the DON JONES INDEX…
	GAINS POSTED in GREEN LOSSES POSTED in RED 1/2/26… 15,691.07 12/25/25… 15,713.95 6/27/13... 15,000.00
(THE DOW JONES INDEX: 1/2/26... 48,063.29; 12/24/25... 48,442.41; 6/27/13… 15,000.00)

LESSON for JANUARY 2nd, 2026 – “2025: YOU SAY GOODBYE...!”

The turning of the calendrical page brings reminisces of the Old Year going by and promises for the New... some of each pleasant, others not so. Therefore, for the firth DJI of 2026 we’ll include some of each.

For 2025, week by week, the most and least important happenings of the week are enumerated below. And then, for 2026, some prophecies, predictions and prognostications by authorities, celebrities and occultists will be toted up and judge come our January 9^th issue.

We began the Old Year with...

JANUARY

1st: ^“This morning, at about 3:15 AM. at least ten celebrants in New Orleans did not survive when a person unknown rammed the Bourbon Street New Years’ hangers-on with his pickup truck, also injuring several dozens and shooting two policemen who shot back and killed him.”

Twenty five of the moth voluble and voluminous seers, as above, were plopped down on our docks by the estimable Pew Research firm; a massive think tank with fingers in pies all over the globe as well as others who forecath economics, culture, climate and other forecasts – not the leath of which were war and peace.

In what was to be his final New Years’ Mass, Pope Francis prayed for peace in Ukraine, in Palestine and Israel, in Syria and Lebanon... as, also, Libya, the Horn of Africa, Myanmar, Cyprus and the Americas. Francis prayed for all who suffer. Not suffering: former and future (Jan. 20^th) President Donald Trump and his Make America Great Again team... fairly boiling over with plans and ambitions to do juth that.

The Don was still behind 2013’s benchmark – but improving at 14,862.47. The Dow was 42,544.42.

9th The Bourbon Street terrorith is identified as former U.S. Military soldier Shamsud dim Jabbar – whose (rented) vehicle was fliyng an ISIS flag. “The suspect was hell bent on creating carnage,” says an FBI spokesman..

In Washington, outgoing President Joe signs more pardons and the town and country make ready for the funeral for 29^th President James Earl (Jimmy) Carter. The PPE (President/President-elect) gives a menacing press conference in which he exhibits serious intent to conquer Panama by military force and Greenland by whatever means necessary... and also vows to rename the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America” and reiterates his intent to invade and conquer Canada as a 51^th state

And in a real, live, “Day of the Locust”, 86 mph Santa Ana winds and tinder-dry SoCal climate brings wildfires variously described as “apocalyptic” and “horrific” from luxury beachfront communities (the Palisades Fire), to Hollywood Hills and south to Orange, Riverside and even San Diego counties (the Hurth and Eaton fires). Millions under evacuation orders, tens of thousands run for their lives.

16th In a furious final week, Biden promotes spending more money on aid to Ukraine and more Social Security bennies for public employees like firth responders and teachers; to wildfire protection and forgiving student and medical debt; pardons prisoners, commutes death-row sentences, bans offshore drilling and Tik Tok, and blocks U.S. Steel from being taken over by the Japanese.

Santa Ana winds calming, but red flag warnings return later in the day and throughout the week. Only five are dead in the sixmajor blazes but looting spreads, celebrities like Paris Hilton and Billy Crystal lose their homes and closure include schools, businesses, the Jimmy Kimmel and “Price is Right” shows.

The deep freeze hangs on in the Eath as ABC weathergirl Ginger Zee compares temperature now and for at leath aweek to come as “like Siberia”; it’s minus 22 in Minneapolis and headed down to minus 30. Toxic smoke, heat, cold and vaxxing denialists all contribut to the rise in what is now a Quademic: flu, Covid, RSV and Norovirus.

23rd Donald Trump, 45^th President of the United States, becomes the 47^th at high noon. His inaugural speeches (two) calls Dick Cheney a war profiteer, the Biden family “thugs” and, of course, claims to have loth the 2020 election because of illegal votes.

As BFF Elon Musk thanks the crowd and gives what libs call a “Nazi salute”, 47 replaces a portrait of FDR with one of George Washington, renames Mt. Denali Mt. McKinley and, firth day on the job, pardons 1,500 rioters, Oath Keepers and Proud Boys.

He promises a war on immigrants and “wokeness”, conquer Canada and impose “beautiful tariffs” on China, Mexico and other furriners and begins his cabinet appointments.

30th Trump fills out his Cabinet of Curiosities on ostly party line votes as foreign leaders line up to kiss his... uh... ring; powering to victory on close, party-line votes. Pete Hegseth from Fox News will be DefSec, Linda, wife of rasslin’ impresario Vince McMahon will head Education, dog shooter Kristi Noem gets DHA and, in a sop to nostalgic liberals, Bobby Kennedy (Jr.) to HEW.

Jacob Chansley, the pardoned QAnon shaman posts on X: “NOW I AM GONNA BY SOME MOTHA FU*KIN GUNS!!!”

And the Pardoner finds a new crew to sade: changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to “Gulf of America”.

FEBRUARY

6th President Trump declares “Culture War” targeting gays, pedophiles (not Epstein, not yet), intellectuals and the liberal media. Foreign aid goes on the chopping block, rumours of military conquests drift in the wind and POTUS slashes foreign aid (which Russia and China are happy to exploit).

Doctors worry about America’s collective mental health, the Earth’s physical health (climate), families about the price of eggs and the distrust of both gumment and private industry is soaring.

Polls are souring. Trump gets mixed reviews on fifteen key issues like the “big, beautiful border wall” (popular), the pardons (unpopular)

The Don faltered, dropping to 14,837.63. The Dow applauded regime change in America to the tune of 44,873.28.

13th President Trump’s War on Woke finds a new arena of combat: climate change. America pulls out of the 2015 Paris climate agreement, an international commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Polls on the LA wildfires (now mostly out) show a divided (partisan) opinion on climate change but support for at least addressing the issue. The numbers show crime is down, but voters think it is still too high, and would welcome draconian solutions. And an overwhelming 79% to 11% favor deporting criminal alien migrants. (Only slightly less popular; tariffs are opposed 77% to 11%.)

20th Inflation struck Valentines’ Day staples like chocolate and roses motivates President Trump to WIN by 1) cutting taxes on the rich, 2) raising tariffs, 3) drill baby, drill and 4) turn DOGE loose to slash Federal jobs. Unmentioned but in dreams would be firing Fed Chair Powell. With the deficit now 36T, Speaker Mike Johnson raises the ceiling – with consumer debt passing one hundred trillion, the gumment just blames Christmas.

Dems’ dilemma: shutting down the gumment would hurt their constituents, but would make good politics. The deadline occurs March 14^th. The solution: unite with Russia to squeeze China? Why not!

27th Deep in the doldrums of debt, Don Jones still finds a reason to party: Mardi Gras.

Wallowing in gumbo and liquor and music, the last lesson of February envisioned a “three way pock a way”... Trump, Putin and Chinese President Xi who, authorities warn, whose nuclear capabilities will be catching up to the others in “five or six years.” This is not good news for Taiwan.

The pro-Donald New York Post is even worried enough about foreign affairs to publish (their) ten war truths: Bad Vlad Putin started the war in Ukraine and wants to rule the world. He is not an American friend. Nonetheless, when Ukraine’s President Z. goes to the White House for a summit, Trump has him thrown out like a diseased dog.

MARCH

6th Well... if Russia talked about conquering the world, why shouldn’t Amerida do it?

The President’s address to, not state of (as requires him to have been office at least a year, first term not counting) just over the hill, Don Jones was seemed as conflicted as the politicians... wanting the gumment downsized, but worried about how it might affect them.

At issue would be a “stopgap” plot to finance the gumment with dark money while taking credit for fiscal responsibility. A win-win for Democrats (if not for the people), Republicans are showing some cracks in their MAGAplicity... some of the more extreme proposals (cutting Medicare and Medicaid, turning Gaza into an Atlantic City, and maybe a post-administration indictment of Old Goneaway Joe for various, nefarious criminal deeds.

The Don was still trailed 2013’s benchmark – falling to only 14,754.44. The Dow languished at 43,006.59.

13th The SoU is a very long speech. Trump touted his global tariff plans, spoke of “reclaiming” the Panama Canal with new US investments, promised to “wage war” on Mexican drug cartels, invited Greenland to join the United States, and pushed hard for a peace deal to end the war in Ukraine.

The most significant line on trade in the president’s address wasn’t about steel, aluminum, or farming. It was when Trump said tariffs are “about protecting the soul of our country.” These seven words should put the whole world on notice that Trump is serious about tariffs.

He also said that he was acting to protect American citizens “from aliens who intend to commit terrorist attacks, threaten our national security, espouse hateful ideology or otherwise exploit the immigration laws for malevolent purposes.”

Democrats replied that he was intending to murder the poor by cancelling and/or slashing SNAP (food stamps) and that Ronald Reagan would be “rolling in his grave” over 47’s preference for Putin over the Ukrainians. 

20^th Donkeys and elephants agree (tho’ only in private) that there is a real age gap... politicians from the Presidents on down are sick old men, rather like the gang that ran Russia before Gorbachev.

Another turf of division is whose constituencies would be hurt more by a shutdown – or possibly a limp solution that would starve children and install Musk as “a key Republican power broker”.

And then there is potential damage to the military, and at a time when, as a Pentagon commission reported, China is responsible for “increasingly malign activities” and threatening... New Zealand!... and DoD Pete (now wanting to be called Secretary of War) is de-DEIing the troops and making America white again... even banning mention of the plane as dropped atomic bombs on Japan, the Enola Gay because it was... you know... gay...

27th Spring breaks in with early summer heatwaves, droughts, dustnadoes and wildfires; California floods and mudslides; lingering winter icicles and blizzards and, in cracks between the seams, tornadoes.

Intellectuals tout science and education but the President and his wild woman of rasslin’ are shutting down the Federal D of E and devolving it to the states; some of whom have mediocre standards, prejudices and capabilities, the rest descending from there to the unsatisfactory, then the abysmal.

The Weather Channel predicted five trends – two of which are coming to pass: “anomalous” warmth in the South and cooler and wetter Northwest weather, but totally missing the California rains.

APRIL

3rd April Fools’ Day finds childish pranks maturing into the mis- and dis-information that permeates our omnisphere... the history of the Day dating back to April, 1698 CE; its progenitor a Spanish Islamist who attributed it to infidels (Christians) tempting Muslim youth with wine and women and (presumably) the popular music of the end of the 17^th century.

Others cited even older progenitors, the Feast of Fools... two centuries earlier... the Roman Hilaria; even the Egyptian pranksters of Osiris, Isis and Seth.

Today, we have a King (or Queen) of Fools crowned in New York, St. Stupid’s Day parades in San Francisco... foreign fools, Floridian fools and even advice communists like Monica Lewinsky and RFK Junior (not to mention just plain fools like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Steve Bannon). Hoaxes.org listed its Top One Hunded... the crown going to a “great Swiss spaghetti harvest” of 1957.

The April Don kicked off at 14,702.64. No fooling! The Dow was 42,225.32.

