‘Rather Brilliantly Evil’: Life In The Fast Lane With Robinhood Markets Authored by Eric Salzman via Racket News, (emphasis ours) By just about any metric it has been a blowout year for the retail brokerage company Robinhood Markets. The company’s stock (HOOD) price is up about 220% in 2025, revenues and account growth have shot higher, and founder Vlad Tenev has become a multi-billionaire. Robinhood was founded in 2013 but […]

Denmark Furious After Trump Names Special Envoy To Greenland President Donald Trump announced late Sunday on Truth Social that he is appointing Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry to serve as the U.S. Special Envoy to Greenland. The move prompted Denmark’s Foreign Minister, Lars Lokke Rasmussen, to summon the U.S. ambassador, saying the appointment suggests continued American interest in the resource-rich island. “I am pleased to announce […]

Pump Baby, Pump! EIA Thinks OPEC Can Produce Far More Than Anyone Expected Authored by Julianne Geiger via OilPrice.com, The U.S. Energy Information Administration quietly rewrote a key assumption about the global oil market this week: OPEC can produce more oil than previously thought. In its December Short-Term Energy Outlook, the EIA updated how it defines and estimates OPEC crude oil production capacity. The result was a […]

Beijing Condemns Trump’s Gunboat Diplomacy After China-Bound Tanker Seizure Beijing has condemned the U.S. interception of sanctioned crude tankers off the Venezuelan coast after a China-bound oil tanker was seized on Saturday. Beijing said Venezuela has the right to conduct trade with other countries. Reuters cited China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian at a regular press briefing, who said the US seizure of another […]

Freedom Lovers Aren’t ‘Fascists’ Authored by J.B. Shurk via American Thinker, There’s nothing ‘right-wing’ about defending the Bill of Rights. Being called “right-wing” or “fascist” is detestable. The label implies a preference for dictatorship, authoritarianism, and government supremacy over personal freedom. The exact opposite is true. I would describe myself as a supporter of autarchism in the sense that we […]

Cocoa Prices Face Worst Annual Collapse In Six Decades As Goldman Sees “Tailwinds” For Hershey After nearly tripling last year and soaring to a record $13,000 a ton, cocoa futures are on track for their worst-ever annual decline, based on data going back more than six decades. Cocoa futures in New York are set for a 50% decline if losses persist through the end of the year. Prices are currently trading around $5,845 as of […]

Major Israeli Strikes On Lebanon As Beirut ‘Days Away’ From Disarming Hezbollah Via The Cradle The Israeli army carried out several attacks on south Lebanon on Sunay, hours after Beirut said that the disarmament of Hezbollah in the southern Litani River area is “days away” from completion. An Israeli drone struck a car in the southern town of Yater. Minutes later, Israel bombed a motorcycle around 300 meters away from the targeted […]

DOJ Drops New Saturday Epstein Files, Deletes Trump Pics Update (1244ET): The DOJ released three new folders of Epstein files on Saturday. Folder #5 mostly contains what appear to be hard drives and media from both Epstein’s lockup at the NY Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC) and his property. They also appear to have deleted a file contained in the initial release (see below) that contains a picture of Donald Trump.  […]

Trump Announces $1.3 Billion In Sales Of ‘Gold Card’ Visas Since Dec. 10 President Donald Trump announced Dec. 19 that his administration has sold more than $1.3 billion worth of “Trump Gold Cards,” a new immigration program offering expedited residency to high-skilled foreign talent, with proceeds going toward paying down the national debt. In remarks to the press, Trump said that sales had exceeded $1.3 billion and described […]

Rubio’s Stark Warning: Europe Risks Wiping Out Shared Culture Of Western Civilization Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news, Secretary of State Marco Rubio has fired a direct shot at Europe’s globalist trajectory, warning that unchecked mass migration and erosion of core values could shatter the “shared culture” binding the West together—and weaken ties with America. Echoing the Trump administration’s National […]

The $117 Trillion World Economy In One Giant Visualization America’s $30.6 trillion economy is greater than China, Germany, and Japan combined, with real GDP set to rise 2% this year. In comparison, India’s economy is projected to grow 6.6%, among the fastest rates across the world’s largest economies. It is only surpassed by Ireland, as frontloading of exports is expected to expand GDP by a striking 9.1% in 2025. This […]

German Govt Signals “Challenging Years” Of Austerity Ahead While Spending Billions On Ukraine & Immigration Via Remix News, The German government is signaling times of austerity are ahead for Germans, with German Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil (SPD) even saying there could be years of belt-tightening. Klingbeil, a member of the far left SPD, is preparing the German public for a period of financial hardship, even as the […]

