding Epstein. Apparently satisfied with that meeting, he ordered Maxwell’s move to a minimum-security prison.

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson then chipped in with a stall tactic when he kept Congress out of session for 54 days using the government shutdown as an excuse. This conveniently avoided securing the final vote on the discharge petition that would require a vote to release the Epstein files.

Johnson brought the House back into session around the same time the Democrats caved on the 43-day government shutdown, which was the longest in US history. Their capitulation was horrible for the country, but it shined more light on the suspected coverup. It gave Johnson no choice but to finally seat Arizona Democrat Adelita Grijalva, who did indeed provide the final vote to move the discharge petition forward to the House floor, which in turn spurred all House Republicans but one to vote with the Democrats to release the Epstein files.

Now, the Department of Justice has violated the law, thus keeping the Epstein files from coming to light.

The Epstein Files Transparency Act (EFTA) required the DOJ to release all of the files by December 19. Instead, the DOJ released a small percentage of the files, many heavily redacted. A 119-page record of New York grand jury testimony consists of only the title of the document with the rest of the pages blacked out entirely.

The EFTA permits redactions only for victim privacy, child sexual abuse material, and ongoing investigations, the last of which must be narrowly tailored. It also requires “a written justification published in the Federal Register and submitted to Congress” for all redactions. The DOJ redacted its brains out and provided no justification.

What the Department of Justice calls compliance I call a “f*** you” to the rule of law.

For its part, the DOJ says the complete files will come out in the coming weeks. If you believe that I have an abandoned island to sell you.

The problem is that the criminals are in charge of the Justice Department. The DOJ is not going to arrest itself. That means there is likely no accountability while Trump is in office. But the statute of limitations runs five years, and these brazen criminals are acting like they will never face justice for their actions.

Congress his little recourse, but it should do everything it can. While the EFTA is a law, there are no penalties for breaking it. Reps. Ro Khanna (D-CA) and Thomas Massie (R-KY), who introduced the EFTA, have suggested filing inherent contempt charges against Pam Bondi. They should do that and more. They should introduce articles of impeachment as well for Bondi, Patel, and Blanche. That effort almost certainly wouldn’t be successful, but it would apply more pressure and keep the lawbreaking in the public spotlight.

Justice will likely have to wait. The DOJ has plenty of reason not to release the Epstein files, both for the embarrassment and the culpability of those involved.

Blanche continues to say the DOJ is not covering for Trump. Bondi speaks of absolute transparency while breaking the law by withholding the files. Patel told Congress that there is nobody else worth charging for sex trafficking. Releasing the files in full could very well prove they’re all wrong and/or lying, and Patel would be especially vulnerable because he could be brought up on charges for lying to Congress.

It's very likely that there is more than just Trump to protect. Epstein ran in elite circles with heads of state, high-powered politicians from the US and abroad, celebrities, and even intelligence officials, again at home and abroad. The latest drop of files shows there were 10 coconspirators, and yet Patel and Bondi (or the incredibly weak Merrick Garland for that matter) haven’t found occasion to charge any of them.

Even before the Trump era, it became apparent that justice doesn’t apply to these types of people, and that’s only supercharged in the age of cash for pardons. The DOJ seems intent on protecting them too, unless they’re Democrats.

What’s lost here is justice for the girls, now women, victimized by Epstein. The coverup protects rapists and pedophiles while marginalizing the 14-, 15-, and 16-year-old girls whose lives he ruined.

I can’t imagine a form of “justice” more disgusting, and I can’t wait for these sick people complicit in the coverup to get their justice. It will just have to wait.

Bell is contributing pundit for The Hustings, where he writes for the left column.

_____
WEDNESDAY 12/24/25

…meanwhile…

•READ Contributing Pundit Jerry Lanson's column, "A Change of Direction in the New Year" in The Gray Area.

•SCROLL DOWN THIS COLUMN for details on Q3 GDP numbers.

UPDATE: Trump Buys Putin’s Charge – Moscow so far has not provided any proof that Russian dictator/President Vladimir Putin’s state residence was attacked by drones, from Ukraine or anywhere else. Meanwhile, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that “President Trump has concluded a positive call with President Putin concerning Ukraine,” though the Kremlin already has announced that “Russia’s negotiating position” on erstwhile peace talks will be revised.

Trump told reporters at Mar-a-Lago that he “heard” about the attack, adding; “That would be too bad. That would not be too good,” according to Politico.

Asked a second time, Trump’s response sounds a bit reminiscent of his reaction at the 2018 Helsinki summit in which Putin told him Russia was not responsible for interference in the 2016 US presidential election.

“I have President Putin, he said it’s not Russia,” Trump said at the time, accepting Putin’s word over official US intelligence. “I will say, I don’t see any reason why it would be.”

Trump’s second response to Moscow’s claim Ukraine attacked Putin’s home? That he is “angry” about any “offensive” attack by Ukraine that would jeopardize the peace talks.