10th Updating the phenomena of mis- and dis-information, serious persons cited “Signalgate” (secret agents posting to a dark site infested with Journalists!) as a portentious perversity as might bring down the Trump regime. It didn’t.

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (F.I.R.E.) presumed to explain Mis- versus Dis-information in terms of the latter being malicious, even the maliciousness of genius, while the former is simply stupid.

And The New America (T.N.A) cited Richard Hofstadter’s “Paranoid Style in American Politics” in ticking off conspiracy theories, notably the JFK assassination, aliens from space (and presumably the evil designs of alients from Mexico). The culprit? Social media, of course.

17^th In “celebration” of tax day, our Lesson took a glance at whether tariffs are or aren’t taxes and some notes upon the history of taxation – from Rome (blame Caesar August for the income tax), Asians for property taxes and the Turks for tariffs (as began in the 3000s BC).

President Trump’s resuscitation of tariff-based taxation owes much to the MAGA perceptions of lower income, lower education grinches believing that lawyers and e-con-mists are out to get them. Their solution: “get them first.” And so, shortly after April Fools’ Day, Djonald UnHesitant announced his “reciprocal tariffs” which sent the Dow plummeting by five thousand points (yet also inspired Bernie and the Sanders-sons to claim that the policy was a plot against the working classes, who buy more cheap foreign goods).

24th In the wake of the Tariff Revolution, Joneses of faith get a jolt when Pope Francis dies (but not until delivering a final Easter message) and wildfires strike New Jersey.

MAGA contends that Democrats were responsible for a national deficit that has reached $1.83T. Partisans assert that tariffs will either save or destroy the economy; the Economic Policy Institute (EPI)’s thinktankards listed its pros and cons of the levies... concluding that YES, tariffs are a tax. Other experts like the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) predicted a fallout of scams and inflation.

MAGA, unconvinced, blames Communists, terrorists, aliens and... prior to Trump’s embrace of PM Bibi... the Jews.

MAY

1st It’s Mayday... so where is the Revolution?

Not in Rome, say Argentines who still blame Pope Frank for the “dirty war”.

Not in Washington... where the libtards are predicting a quick slide into fascism, with ICE running wild in the streets and President Trump invading anyplace he wants. Greenland? Check!

The World Freedom Index says the air in Buenos Aires is “partially free”; the Swiss are the freeist people in the world, Syrians the worst. The U.K. and U.S.A are “mostly free”. The WFI’s assessment of Trump’s First Hundred Days cites partisanship as the principle factor in determining freedom – among other things.

Other things, like economics, found May’s Don hanging out at 14,735.47; the Dow was still depressed at 40,283.64.

8th Speaking of “freedom”, a Salvadoran HVAC installer, domestic abuser and gangster (or not)... Kilmar Abrego Garcia... has become the poster boy for ICE (although many misconsider him a Mexican).

Cinco de Mayo behind us, our Lesson summarized the Mexican independence, dictatorship and early 20^th century Revolution. They are not the same... CdM dates from America’s Civil War era when the French poached our neighbors to the south, only to be ejected after the big, bad Yanks were done with their infighting and ready to roll again.

Despite the migratory crisis, Happiness quantifiers from IPSOS named Mexico third happiest (behind India and The Netherlands (the Index, above, found it only Number Ten).

15th While the cinematic “Conclave” cultivated Catholics, the real deal began in Rome. Pope Frank (mourned by most, except MTG who called wrote on X that the evil Pontiff had been “defeated by the hand of God.”

Shortly before dying, Frank had conferred with the American Vice with MAGA agreeing with MTG that the Pope smoked dope – liberals responding that Cyrus... er, Veep Vance... was the Antichrist.

Hollywoodsters searched for parallels with reality; soothsayers (mortal sinners, in other words) were making book on the next Pope... including the chance that he (no she’s here) might be an American.

22nd And so it came to pass!

Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost of Chicawgo... yeah, dudes... is now Leo the Fourteenth and roared into the Holy Seat as the 269^th Pontiff... popewatchers predicting he would continue “with the church’s direction under Pope Francis” (i.e. liberalism) and, said scholars, would “focus on the poor and those on the margins of societies.”

Comparisons to the movie were drawn and quartered...Reporter Savannah Walsh even noted that “some cardinals even watched the movie for tips on how to navigate their own sequestered voting period.”

And omnipartisan congratulations poured in... Veep Vance, Barack Obama, notorious Catholic Joe Biden. Even Vladimir Putin wished Leo XIV success based on ‘Christian values’.

An Attachment reprinted Leo’s Inaugural Address.

29th Our review of college and university commencement speeches included advice to the youth, affairs of state and planet, and things academic.

Woke anti-Semitism was endemic at the wealthiest and most privileged schools with the WashPost (5/23) opining that universities were “freaking out” over pro-Palestinian commencement speeches. “Hamas’s latest threats prove Biden was right — and so is Trump,” a contention that “Ukraine is to the populist right as Israel is to the progressive left” and the Post’s editorial board – as advised that “... if Trump wants to end the wars, he must pressure Putin and Netanyahu.”

“Universities are scared of their pro-Israel donors and scared of their government,” opined the Post’s Matt Bai. They see themselves as mired in an existential fight. They are willing to do anything they have to do to keep their budgets intact.

“Fine. But don’t call that higher education. Call it what it is: cowardice.”

Other speakers included failed Veep candidate Tim Walz, condemning Donald Trump’s modern-day Gestapo at the University of Minnesota Law School; the President and Veep at military academies (Trump at West Point snarling at predecessors... including the Bush Boys) and the “amphibious orator at the University of Maryland: Kermit the Frog, who will have to forgive his hosts for not having green among their school colors.”

JUNE

5th President Trump’s 2025-6 budget (aka “the big, beautiful bill” passed the Congress by a margin of 215-214 “after Presidential pressure intimidated several Republicans (who initially opposed it because it did not sufficiently raise tax cuts for billionaires and cut services for the poor and middle class).”

Republican dissenters in the Senate include perennial crankicrats Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who expressed concern about the cuts to Medicaid and even Josh Hawley (R-Mo) – who called "slashing health insurance for the working poor" both "morally wrong and politically suicidal" and also warned against closing rural hospitals.

Lobbyists for doctors and academics expressed opposition; libertarian Rand Paul warned that the Kentucky bourbon industry is opposed to tariffs.

“Rand Paul has very little understanding of the BBB, especially the tremendous GROWTH that is coming,” President Trump posted in response. “He loves voting ’no’ on everything, he thinks it’s good politics, but it’s not. THE BBB is a big WINNER!!”

The Don

12th Aging veterans, media and politicians gather at the Normandy beach to celebrate the anniversary of D-Day.

President Trump pays tribute to the U.S. Army on its 250^th Anniversary (and also his own 79^th birthday) as the 2025 military budget is proposed to be just short of a trillion dollars (higher than the next nine countries combined) – rising to 2.8T by 2031. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects that defense costs “will continue to increase in the coming years” while the Department of Defense has directed military departments to develop plans to reduce their discretionary Permanent Change of Station (PCS) budgets by half over the next five years. 

"It is a sheer privilege to stand in this cemetery among heroes and before God, an incredible monument to the sacrifices American warriors made on the beaches of Normandy," says DefSec Pete Hegseth. Outlays are noted for the Golden Dome defense shield, pay raises for the troops and new planes, tanks and submarines.

19th It’s Father’s Day and... in his capacity of Father-in-Chief (succeeding Washington, Lincoln and the rest), Djonald Unchained celebrates Himself amidst massive protests. While scholars remember Babylon and Rome, military officials channeling Bismarck and Bastille Day, the President’s enemies whisper darkly of Darth Vader and compare the ostentious display of military hardware and manpower to Hitler and Stalin.

All that’s missing is the goose-stepping.

When asked what he hoped the public would remember about the American parade, Trump said, "How great our country is, very simple, and how strong our military is."

"We have the strongest military in the world," he adds.

26th As the President preens and the media yawns, the prawns and pawns in New York City nominate a 33 year old Islamic Socialist to be Democratic candidate for Mayor.

Rejecting compromised heirloom Andew Cuomo and even more compromised Mayor Eric Adams, the voters... using the ultra-woke “Ranked Choice Voting... rejected contentions that Zohran Mandami (an ethnics South Asian by way of Uganda) was anti-Semitic... even as the U.S.A. upped temperatures in the MidEast by attacking Iran’s nuclear establish.

The asses also rejected Cuomophiles among the billionaire class (Bloomberg), and stalwarts in labor, gumment and landlording as well as former President Bill Clinton (Barack Obama playing coy in “supporting” but not “endorsing” the insurrectionist as also 2020’s Gone Away Joe... Biden... and Kamala Harris.

Cuomo, like Adams, will run as an Independent (the Republican nominee was Guardian Angel Curtis Sliwa) and Mamdami fears began insisting that one of them would have to drop out or precipitate disaster.

JULY

3rd Tomorrow is the Fouth and also the day on which MAGA’s “big beautiful budget bill” comes due – awaiting the Presidential signature after a harrowing House victory that was imperiled by two defections (out of 220) and secured only by the President’s gumbo of threats and bribes to the wavering. Speaker Mike Johnson, duly, praised the day as “a key cornerstone of America's new golden age."

Revisiting the Revolutionary War, merching foreign fireworks (denounced by White House spokesman Kush Desai) and insisting that the economy was better than ever, Republicans promised a spectacle in Iowa while sour asses could do no better than tell their faithful to stay home and cry about inequality, inflation and ICE.

The Don edged closer to its 2013 benchmark, rising to 14,993.34 while the Dow also continued climbing... this week to 44.484.42.

10th ICE (the American Immigration and Customs Enforcement squad) has been rounding up illegal aliens... some criminals, others not, all year and solid and stoic Republican capitalists are starting to scream about the loss of sub-minimum wage labor... especially on the farms.

But, in the war on terror, Iran... long viewed as the masterminds behind Hamas, Hezbollah, ISIS and various other Islamicists (except the original Al Qaida, a Saudi critter)... has vexed America (and, especially, Israel).

“Bibi” Netanyahu and Trump have a complex personal relationship, the liberal GUK opined, and Trump “openly vented frustration at him last month during efforts to negotiate a truce with Iran” – but the two “have appeared in lockstep since the US launched a bombing run against Iran’s nuclear programme, fulfilling a key goal for Israeli war planners.”

But, in order to get the hostages back, the good guys have had to deal with the bad despite President Trump’s dreams of a new casino empire arising on the beaches of Gaza rubble... while the 80 year old United Nations acts like an 80 year old human: demented, incontinent and on a declining fixed income.

So, as the world (and Washington) wonder if Iran’s Fordow nuclear capacity is truly destroyed... or just playing possum... the experts and pundits throw out wildly conflicting scenarios, confusing everybody.

17th And now, add sleepiness to confusion... a consequence of President Trump’s imposition of a stupefying fifty percent tariff on Brazilian coffee.

Critics say the taxation, being paid by morning Joes and Joans, has no economic basis (as in the case of Chinese imports) but is solely political. Djonald UnCaffienated is defending his old friend and ally, former Brazilian President Jaie Bolsonaro, facing up to 43 years in prison for a botched coup after losing the 2022 election... a disturbing parallel to events at the Capitol on the One Six.

