Posted originally on CTH on January 6, 2026 | Sundance
This is way beyond winning, this is stunningly brilliant strategy. Not only has President Trump successfully apprehended Venezuela dictator Nicolas Maduro, but the remaining interim government officials have acquiesced to fund a civil restitution plan to pay for their malfeasance.
The government that stole from its people is being forced to pay restitution for their own fraud, abuse and misconduct.
As we noted yesterday the immediate issue for Venezuela would be to fill the economic/financial void.
The Sea Island attendees support a quick Machado installation. Trump/Rubio prefer to proceed with more caution, especially because someone is going to be on the hook for financial support to Venezuela, because the domestic rewards from any expanded oil revenue are at least 5 to 10 years away.
Changing the regime in Venezuela may break China’s ‘belt and road’ grip, but China’s money is going to need to be replaced with independent domestic economic wealth for the Venezuelan people. That process takes time. [link]
Some type of short-term funding is needed during any kind of reconstruction of govt. Typically, the U.S. taxpayer would be on the hook during this phase; however, President Trump has found a way for the corrupt Venezuelan authorities to pay for their own civic shift back to democracy. Brilliant.
The 30 to 50 million barrels of oil is approximately a $2 billion self-created reconstruction effort.
Compare and contrast this approach with the trillions of U.S. taxpayer funds that were used in the failed efforts in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, etcetera…. or even Kuwait, albeit the Kuwaiti’s offered, but prior U.S. leadership chose influence over restitution.
In this example, almost immediately the funds now in the control of President Trump can be deployed to the greater benefit of the Venezuelan people.
Another way to look at this is like a type of ‘sovereign wealth fund’ created by the corrupt Venezuelan officials, using the resources that belong to the Venezuelan people, to support the interim needs of the same citizens they victimized.
Posted originally on CTH on January 6, 2026 | Sundance
Last Friday Dept of Homeland Security (DHS) began surging roughly 2,000 federal agents and officers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s deportation branch and Homeland Security Investigations, the agency’s investigative arm tasked with fighting transnational crimes into Minnesota.
The investigative objective appears to be utilizing the massive and systemic fraud throughout Minnesota as an entry gate to expand the investigation into other states. The key takeaway is that Minnesota simply reflects the tip of the iceberg and multiple Democrat run states likely have the same or worse fraud ongoing.
The Dept of Health and Human Services (HHS) now follow up on the DHS surge with an announcement that $10 billion in Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) payments are being halted as the investigations expand. Four additional states are being reviewed: California, Colorado, Illinois and New York, join Minnesota in seeing their federal funds stopped pending review and audit.
This is a smart approach because releasing the funds will be contingent upon the states accepting the audits. We all know that genuine audits of those state records will likely reveal massive fraud within the subsidy system that has been abused by Democrats. Minnesota has provided the entry point for a much larger corruption and fraud review.
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is cutting off more than $10 billion in social services and child care funding meant for a handful of Democrat-led states over concerns that the benefits were fraudulently funneled to non-citizens, officials told The Post Monday.
The Department of Health and Human Services will freeze taxpayer funding from the Child Care Development Fund (CCDF), the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, and the Social Services Block Grant program.
At least $7.35 billion in TANF money will be prevented from going to California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota, and New York. The CCDF funding block of nearly $2.4 billion affects all those states.
Another $869 million from the Social Services Block Grant coffers is being kept from all five states as well.
The funding pauses were to be announced via letters to each state sent Monday, citing concerns that benefits were fraudulently going to non-US citizens.
The HHS Office of Inspector General found more than six years ago that New York City improperly billed the federal government for more than $24.7 million in child care subsidies. (read more)
Posted originally on CTH on January 6, 2026 | Sundance
President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have noted that following the ouster of Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela, the remaining government is being pressured to realign their positions and accept a change in direction. It is always tenuous when the leader of a hostile foreign government is removed.
The current approach by the Trump administration is to permit former Vice-President Delcy Rodríguez to continue operating the mechanisms within the country to retain near-term stability.The CIA assessedDelcy Rodriquez was the interim ruler who could keep order.
Prior to the removal of Maduro, Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, the Nobel Peace Prize winner, was asked by the Trump administration to provide a detailed summary of how she could form a functioning government, should she be assisted to power.
Machado’s response did not provide confidence that her strategy was comprehensive enough. Therefore, the Trump administration assessed the best interim approach would be to continue working with the remaining Maduro government officials, led by Delcy Rodriquez, while pressuring them to follow the instructions of the United States.
Various geopolitical powers, including many that attend Mar-a-Lago functions, want Maria Corina Machado installed quickly. President Trump and Secretary Rubio are being more measured in their approach. The powers that want Machado installed are now working on a media strategy. Sean Hannity is enlisted for the assist.