Putin Knows No Peace – Predictable, really, that Russian dictator/President Vladimir Putin would put the kibosh on what looked like a peace plan Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was on the brink of reaching with President Trump after the former’s two-hour visit Sunday with the latter at Mar-a-Lago.

Putin on Monday claimed via his foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, that one of his Russian state residences had been the subject of a drone attack, according to CNN’s The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer. Putin blamed it on Ukraine, calling the alleged attack “terrorism,” while Ukraine immediately denied it had anything to do with such an attack.

Zelenskyy called Putin’s allegation “another lie. …”

The Kyiv Independent reports Zelenskyy told Ukrainian media Monday; “With this statement about an alleged attack on some residence, they are preparing the ground to strike, most likely the capital and government buildings. We’ve already seen this before, when they attacked the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine.”

Indeed, Lavrov said that though there were no injuries or damage to Putin’s state residence, Russian military has selected targets for “retaliatory strikes” (CNN).

“Russia’s negotiating position will be revised,” Lavrov said of peace negotiations that had finally appeared to be going somewhere.

At Mar-a-Lago, the Trump administration’s original 28-point plan, developed with Moscow, was revised to a 20-point plan that reportedly includes drafts for three-part security guarantees between Ukraine, the US and Europe and a bilateral security agreement with the US, the Independent reports. A separate document called “roadmap for Ukraine’s prosperity” outlines economic cooperation.

Zelenskyy believes deployment of foreign troops on Ukrainian soil would ensure Putin “will not come again with aggression against Ukraine.” –TL

___________________________________________________

Healthy Q3 GDP Growth – Real Gross Domestic Process, a key indicator of US economic health, grew by 4.3% in the third quarter of the year, the US Bureau of Economic Analysis reported Tuesday. That initial number is up from an already favorable +3.8% for the second quarter, though these latest BEA numbers come late due to the government shutdown.

Without that shutdown, preliminary Q3 GDP numbers would have been released October 30, with a second estimate scheduled for November 26.

In any case, the GDP growth reflects healthy consumer spending, even as economists continue to warn of a growing “K-economy” gap between the well-off and the working and middle-classes. This Q3 number is the greatest increase in two years, which would have been during the first year of pandemic recovery, during the Biden administration.

This year’s Q1 GDP number was, in fact, negative to the tune of 0.3%.

According to public radio’s Marketplace the economy is splitting, not only among well-off and not-so-well-off consumers, but also between companies building AI data centers (the well-off) versus those seeking to finance other commercial buildings. And with payroll stalling in April after months of growth to pay for such spending, the prognosis is for not so much growth in 2026.

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Trump’s Class -- President Trump announced the new Trump Class of US Navy battleships with “100 times” the force or power of current battleships, at Mar-a-Lago Monday afternoon. The Navy will begin with two ships and end up with 20 to 25 before it’s done, Trump said, and will lead the design of the ships, “along with me, because I’m a very aesthetic person.”

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New Excuse for Epstein Files – President Trump’s name appears “multiple times” in tens of thousands of additional emails, court documents, photos and videos from years of investigation of the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, Newsweek reports. In releasing the documents four days past The Epstein Files Transparency Act’s deadline Tuesday morning, the Justice Department issued a statement that tries to explain multiple appearances of Trump’s name.

“Some of these documents contain untrue and sensationalist claims made against President Trump that were submitted to the FBI right before the 2020 election,” the DOJ says. “To be clear: the claims made were unfounded and false, and if they had a shred of credibility, they certainly would have been weaponized against President Trump already.”

The Epstein Files Transparency Act, signed by Trump November 19 required the Justice Department to release the files and make them easily searched and downloaded, no later than last Friday. The department released a first batch of files December 19 then removed 16 photographs the next day, including one with a photo of a photo, showing Trump’s picture on a credenza in Epstein’s Manhattan home.

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CECOT is Not a Disney World Attraction – “Is CBS News censoring 60 Minutes?” Vox asks rhetorically after Bari Weiss, editor-in-chief of the network news arm – you know, the one that gave us Edward R. Murrow and Walter Conkrite -- spiked a story hours before it was to air, on El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison that’s taking in Venezuelans deported by the Trump administration from the US.

The Mayday Network has posted the 60 Minutes segment as recorded directly off the television screen in Canada. Watch the full segment HERE.

Weiss, hired from her rightward-leaning The Free Press by Paramount Skydance founder David Ellison – himself son of Friend of The Donald and Oracle founder Larry Ellison – said in a statement she pulled the 60 Minutes piece because it lacked comment from the Trump White House.

“This is 60 Minutes. We need to be able to get the principals on the record or on camera,” Weiss said, according to NPR’s media reporter, David Folkenflik, on Morning Edition.

Weiss reportedly wanted White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller – “Donald Trump’s Joseph Goebbels,” Jonathan Alter calls him in his Old Goats Substack – while 60 Minutes correspondent Sharon Alfonsi, who reported the CECOT piece, said she had sought comments from the Department of Homeland Security, White House, and State Department. All to no avail.