Doesn’t that sound like extortion? “It’s MAGA, baby,” Mr. Bannon replied. “It’s a brave new world.”

But “...(t)he move has reinvigorated Bolsonaro’s leftwing rivals,” GUK reported, giving lefty Prexy Lula da Silva “a bounce in the polls and prompted a wave of public anger, largely focused on the Bolsonaro clan who have spent years portraying themselves as flag-loving nationalists.” And the tariff wars have given new impetus compared to America’s gang of tormentors: “BRICS—which stands for Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa.”

24th And while the world turns and the victims burn, Team Trump is bedeviled by a dead pedophile – the inexplicably outsize Jeffery Epstein, his procurer, imprisoned Ghislaine Maxwell and all the bipartisan visitors to his perverted island paradise.

Celebrities, politicians (like Slick Willie and Trump, himself) and even royalty (Britain’s Prince Andrew behaved so flagrantly that his Princehood was revoked after one victim, Virginia Giuffre, won a huge settlement and then committed suicide, instantly becoming a martyred heroine to millions upon millions of women, worldwide.

Jeffrey’s jihad... posthumous as it is after he also either killed himself in prison or, say conspiracy theorists, was murdered... has even disrupted one of the President’s real wars: his campaign to remove Feddie Chair Jerome Powell for having the gall to refuse to lower interest rates.

But blocking his way: the Constitution! And his justification – corruption in Fed headquarters – is itself compromised by the ongoing demolition of the White House east wind in the interests of creation of an enormous Golden Ballroom.

31st Rising from his grave to shout “Boo”, the dead Ped’s ghost... not Trump, not Sad Old Joe, not the media, the millionaires and billionaires, not even the people... holds the reins of power.

After Fourth of July flooding killed dozens of children at a Texas summer camp, after the President and allies like Oracle ogre Larry Ellison failed to engineer the removal of annoying latenite critic comedians like Jimmy Kimmel or Stephen Colbet (at least until next year) and an inter-MAGA civil war splitting Trump from his former media patrons, the Murdoch family, his former DOGEee Elon Musk all swirled and whirled about America... after POTUS and his BBB eliminated federal funding from libraries and museums.

"I'm shocked," said Marquita Graham, who leads children’s reading services. Ending library services "would be sad."

And joining Jeff, in wherever place hosts ghosts, heavy metal icon Ozzy Osborne boarded the crazy train.

AUGUST

7th The President’s Executive Order, imposing reciprocal tariffs on the rest of an anti-American world was, almost immediately followed by a new policy and a new epithet.

To the foreigners, ostensible allies in conglomerations like the European Union or NATO that Djonald UnEesqualled wanted exterminated, or at least seriously reformatted to acknowledge American primacy, the insolence with which some chose to impose retaliatory tariffs over and above their already unfair levies against the U.S.A. provoked rage, first, and then... as certain staunch Republican sectors of the business community quietly (or not-so-quietly) protested that passing the tariffs along to consumer was impacting sales... generating arts of the deals. Many deals. Some political (as in the punitive tariffs on Brazilian coffee or anything from the devils of Communist China), others strictly economic... and certain of these involved tit-for-tat reductions back to a more manageable ten to fifteen percent upon those foreigners who behaved.

The President’s reversion to his civilian past as a deal-maker, accordingly, angered some of the hardest-right MAGA elements as viewed any form of negotiations as a weakness that would inevitably cause economic or even military conquest at the hands of unworthies – even as liberals like talkbot Bill Maher and grungy Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa). The die-hards developed a name for this, referencing dirty Mexicans who continued exporting people in addition to their olives and avodados – T.A.C.O. (Trump always Chickens Out). Cracks in the MAGA egg began to multiply.

From left-leaning think tanks like the Yale Budget Lab (complaining that tariff receipts were going to tax cuts for billionaires) to center-left numbers crunchers like the International Monetary Fund (who found a declining GDP disturbing) to even Trump-symp media like Fox began using the term, allegedly coined by Financial Times columnist Robert Armstrong , USA Today reported noted that Trump “lashed out” at a reporter who’d asked for his response to financial analysts embracing T.A.C.O.

"Six months ago, this country was stone cold dead. We had a dead country. We had a country that people didn't think it was going survive," Trump said. "And you ask a nasty question like that. It's called negotiation.

"Don't ever say what you said because that's a nasty question," Trump threatened the reporter.

The Don, evoking support from the public, closed nearer and nearer to base at 14,932.77 while the Dow declined slightly: to 44,193.12.

14th Scrutinizing a Trump T.A.C.O. sourly, wishing it were a bowl of borscht or maybe a chopped up Ukrainian on rye, Russia nonetheless saw opportunities in the convolutions revolving round the latest endeavor by their BFFs, America, in that the tariff distraction would weaken the will of the Yanks to meddle further in their unexpectedly difficult conquest of Ukraine and subsequent march through Poland to the Atlantic as American and... er, not exactly Soviet – let’s just say Russian... heads of state headed to an American military base in Anchorage, Alaska for a Friday summit.

Using every available avenue to Washington, Belatussian dictator Lukashenko dangled the prospect of peace in a way designed to get the attention of President Donald Trump: “If we make this deal,” he told his U.S. interlocutors, “they will bring you the Nobel Peace Prize on a platter,” according to an interview with Time. He then released an American woman, Anastassia Nuhfer, who had been held prisoner in Belarus for nearly five years.

During his preliminary visit to Minsk in April to set up the summit, Trump’s big, beautiful and clean diplomat John Coale was treated to a long and extravagant lunch at the presidential palace, featuring potato pancakes with sour cream and other national specialties. Lukashenko, a professed teetotaler, raised a toast of vodka and urged his American guest to drink. That night, he sent Coale home with several more political prisoners, including another American citizen.

Once again, Rubio celebrated the release on social media: “No president has done so much, so quickly, to keep Americans safe abroad.”

The highpoint of Lukashenko’s outreach to the White House took place on June 20, when Ukrainian peace talks envoy Keith Kellogg led another delegation to Minsk, bringing along Coale and DepSecState Chris Smith, this confab appearing on state TV in Belarus, where the anchors touted it as a major diplomatic breakthrough. At first, the tone seemed cordial enough. “With all the gold here,” Kellogg said as they sat down in Lukashenko’s office, “this looks a lot like Mar-a-Lago.” But, once the cameras were off, Lukashenko castigated Coale, who was seated directly to his right, for not doing more to influence Trump’s views about Ukraine and Russia.“You drink coffee with him,” Lukashenko boomed. “You’re the one who can set him straight!” 

Expectations deteriorated further prior to the summit, including the revival of Russian TV hosts and propagandists Vladimir Solovyov and Olga Skabeyeva claims that the United States should return Alaska to Russia while Russian State Duma Chairperson Vyacheslav Volodin claimed in July 2022 that Russia would claim Alaska as its own if the United States froze foreign-based Russian assets.

21st The summit, indeed, proved a failure to most observers (except Hungarian Dictator and NATOpest Viktor Orban, who applauded the impending conquest of Ukraine) as Germany’s Euractiv coronists simply dismissed the public proclamations of progress as mere “gaslighting”.

Alaska’s fizzle implied problems ahead, with the troubles behind.

“The problem is Russian imperialism, not Ukraine's desire to live freely,” said Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky. “If Putin were serious about peace talks, he would not have been attacking Ukraine all day today,” Lipavsky wrote on X.”

Denunciations also poured in from Norway and EU officials. Lithuanian Defence Minister Dovilė Šakalienė calling Putin’s remarks urging Ukraine and the EU not to “sabotage” the talks a scam. “More gaslighting and veiled threats from Putin. A war criminal with a history of poisoning his critics addresses the US President with, ‘Very good to see you in good health and to see you alive,’” she said.

The WashPost opined that Putin set the scene last week by refusing to meet Zelensky until certain conditions were met — conditions that he said remained “far off.” Trump agreed, the Post said (“capitulated” would perhaps have been a more accurate term for the T.A.C.O.) “and dismissed the idea of Zelensky’s attendance, even as the future of his nation — and its 40 million citizens” dangled from the scaffold.

NSC’s man about Russia, Eric Greene, said that the “root cause” of the war was Ukraine’s existence as a sovereign, independent country,” Green explains. “That’s not Trump’s to give away.”  But Little Marco, buffering and buttering up his boss, said that Zelensky had to accept “some land swapping” (and human handovers) that would be “for the good of Ukraine” but also “some bad stuff for both.”

As for the future, WashPoster Damir Marusic opined that: “The danger for me seems to be that Trump is still in thrall to the idea that everyone just wants to make money,” while house conservative Max Boot said problem was that Trump “thinks Putin wants to end the war. What Putin really wants is to win the war.”

28th Time correspondent Simon Shuster also said that Putin had to be “thrilled” with the failure of the Alaska summit.

“In his public statements on Friday night, Trump made clear he no longer plans to impose any economic pain on Russia.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, for his part, has urged the U.S. to demand the release of thousands of Ukrainian children that Russian forces have abducted from the war zone,” but touched only Melania (in a manner of speaking) as the kidnapped kids continue being pimped out to Epsteinicious oligarchs.

Neither of these issues came up in the official statements in Alaska. Putin enjoyed a red carpet, a presidential limousine ride and, added USAToday’s Francesca Chambers, both sides gave the finger to the assembled press.

The conservative Breitbart journal joined liberal Rep. Jason Crow (D-Co) who’d said on Sunday’s “Face the Nation” that Trump’s performance was a “historic embarrassment for the United States.”

SEPTEMBER

4th Iran, NoKo and, from Russia, Bad Vlad Putin himself celebrated China’s commemoration of VJ Day (at the hands of Americans) in a “Coalition of the Killers” (CoKs) to counter the Western “Coalition of the Willing”: (CoWs) as President Trump said that (t)hey would never use their military on us—believe me, that would be the worst thing they could ever do.”

In China, however, the Russian leader “repeatedly blamed the West for igniting the war in Ukraine, insisting the Kremlin's invasion was provoked by years of Western provocations.”

"These days in China, Putin continues to tell his tales - as if he is not to blame for the war," Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy said.

"As if someone is always 'forcing' him - to fight, kill, drive children into shelters, send thousands of people to storm our positions."

But Veep Vance said that MAGA was “pretty aligned with President Zelenskyy... even though we have some disagreements; we, of course, want to protect Ukraine's territorial integrity. We don't want Russia to conquer the entire country.”

Just the eastern third of it.

And the people in it.

The Don fell back to 14,856.50 after nearing base on Aug. 28^th... the Dow reached 45.271.43.

11th It’s the 24^th anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon – commemorated by a “Moment of Silence” at 8:46 AM.

Times change. Osama Bin Laden’s patron, Saudi Arabia, is now an ally of America against enemy Islamists in Iran. And now, as if it will make any difference, DoD Chief Pete Hegsetn had decreed that his gang will heretofore be called the Department of War (DoW).

It’ll be good times aplenty for defense contractors. Especially calligraphers... the name change means having to rebrand a mountain of marketing materials, “that specifically cite the Department of Defense or DOD,” said a defense industry consultant.