The issue is one of competency and chaos. President Trump and Secretary Rubio do not want to repeat the mistakes of the past (Bush/Powell, Iraq or Obama/Clinton, Libya). The Venezuela issue is entirely different from the Middle East, but the same type of chaos can reemerge if the transition from authoritarianism to representative democracy is not well managed.
The Sea Island attendees support a quick Machado installation. Trump/Rubio prefer to proceed with more caution, especially because someone is going to be on the hook for financial support to Venezuela, because the domestic rewards from any expanded oil revenue are at least 5 to 10 years away.
Changing the regime in Venezuela may break China’s ‘belt and road’ grip, but China’s money is going to need to be replaced with independent domestic economic wealth for the Venezuelan people. That process takes time.
Maria Corina Machado is supported by all the same networks who support Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Despite the twinkles in the eyes of senators within the Foreign Relations Committee, we don’t want Venezuela to become North America’s largest Somali daycare operation.
(WSJ) – […] Latin America analysts have previously cautioned, including during Trump’s first term, that Maduro’s ouster without a capable replacement would likely empower armed military factions, rival politicians and criminal groups within Venezuela as they fought for control, leading to a security crisis in the country.
[…] analysis by the Central Intelligence Agency was briefed to President Trump and shared with a small circle of senior administration officials, according to two of the people. It was a factor in Trump’s decision to back Maduro’s vice president instead of opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado, some of the people said.
The assessment provides insight into Trump’s decision not to support the opposition’s bid for control of Venezuela following the brazen U.S. military operation to capture Maduro last week and bring him to the U.S. for trial. As in his first term, Trump was convinced that near-term stability in Venezuela could be maintained only if Maduro’s replacement had the support of the country’s armed forces and other elites.
Senior Trump administration officials commissioned the CIA to undertake the analytical assessment and debated it during discussions about day-after plans for Venezuela, the people said. The people familiar with the assessment said they were unsure of the precise date it was produced.
The report was briefed to Trump in recent weeks, according to two of the people.
The assessment didn’t describe how Maduro could lose power, or advocate for removing him, but attempted to gauge the domestic situation in Venezuela in the event that he did, people familiar with it said.
The intelligence report, the people said, cited Rodríguez and two other top Venezuelan regime figures as possible interim rulers who could keep order. The people familiar with the assessment didn’t identify the other two officials, but besides Rodríguez, the two most influential power brokers are Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello and Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino.
The two hard-liners, who command Venezuela’s police and military, could undo any efforts at a transition, according to former U.S. and Venezuelan officials. Both face U.S. criminal charges similar to those filed against Maduro and are unlikely to cooperate with Washington.
The report concluded that Edmundo González, widely seen as the actual winner of the 2024 election against Maduro, and Machado would struggle to gain legitimacy as leaders while facing resistance from pro-regime security services, drug-trafficking networks and political opponents. (more)
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has appointed Cea Weaver as the Director of the City Office to Protect Tenants. Presumably, a position intended to stand behind the rights of housing tenants against the property owner. However, Ms. Weaver has some remarkable views on private property and home ownership.
In this video clip below you will notice Ms. Weaver outline how homeowners will need to modify their view on their property ownership to reflect a new municipal perspective that considers all individually owned property to be part of a new collective property viewpoint as controlled by city government.
NYC Mayor Mamdani's Tenant Director, Cea Weaver:
"We'll transition from treating property as an individual good to a collective good. Whites especially will be impacted." pic.twitter.com/RZSdCs8oEa
“For centuries we really treated property as an individualized good and not a collective good, in transitioning into treating it as a collective good and towards the model of shared equity … it will mean that families, especially White families … are going to have a different relationship to property than the one that we currently have.”
It is likely that Mayor Mamdani and Director Weaver are going to run into some stiff legal opposition as they try to reimagine a world where individuals are not allowed to own property.
NEW YORK – Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s newly appointed tenant advocate called to “seize private property” and blasted home ownership as a “weapon of white supremacy” in a series of pro-communist social media posts.
Cea Weaver, Mamdani’s new director of the city Office to Protect Tenants, made the statements and urged her followers to elect more communists in several lecturing posts on her now-deleted X account that were unearthed by internet sleuths.
“Seize private property!” she said on June 13, 2018. She later doubled down on that in a mini-manifesto on August 2019.
“Private property including any kind of ESPECIALLY homeownership is a weapon of white supremacy,” she said then.
Weaver, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America and former campaign coordinator for Housing Justice For All, also served as an adviser to the Mamdani campaign in 2025.
The Post featured her as part of a group of young lefty progressives in Mamdani’s brain trust.
She was a key player in lobbying the Democratic-run state Legislature to tighten the city’s rent stabilization laws in 2019, making them more pro-tenant.