“If the administration’s refusal to participate becomes a valid reason to spike a story, we have effectively handed them a ‘kill switch’ for any reporting they find inconvenient,” Alfonsi said in an email to CBS News colleagues, obtained by several news outlets. Weiss’ spiking of the story was “not an editorial decision, it is a political one.”

Two things: Too many politicians in recent years have failed to return requests for comment from mainstream news organizations seeking balanced views for various stories. When the story is published or aired without such a response, those politicians, whether conservative or liberal, can tell their followers the news organization is “biased” against their “side.”

The other thing?: CBS network owner Paramount Skydance and its founder David Ellison want to make nice with the Trump administration to ease potential anti-trust friction in the company’s bid to buy Warner Brothers. But it looks like Paramount Skydance has the edge over Netflix, which also has put in a bid for Warner Brothers, what with David Ellison’s father, Oracle founder Larry Ellison, a longtime friend of Donald J. Trump. –Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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TUESDAY 12/23/25

Real Estate & Reality

Commentary by Stephen Macaulay

“First and foremost, I’m a real estate person. And that’s what I love the most.”

“I look at the real estate. I’m always looking at the real estate. I don’t know, I’ll never get it out of my blood.”

“I love people that are in the real estate business. I have a little bit of a proclivity for it.”

That, it goes without saying, are quotes from President Donald Trump about what is evidently something dear to his heart.

So, it is probably not a stretch to claim that he probably has a better understanding of real estate than any president since George Washington who, as you may recall from Schoolhouse Rock, was a land surveyor at age 17.

But this knowledge of real estate and his recently announced “Warrior Dividend” seem to be at odds with one another — but in keeping with his modus operandi, which is to go for the glitz and skip the reality on the ground.

The checks for $1,776 to US military service members makes great TV.

But because not even Donald Trump can manifest money out of thin air, it had to come from somewhere. (No, not from the tariffs.)

The funds are coming from the Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH) defense appropriation, part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. There are $2.9 billion appropriated for BAH. The Warrior Dividend checks are going to take $2.6 billion.

According to the most recent Consumer Price Index, shelter (a.k.a., housing) increased 3%. Household furnishings are up 4.6%.

So, for our military living off-base (like all other Americans), costs are rising. They need supplemental assistance, which is the point of the BAH. But now only 10% of the BAH funds are still in place.

While some might argue that it is just as well to give the military personnel the money and let them decide what to do with it, presumably the BAH was written into the bill because there was a very specific determination made that it was necessary to help out with housing allowances.

But that doesn’t make good TV.

And Donald Trump knows that.

He doesn’t seem to know that there are a lot of Americans that are facing rising costs in many areas of their daily lives and it doesn’t matter how many times he claims that gasoline is under $2 a gallon in some places (places, evidently, only he knows about) and that reduced energy costs will cut the prices of things like groceries (the latest

Consumer Price Index shows an 11.3% increase in fuel oil and 9.1% increase in natural gas), the price of food has gone up 2.6%.

But it is all about performance for Donald Trump. While housing costs go up (and let’s not lose sight of the fact that the total effective tariff on Canadian softwood lumber — which is used to build things like houses — is approximately 45%) he has overseen the demolition of the perfectly good East Wing of the White House so that he can have an ornate 90,000-square foot ballroom built. Is that something the US needed?

Many Americans have their “ballroom” experiences in VFW and Eagles Clubs halls and the folks that run them are wondering about affording the paint to brighten up the place — and know that paint prices have risen by as much as 7%.

On the subject of performance, there is the newly named “The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.”

The building, originally established by Dwight Eisenhower in 1958 as the “National Cultural Center,” was renamed, through an act of Congress, to the “John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts” after the assassination of the 35^th president.

Kennedy, among other less noble things, was known to be a patron of the arts. He championed the establishment of the National Endowment for the Arts. Trump’s 2026 budget includes its elimination.

What has Donald Trump done to deserve having his name attached to the center that has had people like Mikhail Baryshnikov and Twyla Tharp appear on its stage, beside his repeatedly performing the goofy grandpa dance that he often does in public venues?

(Some may protest: “But it was the center’s board of trustees who made the change!”, don’t kid yourself: he stacked the board so it is like he did it himself.)

In his televised presentation the other evening Donald Trump continued to insist that things are what they aren’t (nor what they can be, like the 600% reduction in prescription drug costs).

He proclaimed: “Many families will be saving between $11,000 and $20,000 dollars a year,” but he didn’t explain who these families are, nor how this will be achieved — and given that the median household income in the US is presently $83,730, it is hard to imagine how many — if any — are going to have savings on the order of 13% to 24%, especially given what is going on in the economy.

But it sounds good and makes good TV.

Macaulay is pundit-at-large for The Hustings, writing primarily for the right column.

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TUESDAY 12/23/25