Liasoning with DHS, ICA, the National Guard and local police, the military will ramp up its campaign on the “enemy within”... illegal aliens, criminal or not, and those who support them... and, in their newest campaign, small boats believed to be carrying drugs from Venezuela.

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller trolled a group of elder activists shouting down Vance in August. "This is not a city that has had any safety for its Black citizens for generations," Miller alleged. "President Trump is the one who is fixing that. So we're going to ignore these stupid white hippies. They all need to go home and take a nap because they're all over 90 years old."

18th The ICE war against migrants turned deadly when Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez, described by his family as a “devoted father, cherished friend and kind soul,” was shot and killed in what the Chicago Sun Times called a “targeted law enforcement activity” after attempting to escape with an ICEman clinging to his car door.

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, a Democrat believed to have Presidential ambitions in ’28, called for more "transparency" while ICE Deputy Director Madison Sheahan accused Democrats of siding with illegal migrants over law enforcement.

"They obviously continue to take the sides of these criminal illegal aliens who put our people in harm's way," said Sheahan on "Fox & Friends."

"And with the leadership of President Donald Trump and Secretary Kristi Noem, we'll continue to do this throughout the country."

25th On next Wednesday, the gumment will shut down.

Federal workers are contemplating a long, unpaid vacation while taxpayers are facing the prospect of a lack of services in many key areas.

“Surprisingly,” concluded Wendell Primus and Molly Reynolds from the Brookings Institute, it will be Democrats, not Republicans “calling for a shutdown this year.”

The federal government has closed down 21 times since 1977 and, since 2013 there have been three shutdowns (for 17 days in 2013, and for 35 days in late 2019 and early 2019) – the former when Republicans wanted to defund and/or delay the implementation of the Affordable Care Act while the latter was over funding for construction of the “big, beautiful wall” along the southern border.

This year, Brookings contended, “the shoe is on the other foot.”

A shutdown will protest the estimated $400+ billion in Obamacare health cuts that President Trump and Speaker Johnson propose. Both parties anticipate playing the blame game. Zachary Schermele of USA Today believes that Democrats would have the upper hand because confirmation of a Republican proposal will required sixty “yea” votes due to the filibuster provisions presently in place.

"What the Republicans have proposed is not good enough to meet the needs of the American people and not good enough to get our votes," said Senate Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. Republicans, in turn, want a “clean” budget bill with no extraneous provision.

OCTOBER

2nd Conglomerations and corporations including Oracle (run by Larry Ellison, the most evil man in America) scramble and scrabble to take over TikTok before Trump bans it as detrimental to youth (and perhaps also a web of Chinese spies spreading mis- and dis-information).

Pew Research found that “(a) fifth of U.S. adults now regularly get news on TikTok, up from just 3% in 2020. In fact, during that span, no social media platform we’ve studied has experienced faster growth in news consumption.”

SecTreas Scott Bessant boasted that the Chinese app would be bought by patriotic Americans – but that wasn’t exactly the case. In the proposal, Oracle would be joined by entities from Australia, the Saudis, UAE and others TBD. Partisans upholding either free speech rights or national security bent ears in Congress and the media. As the chaos grew darker and darker, deadline day was pushed forward to December 16^th. Into the mix swam tech billionaire Michael Dell and the Murdochs, so President Trump dispatched Veep Vance to sort out the details and the players, which he did, at least in Donnie’s estimation.

“Vance has thrown himself into taking a victory lap” and stood at Trump’s side in the Oval Office for the signing of the Executive Order advancing the deal, the WashPost reported. He was “very much involved, in charge of it,” Trump praised his vice president.

Another complication arose as backers of the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act (PAFACA – not to be mistaken for Soupy Sales’ “Pachalafaka”) reinstated their requirement that apps like TikTok be restricted in the U.S. unless they're divested from ownership subject to control by adversarial foreign governments, such as the Chinese Communist Party. USA Today’s Olivier Knox also cited “some critics” who pointed out that Trump is rewarding ideological allies with “170 million eyeballs (give or take a few)” and that the deal would “amount to an intense consolidation of places where Americans get their news – under the control of a Trump ally.” Far left and far right media united to decry the deal; and, as October flew in, a new wrinkle emerged... “Dr. Buzz” (Andrew Buzzell in “The Conversation”) advocation “soft power” to make the deal “less riggable”, according to all the President’s men... and women.

Then again, Dr. Buzz is Canadian.

The Don finished September at 14,920.36 but the Dow sank back to 46,446.10

9th The federal government shut down at midnight Monday night/Tuesday morning, Time reported, “after an eleventh-hour attempt to find common ground proves fruitless”... almost all Senate Republicans rejecting preservation of Medicare, Medicaid and Obamacare while Democrats voted to reject a House-passed Republican bill that would have extended funding until Nov. 21.

Punishments quickly grew partisan.

“The Democrats want to shut it down, so when you shut it down, you have to do layoffs,” Trump said in the Oval Office on Tuesday, the new morning of the New Age. “We’d be laying off a lot of people that are going to be very affected, and they’re Democrats. They’re gonna be Democrats.”

Well not exactly, there are certainly Republicans... even MAGA Republicans... among the air traffic controllers, tax collectors, even military impacted by the shutdown, but the elephants contended that the shutdown was due to Democratic coddling of illegal aliens.

Questions were asked and some even answered – perversely, President Trump insisted that it would be a good thing... politically. USA Today’s interviewed with Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) included warnings that the shutdown might cause the Statue of Liberty to go dark while ICE, itself, complained that gumment closures were impacting its alien crackdown called Operation Midway Blitz in Chicago. MAGA just partied.

USA Today reported that White House Trumpies, including the President, were laughing and dancing at their AI video of House Democratic Leader of Hakeem Jeffries in a fake mustache and sombrero which Democrats called “racist”.

“The president's joking,” Veep Vance said when asked about the videos. “And we're having a good time. Like, is (Jeffries) a Mexican-American that is offended by having a sombrero meme?”

16th The American government remained shut down but, over the weekend, a deal between Israel and Hamas (which President Trump took credit for) prompted the release of twenty living hostages held by Hamas terrorists after their attack on an Israeli music festival to their families... swapped for

The deal engendered jubilation in the streets of Tel Aviv and drew praise from onlookers like Egypt, Turkey, Qatar and Norway – which gave Trump hope of a personal triumph, a Nobel Peace Prize of his own.

As for Hamas, “they’ve agreed to things," the Independent U.K. reported.

Jared Kushner, Trump’s son in law, opined that a breakthrough on the entire war was “imminent” despite prime minister of Qatar, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani Al Thani contending that Israel’s “real objective”... unless muzzled by the American President... would be “to destroy Gaza, to render housing, livelihoods, education, and medical care impossible, stripping away the very foundations of human life”.

The concept that Trump personally was central to a solution – indeed its guarantor – so flattered the US President that he “offered himself up as the chair of the peace board, the body that would oversee the reconstruction of Gaza.”

But a crushing blow came from Oslo... the Nobel Vikings awarded the Peace Prize to Maria Corina Machado, a Venezuelan opposition leader.

And then, Axios reported that Hamas would delay returning the bodies of the dead hostages because of logistical complications, while US News asked six “unanswered questions” from the ceasefire – these being...

Does Hamas Disarm?

Who Runs Gaza?

Will the Ceasefire Hold?

Will the Regional Pressure Stay On?

Who Rebuilds Gaza and How?... and...

W(h)ither the Two-State Solution?

Upon that last, Plan Trump says: “While Gaza re-development advances and when the PA reform program is faithfully carried out, the conditions may finally be in place for a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood, which we recognize as the aspiration of the Palestinian people.”

23rd Flying along and settling... or trying to settle... the problems of the world, POTUS never lost sight of the real danger to America: the migrants.

“Just when Joneses, (especially in the blue cities like New York – one of several upon which President Trump seems to have declared war and, perversely, his own) believed that Djonald UnBelievable had reached the frontier of his idiocy, he posted a (presumably AI-generated) video of Himself flying a jet over Gotham and then unloading a massage blob of... uh... poop (?) upon the wokesters and protesters down below.

The pro-Trump New York Post (Oct. 19, ATTACHMENT “A”) reported that “(t)he president posted that wild AI-generated video of himself late Saturday as a fighter pilot wearing a crown on his head, unloading sewage on “No Kings” protesters.”

With “Danger Zone,” the iconic “Top Gun” theme song, blaring in the background, “Trump’s fighter jet (emblazoned with the words “King Trump”) was shown dropping masses of manure on (an AI generated image of) lefty influencer Harry Sisson and other presumed demonstrators over what appeared to be New York City.

“Vice Veep (and wannabee Prez) Vance followed his master’s voice and image by posting another AIster of Trump putting a crown on his head and transforming into a monarch, then Donnie donning a majestic robe and drawing out a sword as photoshopped Dem pols like former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi were shown kneeling before him.”

In the nation’s capital, in New York, Chicago, and Portland (Oregon, not Maine) and soon, as the President ventured in a meeting with military leaders and Secretary Hegseth, more cities like Chicago should be “training grounds for our military,” describing the unrest over immigration enforcement and federal troop deployments as “a war from within.”

30th It’s Halloween weekend or, among the illegal aliens, undertakers and nostalgics, the Days of the Dead.

The indigenous holidays, as old if not older than the European version, are divided into November 1^st (for the dead children) and 2^nd, the rest of us. Tricks, treats and ceremonies are described and families all go to the cemetery to converse with the talking dead.

At the sunset of Trump 1.0, POTUS ... on Oct. 30, 2020... “released a proclamation for a new national Remembrance Day to take place on Nov. 1, which would focus on Americans killed by “illegal aliens” and concentrating on border security.”

Conspiracy theorists evoke the day of the dead as in dead voters who mobilized in 2020 to tear down the greatest President America ever had (until his second term). Some political theorists theorized the shutdown would end this week because Trump wants to portray himself as a hero, so “24 million people won't have to choose between health coverage and rent.” Losers!

With winter nearing, liberals begged utilities not to cut off power for the poor who fell behind on bills (up 31% over two years; electricity up 9.5% over one month) the National Energy Assistance Directors Association (NEADA) attributed the cost increases to “energy gobbling AI server “farms” that keep the fake news and Internet games working hard to distract the sheep and sleepers from reality.

Price increases were highest in Illinois and Indiana.

And, in a ploy to kill culture... always a leftist plot... liberal board members of Presidents’ Counsels and Committees are being fired, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting defunded, installed Himself as chair of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and ordered the Smithsonian to remove any reference to civil rights or “woke” exhibits.

NOVEMBER

6th It’s Veterans’ Day but... contrary to the many public messaging and merching talk, the gumment... now in its record thirty-seventh day of closure... stiffed active duty military, “as well as other Federal employees including air traffic controllers, park rangers, and others working unpaid, furloughed, or flat out fired – including, amazingly, nuclear weapons security forces (thankfully rescinded) and tax collectors (still moping about at home or, like the veterans and others, looking for gig economy jobs to feed the family).” Actual dead paychecks were disbursed, pieces of paper including names, pertinent numbers and the amount remitted: $0.00.