One major property owner said Mamdani and Weaver are misguided. (read more)
Voting in the midterm elections this year is not optional.
We cannot permit the communist ideology to permeate our nation, erode fundamental rights that establish liberty, destroy individual rights in favor of collective rights, or maintain ideas that mobs of left-wing assemblies should determine your free and independent life choices.
This is not an ordinary election cycle, where debating whether or not your granular special interest is being dutifully attended holds merit. This is an election cycle that will determine whether the direction of this nation is toward individual rights and self-determination of abundance, or whether everyone is forced to cross the finish line of scarcity at the same exact moment.
To even begin to discuss the confiscation of individual property in favor of collective distribution is alarming stuff.
So many of us tried to warn about this when Senator Barack Obama was running for office on a platform of fundamental change to the American system toward communism. Here we are two decades later, now dealing with the consequences of those who refused to believe it.
Posted originally on CTH on December 31, 2025 | Sundance
A recent article in Politico quoting several cabinet members of Prime Minister Mark Carney reflects a particular reality of the problem their economy will face in 2026.
It appears that Canadian government officials have finally recognized the Trump administration plans to dissolve the USMCA or what Canada calls CUSMA next year. With that reality they have a big problem.
For the past few decades Canada bought into the carbon scam and enacted climate change goals into law for carbon pricing, alternative energy production, industry and manufacturing costs. These mechanisms to control “climate change” are nuts in the big picture.
In order for Canada to position their economy to be in alignment with the rest of North America (USA and Mexico), Carney would have to reverse years of legislated rules and regulations. That is not going to happen, and Canada will always be at a disadvantage because of it.
(Politico) – […] It’s a moment of existential crisis for Canada, a senior Carney government official told POLITICO. Waiting out the Trump administration isn’t an option, the official said, arguing that what’s happening in the United States reflects a generational shift — not a temporary disruption — and that returning to a policy of closer integration with America would be foolish. (more)
With three quarters of their economic production tied to exports into the USA, and with the USMCA likely to be dissolved in favor of a bilateral trade agreement, Canada now has to find other markets for its products or lower all the trade barriers currently in place. Prime Minister Mark Carney is trying to find alternative markets.
Carney has looked toward Europe, but that is a closed trade bloc difficult to engage. Carney has looked to southeast Asia, but that is an export driven market with limited capabilities to import costly western products. Carney has looked to Japan and China, but on scale there’s little to be gained.
The question is, where can Canada send its products if not to the USA. The brutally honest answer is nowhere. There just isn’t any other market, or combination of markets, who could replace the consumer base of the USA. Canada is refusing to admit this reality and 2026 is going to be a harsh awakening for the Canadian people.
The USMCA is currently facilitating around 60% of Canada’s exports into the United States. Cancel that agreement and suddenly 100% of all Canada-U.S. trade is on the table for negotiations.
U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and President Trump are going to put the squeeze on Mark Carney and every province within Canada as a consequence of their intransigence.
[…] Two-thirds of Canada’s economy is powered by trade, and roughly three-quarters of its exports flow to the U.S. It’s a C$1.3 trillion annual relationship that was celebrated on both sides of the border in good times but has become a source of leverage for America, especially with the Trump administration expected to continue squeezing Canadian industries with tariffs.
Europe is Carney’s top priority for deepening existing free-trade relationships. But closer integration with the European Union is a long game, and Canada has no interest in joining the bloc, according to the official, pushing Ottawa to explore other regions.
“Trade diversification is nothing new. People have talked about this for decades,” Sidhu said. “The difference here is other countries’ willingness to look at Canada as a reliable, stable trading partner,” he added, saying Trump has had a bigger influence on Ottawa’s strategy than any difference in trade philosophy between Justin Trudeau and Mark Carney.
Canada’s governing Liberal Party is under new management, forcing a cohort of Trudeau-era lawmakers to quickly learn the language of economics to make an impression with the new boss. Social issues have been demoted — as have brown shoes.
Cabinet ministers are competing to establish themselves as closers to meet Carney’s high expectations. The result is overlapping mandates that sow confusion over who owns what.
Canada-U.S. Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc leads a new portfolio created under Carney, who sliced out North America from the international trade minister’s purview. (read more)
Posted originally on CTH on December 30, 2025 | Sundance
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy appears on Fox News for an interview with Bret Baier. Within the interview Zelenskyy gives some context and details to the 20-point plan organized between him and the EU Leaders, currently being reviewed and modified by President Trump, Steve Witkoff, Marco Rubio and Jared Kushner.
The two remaining issues as described by Zelenskyy are the (1) security guarantees and (2) the territorial issue, Donbas control.
(1) Within the security guarantee proposal there are troubling signs. Zelenskyy describes it as a bilateral agreement between the USA and Ukraine, with similar constructs to the NATO alignment. A non-NATO pact between the U.S. and Ukraine that commits us to his defense if Russia would advance another attack. A 15-year guarantee committed in U.S. law through the U.S. House and Senate. This sounds troubling.