Can The Dark Ages Return? Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via VictoreHanson.com, Western civilization arose in the 8th century B.C. Greece. Some 1,500 city-states emerged from a murky, illiterate 400-year-old Dark Age. That chaos followed the utter collapse of the palatial culture of Mycenaean Greece. But what reemerged were constitutional government, rationalism, liberty, freedom of expression, self-critique, and free […]

Burnt-Out US Air Traffic Controllers Rerouting Their Careers To Australia In a year in which they endured chronic understaffing, 60-hour weeks, uneven shifts and even having to work without a paycheck for a stretch, many US air traffic controllers are re-evaluating their careers, with a growing number chasing happiness on the other side of the world — in Australia.  According to a Wall Street Journal report on the phenomenon, […]

2 More Heritage Foundation Board Members Resign Authored by Emel Akan via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), WASHINGTON—Two more members of conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation’s Board of Trustees, Shane McCullar and Abby Spencer Moffat, resigned Dec. 16, citing concerns over the organization’s direction and approach to combating anti-Semitism. Exterior view of the Heritage Foundation building in Washington, D.C., […]

Rand Paul Calls Partial Release Of Epstein Files A ‘Big Mistake’ For Trump During an interview on ABC’s This Week with ABC’s Jonathan Karl on Sunday, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky delivered a blunt warning about the administration’s handling of the Epstein records, echoing concerns raised by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), who has been relentless on the issue. Massie forced the release vote and has accused Attorney General Pam Bondi […]

DOJ Seeking Appeals On Dismissals Of Criminal Cases Against James Comey, Letitia James Authored by Troy Myers via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is appealing the dismissal of a pair of criminal cases against New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey, according to new court documents filed on Friday. (Left) New York Attorney General Letitia James leaves the […]

Where People Trust Each Other Most (And Least) In The World This visualization, via Visual Capitalist’s Bruno Venditti, shows the share of people across 25 countries who believe that “most people can be trusted,” offering a snapshot of how trust varies around the world. The data for this visualization comes from the Pew Research Center. It is based on nationally representative surveys of more than 37,000 adults conducted in […]

Somali ‘Medicaid Mogul’ Accused Of Looting Maine Taxpayers, Family Allegedly Put Bounty On Reporter If you thought the alleged Medicaid fraud in Minnesota by Somalis, which federal prosecutors say could reach $9 billion, was insane, wait until you read the latest report from The Maine Wire: the head of a local nonprofit is accused of lashing out at a local journalist over an investigation, while members of his family allegedly put a […]

AI, CEOs, Yields, And Peace Authored by Peter Tchir via Academy Securities, AI largely drove the show last week on the risk front. We started poorly, as Blue Owl pulling out of a future Oracle deal triggered some fears. But we finished the week strong as Micron had a solid beat, alleviating many concerns (a nice, soft CPI print helped matters too). This flip-flopping back and forth on the AI story fits well with last week’s […]

California Faces Fuel Disaster As Refineries And Gas Stations Shut Down The Democrat crusade to divert blame for the stagflation crisis triggered during the Biden Administration led them down a path of economic lies.  The central theme of their narrative was that corporations were “price gouging” consumers and inflation was actually a product of “corporate greed.”  In reality, helicopter money and dollar devaluation during the […]

Pentagon Fails Audit For 8th Consecutive Year Authored by Ryan Morgan via The Epoch Times, The Pentagon has failed to pass a full financial audit for the eighth year in a row. Congress initially mandated annual independent audits across the Department of Defense in 2018. In that time, the department has failed to pass a single full audit. The Department of Defense—also known as the Department of War—lists $4.65 trillion in […]

Minnesota AG Faults Carmakers For Thefts Instead Of Criminals Authored by Luis Cornelio via Headline USA, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison came under fire for blaming two car manufacturers for a surge in vehicle thefts across the state, with critics arguing the problem stemmed from lenient, soft-on-crime policies instead.  The backlash followed Ellison’s framing of a multi-state settlement, in which […]

Hunting Season: US Forces Target Third ‘Dark Fleet’ Tanker Near Venezuela Update (1610ET):  It’s hunting season for U.S. forces off the Venezuelan coast, in international waters, as gunboat diplomacy ramps up with the pursuit of yet another sanctioned oil tanker. AP News spoke with a U.S. official on Sunday who said Coast Guard forces were pursuing a “sanctioned dark fleet vessel that is part of Venezuela’s illegal sanctions […]

Tulsi Gabbard Sounds Alarm On Radical Islam Weeks After Rubio Warns Of Western Invasion News trends surrounding radical Islam have surged in recent weeks amid a series of alarming developments across the West. From the Afghan national who killed one U.S. National Guard troop and severely injured another near the White House, to a terror attack in Australia, and mounting threats against Christmas markets across Europe, the West […]