Revolutions have been begun and succeeded, for less.

“The vacationing House and stalled Senate stalwarts in our combative Congress launched weapons of words against one another and tried and failed an unlucky thirteen times to adopt either a Democratic continuing resolution with healthcare provisions or the Republican version without as of Halloween. Comedians chortled. Detractors of democracy at home and abroad validated the virtues of dictatorships, as don’t put up with such pissant nonsense. Foreign enemies drew allies away from America and towards their webs of deceit. Artificial Intelligence replaced intellect, robots replaced workers.

Investors reaped higher and higher yields from the Dow and other markets, much of which they converted into gold and silver, perhaps anticipating a White House ballroom buying spree.

“Fat and sassy, the billionaire class pumped blood (money) into candidates” (many of which, like Democratic legacy icon Andrew Cuomo, turned Republican turncoat and crook) were, as of today, either losing or lost).

The Department of Veterans Affairs announced an increase in the number of its employees who were furloughed during the government shutdown. That’s nearly 37,000 VA employees or 8% of the VA’s total workforce who of whom were “furloughed or continue(d) working without pay”, CNN reported the VA’ stance on the ongoing shutown dance.

But not to worry about National Security: CNN also reported that President Trump sent a message to our military (and political, and economic) enemies by resuming nuclear testing “heralding a potentially major shift in decades of US policy at a time of growing tensions between the world’s nuclear-armed superpowers” and frightening the sheeple at the U.N.

“Veterans, their families and active duty military have been watching with apprehension as the shutdown continues as next, on Saturday, SNAP (food stamp) benefits were slated to end. Or not. Or maybe be cut by half... “and then, as the whim of the President dictates, killed again.

“Or brought back by the lower Federal courts, meaning that the ultimate decision (would) be made by SCOTUS.”

With Congress enjoying a long, paid vacation, Time’s opinionator-in-chief Philip Elliott predicted that neither SNAP nor shutdown was likely to be resolved soon.

Shutdown be damned, tariff revenues and an astonished lack of revenge and retaliation from the foreigners pushed the Don further over base to 15,339.64 while, after its own Day of the Dead lift, the Dow fell back to 47,311.00.

13th The vengeance of the voters (blossoming above) indeed graduated into a pocketful of posies for the Democrats and liberals, a stewpot of skunk cabbage for Republicans.

What the Independent U.K. called a “beautiful blue wave” rolled in to wash out arrogant American elites as surfers like New York City mayoral candidate – the self-described Socialist Zohran Mandami (“Zorro” or “the Fox” to friends; an anagrammatical “I, Madman!” to foes), a victorious Virginia gubernatorial candidate Abigail Spanberger and Jerseyite Mikie Sherrill.

After Mandami trounced Awful Andy in the primary, Cuomo and crooked incumbent Eric ran as Independents, but even after Adams dropped out to support the doubly defeated son of beloved Gotham icon Mario and President Trump, contending that even a “bad democrat” like Andy was better than a Communist, President Trump backstabbed Republican Guardian Angel Curtis Sliwa and backed Cuomo.

In Virginia, ex-Congresswoman Spanberger beat current Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears to become the first female governor of the Commonwealth... flipping the state from one-time GOP rising star Glenn Youngkin.

And, in Jersey, Navy veteran and congresswoman Sherrill, trounced Republican Jack Ciattarelli, who nearly pulled off an upset over incumbent Democrat Phil Murphy four years ago.

Ciattarelli leaned into his support from Donald Trump, but that may have ended up being a liability.

Republicans then snatched victory from the jaws of defeat when Democrats abruptly surrendered... ending the gumment shutdown with no healthcare benefits, just a few vague promises to look into the issue next year. Millions will see their private insurance rates soar, many will go without, some will die therefrom.

At least it seems like SNAP is coming back for poor children, although there is legislation in the offing... which this Index supports(!)... to exclude some varieties of “junk food” from the program, just the way that Americans pay full price for alcohol and tobacco. Administration is certain to lead to litigation, but it is beyond dispute that some forms of healthless “nourishment” should not be banned, but also should not be subsidized.

20th Like CNC independent office seeker Jack “Catfish” Parnell (see “Black Helicopters” here), and like myself and millions of sane Americans, probably billions, worldwide, there is no imperative more critical than the “Law of Threes”.

Human beings require three minutes of clean air before serious distress sets in. After three minutes, we grow thirty, after three weeks, hungry. There are more... mainly less physical, more mental and emotional threes but these are those german to this Lesson.

Specifically... and visibly given the past few weeks of horrendous weather: droughts giving way to floods, record heat to record snow and with an occasional tornado, disease or human-induced pollutical issue added into the gumbo... these three necessities were all the necessities on display at the COP 30 (aka Conference Of the Parties) summit in Brazil.

Our Lesson referenced many accounts and histories of COPs past (and even future... COP 31 opens November 9^th in Antalya, Turkey) as well as statements... valid or dis-informational... upon ‘dis and ‘dat’ from the many many delegates: with the one pertiment exception.

President Trump who calls climate action a “scam”, Doncotted COP, just as he had pulled the US from the Paris climate agreement in January.

A few American journalists sneaking into Belem or with FOEs (friends of European media like Germany’s DW, France 24 or certain Brits) they could access online gleaned proceedings and propaganda from attendees: for example Stefano Wrobleski, director of InfoAmazonia, who told the Guardian U.K. that: “News is still happening here,” just because Trump wasn’t there and “the US didn’t send a delegation, this is not newsworthy.”

Even some MAGA-no’s might have ultimately taken issue... but, as things turned out, COP 30 produced only a lot of talk and little action, even on the three issues of substance identified by the Christian Aid Eurocharity...

A $300bn handout by developed countries to intermediaries unknown, as committed in COP 29...

Cessation of investment in fossil fuels to transition to low carbon economies in a “socially just way”; and

More ambitious commitments from countries aiming to go beyond their existing commitments and to submit “suitably ambitious future climate change plans.”

The last of these was fulfilled, sort, but by what the conventioneers called a “roadmap” and not an action plan, ambitious or not. The rest will have to wait for next Thanksgiving in Turkey. (Unless an electoral earthquake occurs the week before, don’t expect to see an American presence either.)

Convenienely, for the skeptics, COP 30 itself ended in the fires predicted for an unfeeling world... thirteen injured in a conflagration blamed not on terrorists, but, rather “bad wiring”. Many of the unburnt hopped jets and zoomed off to the G-20 summit in South Africa (which Americans also boycotted)

27th Reportage on what Americans were thankful for in 2025 included, of course, turkey (the roasted bird, not the country), life (except for unfortunates killed off by disasters like the L.A. wildfires, by crime or by disease), liberty (that they weren’t Ukrainians or Palestinians or, now, Venezuelans) and... choose one... “happiness” or “property” (coequal in the minds of many, and not just Republicans.

Some... like the turkeys, Gobble and Waddle, the One Six rioters and George Santos, to name a few... could be thankful for pardons for what they did or who they were. Mediums made suggestions, too: from the obvious like health and solvency to family, friends and good food; a satisfactory work life, God, electricity and, according to one “Doctor Michelle Bengston”, time – because “we never know when our time will run out.”

Several (big ‘d’) Democratic politicians, national security specialists and veterans (including at least one astronaut) were thankful that America still retains some (small ‘d’) democratic aspects preventing President Trump from prosecution as "traitors" who should face the death penalty for releasing a joint video in which they said that U.S. service members could refuse illegal orders.

And though crop disease, climate and the ICE alien hunt caused 15,000 farms to shut down, American Farm Bureau’s Zippy Duvall said: “We are (still) blessed to live in a country capable of producing such an abundant food supply,” with CNBC calculating that “with inflation factored in, 2025′s price is roughly in line with what the 2020 dinner would cost today.”

In some state, tokesmasters celebrated “Green Wednesday” (and they were not talking about kale). In others, “Black Friday” arrived early, according to USA Today

Somewhat similar to what you are reading now, this issue included a few happy highlights – although without the disasters and despair that 2025 was also subjected to

DECEMBER

4th Our “America by the Numbers” Lesson spotified the national standing on a number of gumment, media and think tankery Indices.

The “World Happiness Index” ranked the U.S.A. 24^th (out of 143), which represented a decline from 2024 as a consequence of what the New York Times and Newsweek called increased solo dining (also cited by CBS), political polarization and rising "deaths of despair". 

Finland was happiest, for the tenth year in a row, followed by other small, cold countries. Afghanistan ranked worst.

The French “Mieux Donner” think tankers equated happiness with generosity. The American C.I.A. factbook added that the USA ranked 13^th in GDP per capita but only 49^th in Life Expectancy and 67^th in employment. The GINI people, however, called us unequal, slightly better than in Bolivia, slightly worse than in Djibouti. Freedom House rated us in the FREE category (before Trump 2.0), trailing Argentina but ahead of Monaco. CEO World ranked America 20^th of 197 for business freedom. And, as virtue goes within, Mental Floss and Wallet Hub agreed that Las Vegas was our most sinful city – the most virtuous: Columbia, a wealthy exurb serving Baltimore and DC.

December’s Don continued putting distance between itself and 2013 by rising to 15,581.15 while the Dow rose to 47,882.90

11th Winter socks Americans with blizzards and record freezing temperatures in the East, flooding and landslides in the West. The polar vortex is back (differentiated from arctic blasts as being the weather itself while the latter is its effects), as are the bomb cyclones while up and down the Pacific Coast atmospheric rivers transmit the Pineapple expresses into wildfire-scarred hills that, consequently, fall down.

The weatherpeople can’t agree on whom the bomb cyclones and such will fall... Google says the West will be cold, Direct Weather predicts warmth.

Colder weather is also on hand for Ukraine, where Russia’s bombing of the power infrastructures means that people will freeze in the dark and attacks on hospitals, schools and communications are escalating. Cold weather is also afflicting China, causing them to depend on Russian gas and oil.

Advice givers are warning Americans not to overly exert shoveling snow, drive carefully and cite homeless shelters that discriminate, but do not deny, a warm place to speech to former felons and the mentally disturbed.

18th And, last week, we pondered a more welcoming clime... Jeffrey Epstein’s Little Saint James... where the billionaire welcomed famous guests and somebody’s children to enjoy a massage and a margarita.

All your tabloid faves are there... the President and First Lady (who first slept with Melania on Jeffy’s “Lolita Express”), his disbarred lawyer Rudy, the unprinced Randy Andy, former POTUS Clinton and numerous celebrities cited by the media – including magicians, politicians, billionaires and Beach Boys, hi-techsters and cabinet curiousities and one of Epstein’s few defenders... Woody Allen!

The files, multiplying into the millions now... still leave questions unanswered, did Epstein kill himself or was he murdered to shut his mouth... was the real crime the sex, or the silence?... and was he really a spy for America, for Israel or... why not?... Finland?

Trump claims he unfriended Epstein for “stealing” his little girl employees at Mar-a-Lago, while his procurer, Ghislaine Maxwell lobbies for a Presidential pardon and Little Saint James was sold to a developer who hopes to bring it back as a resort – presumably without the inappropriate perks Randy Andy is said to have asked GMax to provide.