(2) On the territorial issue, regional control of the Donbas, Zelenskyy appears to be willing to cede territory but only under very limited circumstances. Zelenskyy wants a demilitarized zone under the term “a free economic zone” with specific rules.
Zelenskyy admits Ukraine cannot win the conflict against Russia without the United States involvement. Essentially without America, Russia would own the skies and be able to crush the Ukrainian army. WATCH:
Posted originally on CTH on December 29, 2025 | Sundance
In addition to being the main economic engine in Europe, Germany is the epicenter of the European Union’s overall goal to chase the green energy agenda.
For the past several years Germany has been deconstructing their fossil fuel energy production and replacing it with far more expensive alternatives. This has led to large increases in overall energy prices, and downstream increases in manufacturing costs.
The consequences have been snowballing throughout 2025, while cheap competitive alternatives coming into the EU from China have compounded their problem. Recently a survey of major industries was conducted in Germany to determine the forecast for 2026, the results are not good.
Approximately half of the industrial sectors in Germany are anticipating job losses, cuts or layoffs this year.
22 out of 46 business associations are preparing to downsize their labor force. Only 9 of the 46 are expected to increase hiring.
At a top-line this looks bad. However, when you look at the sectors contracting versus the sectors stable or expanding, you suddenly realize there is a bigger geopolitical problem within the forecast.
Job losses are expected in auto manufacturing, the textile sector, wood and paper fabrication. Job gains are expected in aerospace, shipbuilding and defense production – i.e. the war machinery.
When the largest and most developed industrial economy in Europe is pinning its economic survival on war machinery, a particular momentum is created. It is never a good outcome for Europe when Germany becomes reliant on war to maintain employment.
Unfortunately, that economic forecast does provide context to the German position for continued Ukraine/Russia conflict. You might say that without a war, Germany could slip into a severe economic contraction; not good.
BERLIN, Dec 29 (Reuters) – A majority of German business associations expect job cuts in 2026 as the country’s economic crisis persists, with industry hit hardest by global protectionism and weak exports, a survey by the German Economic Institute IW showed on Monday.
Of 46 business associations surveyed, 22 anticipate workforce reductions next year. Only nine expect to increase hiring and 15 foresee stable employment levels.
[…] Some bright spots emerged in sectors benefiting from increased defense spending, including aerospace and shipbuilding. (read more)
We will keep watching with additional background context for the Ukraine/Russia negotiations.
Posted originally on CTH on December 25, 2025 | Sundance
It’s easy to think about the things we have yet to achieve. However, author and friend of the Treehouse Jack Cashill documents a great deal of success and presents a year in review that deserves attention. [SEE HERE]
In his substack article, Cashill runs through some of the big wins that were achieved by President Trump and the MAGA network in 2025. And the year ain’t over yet!
Posted originally on CTH on December 23, 2025 | Sundance
The data was delayed by the government shutdown, but today the Bureau of Economic Analysis has released the third quarter GDP {DATA HERE} showing a very strong 4.3% growth. The second quarter was also revised up to 3.8%.
Real GDP increased at an annual rate of 4.3 percent in the third quarter, showing increases in consumer spending, increases in exports, and government spending offset by a decrease in investment. Imports, which are a subtraction in the calculation of GDP, decreased boosting the overall GDP number.
This result is similar to the GDP growth rate cycle we previously saw in 2017 as the MAGAnomic policies and investments into the domestic economy begin to show up. While consumer confidence has struggled due to affordability issues, consumer spending going into the holiday season was very strong.
WASHINGTON – US real gross domestic product rose at an annualized rate of 4.3% in the third quarter, exceeding the 3.3% expected and more than the 3.8% growth in the second quarter.
“The increase in real GDP in the third quarter reflected increases in consumer spending, exports, and government spending that were partly offset by a decrease in investment,” the Bureau of Economic Analysis said.
Heather Long, the chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union, wrote on X that “AI investment wasn’t a big factor” in the third quarter and instead consumption is a “key driver,” particularly due to spending from wealthier Americans.
Real personal consumer spending rose 3.5% in the third quarter, more than the 2.5% rise in the second quarter. Imports again fell, but not by as much as in the second quarter, declining 4.7% in the third quarter and falling 29.3% in the previous quarter. Meanwhile, exports rose 8.8% in the third quarter, after a 1.8% drop in the previous one. (read more)
The Bureau of Economic Analysis will publish an updated GDP estimate for the third quarter on January 22. I would not be surprised to see another upward revision.
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This is a library of News Events not reported by the Main Stream Media documenting & connecting the dots on How the Obama Marxist Liberal agenda is destroying America
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