As of today, New Years’ Day Plus One, the Department of Justice has failed to follow the law ordering them to provide full (preferably unredacted) disclosure to Contress and to the people.

Their excuse is that they’re overwhelmed.

Next lesson will include New Years’ resolutions, revolutions and developments and predictions from a variety of posters and prognosticators. In that yesterday saw the swearing in of Zohran Mandami as Mayor New York – an apocalyptic development to partisans of all stripes and colors – we’ll make his inaugural address... with “the wind of purpose at our backs” our one and only Attachment before the media vortex resumes.

	IN the NEWS: DECEMBER 24^TH, 2025 to JANUARY 1^ST, 2026
Wednesday, December 24, 2025 Dow: 48,737.16* *early 3PM close	It’s Christmas Eve. Winnie the Pooh turns 100, NORAD (the Santa Clause trackers) is 70 and the Elf on the Shelf is 29, all amidst weird and wild weather: serial atmospheric rivers on the West Coast, mudslides sweeping away homes that survived the Month of the Locust fires, blizzards and ice storms in the NorthEast. President Trump’s appointees to the Department of Justice say... surprise!... he’s not only innocent but wickedly persecuted by the allege-i-gators alleging dirty deeds in the Epstein files (which now total over a millon pages. Potted Prince Andy denies raping dead Virginia or begging GMax for “inappropriate friends” while Djonald UnGrounded says his eight trips on Jeffy’s jet were purely pure. Then he grants a Christmas gift to student debtors, legislation to garnish their paychecks. SCOTUS, however, hands him an unexpected and dastardly defeat – redlight National Guardsmen joining ICE in migrant home invasions while rich, fat Governor Pritzger gloats and calls it a win for democracy. Trump has a busy last week of 2025 – meeting with Uke Prez Zelenskyy, a phone call to Putin and another sit down with Bibi where Netanyahu will claim the MidEast peace treaty is koshering along, despite Parliament passing laws to expedite ethnic cleansing clearing Gaza for Jewish settlers, if they want it. Angry anti-Semitic protests in Europe include British bobbies foiling a synagogue bombing plot and Greta Thunberg taking time out from climate out to be arrested for Palestine. And, as NORAD tracks Santa’s ride through space, jealous Maryland Homeowners’ Association grinches fine and redlight a family whose Christmas light display dazzles too brightly.
Thursday, December 25, 2025 Dow: Closed for Christmas	Christmas Day brings Mother Nature’s coal... 50 year rain records eclipsed in California (where landslides threaten folks who refuse to evactuate until tomorrow), blizzards pass Santa as they move east from Great Lakes to Gotham but record heat in Southeast and lack of snow stultifies skiers in Rockies, where a labor dispute in Telluride cause the ski patrol to ski off because their pay can’t cover rents. For the faithful, Pope Leo delivers his first Christmas mass, NYC’s Cardinal Dolan his last. King Charles tells Brits to cherish compassion (but not for Andrew or Harry). A Santa from Atlanta dying of cancer counsels “hope” while charity manifests in free food and toys for the poor, and a lucky lotto winner in Arkansas helps him or herself to $1.8 B. Police arrest Mr. and Mrs. Claus for speeding in Ohio and a Grinch for shoplifting in Aurora, IL. Musicians grinch out Kennedy Center’s Christmas concert due to name change to Trump... the first in what will probably be many, many incidents and Russia celebrates with more bombings and droning in Kiev.
Friday, December 26, 2025 Dow: 48,710.97	ICE (the black stuff, not the alien hunters) says “howdy!” to road warriors in the zone between southern rain and Northeast blizzards wash away road and collapse bridges and the atmosphere pineapple comes back to California. Air travel, curiously, is said to be viable except on the coasts for homegoers. Djonald UnMerciful... who had evoked the Christmas spirit in holding back military actions yesterday,... now gleefully bombs “anti-Christian” terrorists in Nigeria (but not Turkey) and druglords (or fisherfolk) off the coast of Venezuela. Racial, religious and “helluvit” wars kindle in Ukraine, the MidEast and Africa as Trump prepares for his peace talks with Bibi and Zorro. Shoppers in America turn to Return Friday only to find soaring “restocking fees” while those who gave or received gift cards are finding them stolen by scammers. Happy holidays in Honduras for MHoGAsts as Trumpy Nasry Asfura, elected Prez and former Prez Juan Orlando Hernández enjoys his Xmas Pardon. But not for Ashlee Buzzard, jailed without bail on suspicious of having murdered her daughter Melodee.
Saturday, December 27, 2025 Dow: Closed	It’s National Fruitcake Day! Crazy criminals crawl from their crannies... a Salvation Army bellringer clobbers a mean merching manager with his kettle in Florida; a “Lion King” child star Imani Smith stabbed to death at home in New Jersey. Madmen in high places continue to wreak mayhem on innocents. Mad Vlad... undoubetly enraged by the prospect of the upcoming Trump/Zelenskyy meeting... continues his massive holiday attacks on Kiev, sending out five hundred drones - even tho’ the American President insists there will be no peace process, proposal or deal agreed to except as greenlit by Him. Bored, Donnie solicits the acquiescence of the President of Nigeria to attack Islamists there, citing the prospect of a religious war. He also takes credit for the cessation of hostilities between Thailand and Cambodia, attacks bad actors in Syria, Venezuela and, at home, dictates that the word “affordability” be herby replaced with “pricing.” And regarding same, retailers with unsold merch start slashing prices so that bargain hunters who still have some cash to fork out can enjoy another, tho’ lesser, Black Weekend. Some travelers who’ve met and greeted the folks for Christmas to mixed travel tribulations... New York has its biggest blizzard in four years, but a brief moderating spell eases the West while high temperatures in the plains include a record 83° in Oklahoma City.
Sunday, December 28, 2025 Dow: Closed	President Trump meets Uke President Zelenskyy and says it went well, then talks to Bad Vlad Putin on the phone and also says it went well, but Russia continues bombing Kiev. And then, Djonald UnSatieted uses some of his tariff money to throw farmers a lifeline, in the midst of severe and destructive weather. It’s Talkshow Sunday. On ABC, Nancy Pelosi, soon retiring, recalls some of her major moments like tearing up a copy of Trump’s speech and the One Six Capitol riots, after she had brought her daughter and five year old granddaughter to the Capitol and had to flee the mob. A backup roundtable tackles Trump... Sara Isgur opining that SCOTUS has ended his winning street on ICA and the National Guard, ordering them to leave Chicago alone – even Beer Bro Kavanaugh hesitates on stopping people just becaue of their race. Rick Klein calls this “the year of the Supreme Court; Scott Jennings, merching his book, says Trump has been winning because so many migrants are self-deporting. Moderator Jonthan Karl says the biggest story of 2025 was MTG’s defection from Father; Klein says it was the assassination of Charlie Kirk. The CBS “Week” is devoted to obituaries – Carter to Bardot, Pope Francis to Ozzy and the New York transit Metro card. Henceforth, Gothamoids will have to use credit cards or cellphones... those with neither must walk. On “Face the Nation”, BoA CEO Bryan Moynihan says criticism of Trump is wrong... the economy is good, affordability is up (the housing shortage is due to NIMBYs) and America is not denying democracy, just going back to the center after radical wokeness of Ol’ Goneaway Joe. Cybersecurity expert Chris Krebs say America will go for the money in selling chips to China to improve its military. Taiwan unhappy. He also notes that terrorists will be active on New Year’s Eve.
Monday, December 29, 2025 Dow: 48,461.93	The wild weather returns West... yet another big storm promises more mud and floods; spreading East to create zones of precipitation and, at their center, ice (not the alien hunters but the black stuff on roads as is causing innumerable traffic jams and crashes. Thousands of delays and cancellations exhaust travelers returning home along with a new twist – tornadoes. Sad Vlad complains to President Trump that Ukrainian drones attacked his house in Moscow. POTUS commiserates, but needs pivot to the Mideast where, as he prepares to meet Israeli PM Netanyahu, the fruitcakes in Iran scatter crumbs of terror about and declare that they are now at war with Israel, the U.S.A. and Europe... the entire west. Djonald UnRested assures them that a response will be forthcoming as the libs and media remind him that Fordow was not completely destroyed and the mullahs are setting up new nuclear stations elsewhere. There’s no go in the snow as ski patrollers continue their strike at Telluride (above) over starvation and sleep in your car wages and, on Mammoth Mountain, a comrade is killed by an avalanche. But there is triumph, too – Jim Morrison (no, not that one) becomes first to ski down the most dangerous north face of Mount Everest and light the fire for snow bunnies everywhere. Among living music legends, Beyonce becomes only the fifth rock and roll billionaire (but still trails Taylor, even after she gave $600 tips to KC stadium workers who spent their Chrismas as the Chiefs lost again, fell out of playoff contention and got Travis talking about retirement). In other media news, “Avatar Three” won at the B.O. with an OK but not bomb cycloning $88B.
Tuesday, December 30, 2025 Dow: 48,358.52	The real bomb cyclones strike from the Great Lakes east to New York, England and Jersey with wild 40 mph winds blowing trees, and causing holiday air delays and cancellations and black ice on the roads. Flooding rains return to the West from the wet Hollywood Swingers to Frisco’s docks on the bay. Venezuela’s docks on the bay come in for a first-time bomb barrage, an escalation causing pride and outrage as Israeli PM Bibi arrives in sunny Mar-a-Lago to discuss renewed attacks on the inflation-bedeviled Iranian devils with the U.S.A. But the peace process in Ukraine blows away as Mad Vlad continues his tradition of holiday civilian murders and infrastructure targeting, wiping his butt with the Trump/Zelenskyy security plan deal. Anticipating New Years’ Eve terror from... anybody... police promise an “incredibly visual response” to fight or deter bad actors, although they seldom stop at intersections and shout out their manifestoes before shooting or bombing or... the newest tactic... ramming random crowds with cars. New Yorkers polish the Time Square ball and shred mountains of confetti, New Orleans a big queasty after the ram-jam jihadist attack ending 2024 and state legislators sign hundreds of new laws criminalizing everything from kids’ phones in schools to chatboxes to teledentistry (!) to... again... marijuana.
Wednesday, December 31, 2025 Dow: 48,063.29	It’s New Years’ Eve. ABC plans its ever popular, still posthumous Dick Clark Special starring Ryan Secrest in New York stars the venerable Diana Ross and featuring satellite parties in Chicago and Vegas; even hiring a skinnied up Poach Malone to hit the streets of Nashville, poaching the CBS cowboy chuckwallah in Ryman Hall where Dwight Yoakum channels Elvis. Eschewing competition, NBC shows old clips of the year gone and Princess Kate, fighting cancer, walking backwards down airplane steps in high heels while Fox settles in to wish out the Old with buy buy infomercials and reruns of “The Big Bang Theory”. Getting into the spirit of the weather, Djonald UnBalldropping pivots from Bibi and Maduro to sign legislation freezing childcare in Minnesota on the authority of an anti-Somali poster with pictures of what is already agreed upon as corruption among some. But he TACOs on National Guardsmen joining ICE in migrant home invasions in dens of iniquity like Gotham. Chicago and Portland (Oregon, not Maine) after being slapped by the courts. Two, count ‘em, New England Patriots arrested for unpatriotic attacks on women... Tyron Diggs accused of strangling his private chef while Christian Barmore arrested for beating girlfriend. One imprisoned former TV reality star kills cellmate, another busted for sex crimes against children and animals, while dozens of post-Christmas big box shoplifters arrested in NC’s “Operation Naughty List,” Sydney, Australia, tries to shake off the horrors of Bondi Beach by welcoming a hopefully better 2026 around noon, EST, and then the New Year cruises westward across China and Russia, the MidEast and Europe. At 11:30 EST, Miss Ross takes the stage in a New York of folks dressed up like Eskimos in a flimsy red gown that a merciful stagehand covers with a fur wrap before she climaxes “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”. Fireworks sparkles, ball and confetti fall (the former will be hauled up for another drop on America’s 250^th come summer, a mom unable to wait gives birth under the hospital Christmas Tree in Utah and it’s 2026! Not a smidgen of terror, either!
Thursday, January 1, 2026 Dow: Closed for New Years’ Day	The New Year displaces the old peacefully, in America as across the world... although there are accidental, non-terror fires killing dozens in a Swiss bar and three more at a historic Amsterdam cathedral. Lookie Loos look legally back to old crimes facing new justice (and potential death penalties) in the New Year... Luigi Mangione (whose lawyers are fighting evidence technicalities), Nick Reiner (an insanity defense?) and Charlie Kirk shooter Tyler Robinson (an act of war?) with others, like Sean Combs and the NBA sports gamblers facing more dates in court. As the heroes (like the Disney employee who survived after placing himself in the path of a huge, bouncing Indiana Jones ball to save spectators) and villains (like... well... pick your partisan pest) come and go, more looky lookbackers favor their favorites in sports (NCAA playoff winners Miami, Oregon, Mississippi and Indiana head to next week’s semifinals in the Peach and Fiesta bowls), music (tours on tap for Cardi B... but not Tyron Diggs... the Weekend, Bon Jovi, Like Combs, Lady Gaga and Ariana Grande), theater (“Aladdin” on Broadway as Zohran Mandani is sworn in... ATTACHMENT ONE... and perhaps decides to celebrate with his Islamic pal, the genii.
The last employment stats... held up because of the government shutdown... trickled in: and they were not good. Un- and under-employment were up and even average wages showed a shocking decline. Christmas merching failed to give business and economics a boost and the last big question mark... inflation... augurs to be troublesome, so we’ll hold back on our planned adjustments to expectations in order to let these figures come in (presuming there is not another shutdown this month).

THE DON JONES INDEX

CHART of CATEGORIES w/VALUE ADDED to EQUAL BASELINE of 15,000

(REFLECTING… approximately… DOW JONES INDEX of June 27, 2013)

Gains in indices as improved are noted in GREEN. Negative/harmful indices in RED as are their designation. (Note – some of the indices where the total went up created a realm where their value went down... and vice versa.) See a further explanation of categories HERE

ECONOMIC INDICES		(60%)
CATEGORY	VALUE	BASE	RESULTS by PERCENTAGE			SCORE		OUR SOURCES and COMMENTS
INCOME	(24%)	6/17/13 revised 1/1/22	LAST	CHANGE	NEXT	LAST WEEK	THIS WEEK	THE WEEK’S CLOSING STATS...
Wages (hrly. Per cap)	9%	1350 points	12/11/25	+5.97%	1/26	1,963.90	1,963.90	https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/average-hourly-earnings 38.86 nc Average hourly earnings for all employees on US private nonfarm payrolls edged up by 5 cents, or 0.1%, over a month to $36.86 in November 2025, following a 0.4% rise in October and below market forecasts of 0.3%. This was the smalleth increase in wages since August 2023
Median Inc. (yearly)	4%	600	12/25/25	-1.73%	1/9/26	1,153.99	1,134.02	http://www.usdebtclock.org/ 52,420 444 1,511
Unempl. (BLS – in mi)	4%	600	12/25/25	+4.35%	1/26*	507.20	507.20	http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000/  4.6 nc
Official (DC – in mi)	2%	300	12/25/25	+1.67%	1/9/26	202.01	198.64	http://www.usdebtclock.org/    7,756 767 896
Unofficl. (DC – in mi)	2%	300	12/25/25	+2.89%	1/9/26	242.67	235.66	http://www.usdebtclock.org/    14,152 170 592
Workforce Participation Number Percent	2%	300	12/25/25	-0.12% +0.0008%	1/9/26	297.93	297.93	http://www.usdebtclock.org/    In 164,048 077 3,876 Out 103,547 587 257 Total: 267,595 664 334 61.3046 61.2996 61.3001
WP % (ycharts)*	1%	150	12/25/25	+0.32%	1/26*	151.19	151.19	https://ycharts.com/indicators/labor_force_participation_rate 62.50 nc
OUTGO	(15%)
Total Inflation	7%	1050	12/25/25	+0.4%	10/25*	927.45	927.45	http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm     +0.3 NC NC *
Food	2%	300	12/25/25	+0.5%	10/25*	262.59	262.59	http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm     +0.2
Gasoline	2%	300	12/25/25	+1.9%	10/25*	255.11	255.11	http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm    +4.1
Medical Costs	2%	300	12/25/25	-0.1%	10/25*	274.20	274.20	http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm     +0.3
Shelter	2%	300	12/25/25	+0.4%	10/25*	250.63	250.63	http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm     +0.2
WEALTH								An official website of the United States government census.gov Notification: Due to the lapse of federal funding, portions of this website are not being updated. Any inquiries submitted via www.census.gov will not be answered until appropriations are enacted. * Partial results were recorded for Nov. 2025, including gas at the pump, but most remained uncompiled
Dow Jones Index	2%	300	12/25/25	-0.784%	1/9/26	373.69	370.77	https://www.wsj.com/market-data/quotes/index/ 47,885.97 48,442.41 48,063.29
Home (Sales) (Valuation)	1% 1%	150 150	12/25/25	+1.073% -1.445%	1/9/26	126.69 268.76	126.69 268.76	https://www.nar.realtor/research-and-statistics Sales (M):  4.10 4.13 Valuations (K):  415.2 409.2
Millionaires (New Category)	1%	150	12/25/25	+0.184%	1/9/26	134.62	134.87	http://www.usdebtclock.org/    23,905 914 958*
Paupers (New Category)	1%	150	12/25/25	-1.503%	1/9/26	133.53	135.54	http://www.usdebtclock.org/    37,214 208 6,657*
								*Due to the lapse of federal funding, portions of this website were not being updated for two months. New levels represented, consequently, show the effects of several months’ holdovers. Data will return to Debt Clock weekly findings – unless the government shuts down again.
GOVERNMENT	(10%)
Revenue (trilns.)	2%	300	12/25/25	+0.98%	1/9/26	460.12	464.63	http://www.usdebtclock.org/    5,274 277 329
Expenditures (tr.)	2%	300	12/25/25	+0.23%	1/9/26	294.88	294.21	http://www.usdebtclock.org/    7,040 042 058
National Debt tr.)	3%	450	12/25/25	+0.11%	1/9/26	351.54	351.16	http://www.usdebtclock.org/    38,492 516 554 558
Aggregate Debt (tr.)	3%	450	12/25/25	+0.15%	1/9/26	375.87	375.31	http://www.usdebtclock.org/    105,818 898 6,019 057
TRADE	(5%)
Foreign Debt (tr.)	2%	300	12/25/25	-1.12%	1/9/26	257.03	259.86	http://www.usdebtclock.org/    9,435 442 339
Exports (in billions)	1%	150	12/25/25	+3.03%	1/26*	180.05	180.05	*https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/current/index.html 289.3
Imports (in billions))	1%	150	12/25/25	-0.50%	1/26*	150.81	150.81	*https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/current/index.html 342.1
Trade Surplus/Deficit (blns.)	1%	150	12/25/25	-12.88%	1/26*	286.58	286.58	*https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/current/index.html 52.8
SOCIAL INDICES		(40%)
ACTS of MAN	(12%)
World Affairs	3%	450	12/25/25	nc	1/9/26	469.61	469.61	Post-Bondi (the beach, not the AyGee), Australia tightens up its gun laws. Tax increases cause riots in Colombia as 40% inflation irks Iranians.
War and terrorism	2%	300	12/25/25	+0.1%	1/9/26	285.73	286.02	Iran vows “total war” on Chrstians and Jews; authorities warn of dastardly plots by them and Islamist surrogates and also disgruntled lone wolves as Times Squares prepare for the ball drop. Russia inflicts annual holiday bombings on Ukraine, Israel kills more Palestinians and says it didn’t, while Djonald UnPeaceful targets Venezuela, Nigeria and Syria. The good news: no U.S. holiday terror, and a Thai/Cambodia peace deal.
Politics	3%	450	12/25/25	nc	1/9/26	460.68	460.68	Zohran Mamdani sworn in as Mayor of New York City, kicking off the midterms... ten months hence... with exoerts, media trolls and ordinary fools making their bets and making predictions (see next week’s Lesson) on the American future. USPS changes regulations making more letters and payments later and delinquent.
Economics	3%	450	12/25/25	+0.3%	1/9/26	429.21	430.50	2025 3^rd Q GDP up from 3.8 to 4.3%, best in two years, gas prices down 23¢ since summer, but consumer confidence still down. Metals (gold, silver, especially NVIDiac tungsten) outperform the sagging dollar. As USPS seeks price increases, Amazon warns it’ll take its business elsewhere. Starbucks to close 400 locations, Sprinkles Cupcakes to shut down everything, After a ski patroller is killed in the line of duty on Mammoth Mountain, CA, the Telluride CO patrol strikes becauses wages can’t cover affordable housing and sleeping rough is tough, even if the weather out there is milder than usual. MAGA declares war on “affordability” (the word) – dictating that it be replaced by “pricing”.
Crime	1%	150	12/25/25	-0.1%	1/9/26	208.09	207.88	Active shooter kills cop at Delaware MVDept. and is then killed himself. AFLAC says cybercrooks stoll health and fiscal data from 22.6M while bitcoin scams as took in $12M in 2020 rise to $333M. Actor Russell Brand charged in two more rapes, “Lion King” child star Imani Smith stabbed to death by boyfriend. Missing Texas teen found dead, ICE denies detaining her. “Slendar man” stabber back in prison after failed escape, Hungry hijackers grab $400,000 in lobsters from Costco but a drunken mandolin thief (mandolins?) returns his loot, apologizes and adds gift box of chocolates.
ACTS of GOD	(6%)
Environment/Weather	3%	450	12/25/25	-0.1%	1/9/26	281.39	281.11	Harsh winter weather continues coast to coast... wet in the West with serial atmospheric rivers to cycling bomb cyclones in the Great Lakes sliding east to blanket the Northeast with snow for a White New Years’ Day north and Black Ice south. (Then again, Oklahoma City enjoys a record 83°.)
Disasters	3%	450	12/25/25	+0.2%	1/9/26	460.79	461.72	Lawyers say Delta holiday flights “infested with bedbugs”. Copter crash kills two in Jersey; overseas killer plane crash on Copacabana Beach and Mexican bus crash kills 15. Fire kills 2 Kentucky children, lost couple freeze to death in, of all places, Texas. Winter heroes include two Ohio siblings who saved their bus driver, Good Sams in California who pulled man, wife and two dogs from cliff-dangling car in mountain blizzard, Disney hero saves audience from bouncing Indiana Jones ball.
LIFESTYLE/JUSTICE INDEX		(15%)
Science, Tech, Education	4%	600	12/25/25	-0.2%	1/9/26	614.30	613.07	Daycare fund freezing will send working parents “scrambling” during school vacations. More performers cancel after Trump renames the Kennedy Center after Himself.
Equality (econ/social)	4%	600	12/25/25	nc	1/9/26	675.08	675.08	Blue states sue RFK Jr. over anti-transgender enforcement, House dems call for ban on local police/ICE collusion on migrant home invasions.
Health	4%	600	12/25/25	nc	1/9/26	417.14	417.14	Winter holidays bring measles, flu, colds and whooping cough. Medicare cancels fitness coverage for seniors. Radioactive frozen shrimp, ecikuac ground beef and salmonellic oysters recalled, Hyundai takes back 50K fiery vehicles while Waymo rolls into “active fire situation”.
Freedom and Justice	3%	450	12/25/25	nc	1/9/26	482.57	482.57	Attorneys, prosecutors and judges prepare for litigation blitz as 2026 opens. Dozens of new state and Federal laws will take effect, and the President will be evaluating replacements for Fed Chair Powell.
CULTURAL and MISCELLANEOUS INCIDENTS			(6%)
Cultural incidents	3%	450	12/25/25	+0.1%	1/9/26	575.71	576.29	“Avatar Three” passes $600M box office but still trails Zootopia Two ($1.5B). Upcoming sequels include Prada, Star Wars and Avengers. On Broadway, the “Aladdin” musical opens... will Mayor Mamdani visit? Forbes names Beyonce rock’s fifth Billionaire (but she still trails Taylor, who gifts KC Xmas stadium workers $600 ea.). Tours planned for stars (as above) and Tony Doukopil will replace John Dickerson as CBS evening anchor. RIP: actress and animal righter Brigitte Bardot, actors Pat Finn and Isaiah Whitlock (“The Wire”), “Cure” bassist Perry Bamonte, “Big Brother” contestant Mickey Lee, IBM CEO Louis Gerstner, former Co. Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell, Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg daughter Tatiana and the venerable New York Metro Subway Card (following tokens into Transport Heaven).
Miscellaneous incidents	4%	450	12/25/25	nc	1/9/26	545.58	545.58	Post holiday clearance sales, returns and gift card cashouts draw... of course... scammers.Media, merchers and thieves descend on Cabot, AR, trying to find out who won the $1.8B lotto jackpot. Evangelists flood gas stations to convert the pumpboys. Beloved cow killed by rustlers in Hawaii.

The Don Jones Index for the week of December 24^th through December 31^st, 2025 was DOWN 22.88 points

The Don Jones Index is sponsored by the Coalition for a New Consensus: retired Congressman and Independent Presidential candidate Jack “Catfish” Parnell, Chairman; Brian Doohan, Administrator. The CNC denies, emphatically, allegations that the organization, as well as any of its officers (including former Congressman Parnell, environmentalist/America-Firster Austin Tillerman and cosmetics CEO Rayna Finch) and references to Parnell’s works, “Entropy and Renaissance” and “The Coming Kill-Off” are fictitious or, at best, mere pawns in the web-serial “Black Helicopters” – and promise swift, effective legal action againth parties promulgating this and/or other such slanders.

Comments, complaints, donations (especially SUPERPAC donations) always welcome at feedme@generisis.com or: speak@donjonesindex.com.

ATTACHMENT ONE – FROM NEW YORK MAYOR ZOHRAN MANDAMI (via ABC)

TRANSCRIPT: NEW YORK CITY MAYOR ZOHRAN MAMDANI DELIVERS INAUGURAL ADDRESS

Mamdani spoke for approximately 25 minutes.

By ABC NEWS

January 1, 2026, 5:26 PM

Zohran Mamdani delivered his first public address as New York City's mayor on Thursday, after being officially sworn in as the city’s first Muslim mayor and first mayor of South Asian descent.

During his public inauguration ceremony at New York City Hall on New Year's Day, Mamdani was sworn in by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Brooklyn-born independent and fellow democratic socialist who has been an ideological ally, before addressing the crowd.

Read the live transcript of Mamdani's approximately 25-minute inauguration address below.

"My fellow New Yorkers -- today begins a new era. 

I stand before you moved by the privilege of taking this sacred oath, humbled by the faith that you have placed in me and honored to serve as either your 111th or 112th mayor of New York City. But I do not stand alone. 

I stand alongside you, the tens of thousands gathered here in Lower Manhattan, warmed against the January chill by the resurgent flame of hope.

I stand alongside countless more New Yorkers watching from cramped kitchens in Flushing and barbershops in East New York, from cellphones propped against the dashboards of parked taxi cabs at LaGuardia, from hospitals in Mott Haven, and libraries in El Barrio that have too long known only neglect.

I stand alongside construction workers in steel-toed boots and halal cart vendors whose knees ache from working all day.

I stand alongside neighbors who carry a plate of food to the elderly couple down the hall, those in a rush who still lift strangers' strollers up subway stairs, and every person who makes the choice day after day, even when it feels impossible, to call our city home.

I stand alongside over one million New Yorkers who voted for this day nearly two months ago -- and I stand just as resolutely alongside those who did not. I know there are some who view this administration with distrust or disdain, or who see politics as permanently broken. And while only action can change minds, I promise you this: If you are a New Yorker, I am your mayor. Regardless of whether we agree, I will protect you, celebrate with you, mourn alongside you, and never, not for a second, hide from you. 

I thank the labor and movement leaders here today, the activists and the elected officials who will return to fighting for New Yorkers the second this ceremony concludes, and the performers who have gifted us with their talent.

Thank you to Gov. Hochul. Thank you as well to Mayor Adams -- Dorothy's son, a son of Brownsville who rose from washing dishes to the highest position in our city -- for being here as well. He and I have had our share of disagreements, but I will always be touched that he chose me as the mayoral candidate that he would most want to be trapped with on an elevator.

Thank you to the two titans who, as an assemblymember, I’ve had the privilege of being represented by in Congress -- Nydia Velázquez and our incredible opening speaker, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. You have paved the way for this moment.

Thank you to the man whose leadership I seek most to emulate, who I am so grateful to be sworn in by today -- Sen. Bernie Sanders.

Thank you to my teams -- from the Assembly, to the campaign, to the transition and now, the team I am so excited to lead from City Hall.

Thank you to my parents, Mama and Baba, for raising me, for teaching me how to be in this world, and for having brought me to this city. Thank you to my family --from Kampala to Delhi. And thank you to my wife, Rama, for being my best friend and for always showing me the beauty in everyday things. 

Most of all -- thank you to the people of New York.

A moment like this comes rarely. Seldom do we hold such an opportunity to transform and reinvent. Rarer still is it the people themselves whose hands are the ones upon the levers of change.

And yet we know that too often in our past, moments of great possibility have been promptly surrendered to small imagination and smaller ambition. What was promised was never pursued, what could have changed remained the same. For the New Yorkers most eager to see our city remade, the weight has only grown heavier, the wait has only grown longer.

Zohran Mamdani's proposals for NYC build off city's progressive foundation: Experts

In writing this address, I have been told that this is the occasion to reset expectations, that I should use this opportunity to encourage the people of New York to ask for little and expect even less. I will do no such thing. The only expectation I seek to reset is that of small expectations.

Beginning today, we will govern expansively and audaciously. We may not always succeed, but never will we be accused of lacking the courage to try. 

To those who insist that the era of big government is over, hear me when I say this -- no longer will City Hall hesitate to use its power to improve New Yorkers' lives.

For too long, we have turned to the private sector for greatness while accepting mediocrity from those who serve the public. I cannot blame anyone who has come to question the role of government, whose faith in democracy has been eroded by decades of apathy. We will restore that trust by walking a different path -- one where government is no longer solely the final recourse for those struggling, one where excellence is no longer the exception.

We expect greatness from the cooks wielding a thousand spices, from those who stride out onto our Broadway stages, from our starting point guard at Madison Square Garden. Let us demand the same from those who work in government. In a city where the mere names of our streets are associated with the innovation of the industries that call them home, we will make the words 'City Hall' synonymous with both resolve and results.

As we embark upon this work, let us advance a new answer to the question asked of every generation: Who does New York belong to?

For much of our history, the response from City Hall has been simple: It belongs only to the wealthy and well-connected, those who never strain to capture the attention of those in power.

Working people have reckoned with the consequences: crowded classrooms and public housing developments where the elevators sit out of order; roads littered with potholes and buses that arrive half an hour late, if at all; wages that do not rise and corporations that rip off consumers and employees alike. 

And still -- there have been brief, fleeting moments where the equation changed. 

Twelve years ago, Bill de Blasio stood where I stand now as he promised to 'put an end to economic and social inequalities' that divided our city into two. 

In 1990, David Dinkins swore the same oath I swore today, vowing to celebrate the 'gorgeous mosaic' that is New York, where every one of us is deserving of a decent life. 

And nearly six decades before him, Fiorello La Guardia took office with the goal of building a city that was 'far greater and more beautiful' for the hungry and the poor. 

Some of these mayors achieved more success than others. But they were unified by a shared belief that New York could belong to more than just a privileged few. It could belong to those who operate our subways and rake our parks, those who feed us biryani and beef patties, picanha and pastrami on rye. And they know that this belief could be made true if only government dared to work hardest for those who work hardest.

Over the years to come, my administration will resurrect that legacy. City Hall will deliver an agenda of safety, affordability, and abundance -- where government looks and lives like the people it represents, never flinches in the fight against corporate greed, and refuses to cower before challenges that others have deemed too complicated.

In so doing, we will provide our own answer to that age-old question -- who does New York belong to? Well, my friends, we can look to Madiba and the South African Freedom Charter: New York 'belongs to all who live in it.'

Together, we will tell a new story of our city.

This will not be a tale of one city, governed only by the 1%. Nor will it be a tale of two cities, the rich versus the poor. 

It will be a tale of 8 1/2 million cities, each of them a New Yorker with hopes and fears, each a universe, each of them woven together. 

The authors of this story will speak Pashto and Mandarin, Yiddish and Creole. They will pray in mosques, at shul, at church, at gurdwaras and mandirs and temples -- and many will not pray at all. 

They will be Russian Jewish immigrants in Brighton Beach, Italians in Rossville, and Irish families in Woodhaven -- many of whom came here with nothing but a dream of a better life, a dream which has withered away. They will be young people in cramped Marble Hill apartments where the walls shake when the subway passes. They will be Black homeowners in St. Albans whose homes represent a physical testament to triumph over decades of lesser-paid labor and redlining. They will be Palestinian New Yorkers in Bay Ridge, who will no longer have to contend with a politics that speaks of universalism and then makes them the exception. 

Few of these 8 1/2 million will fit into neat and easy boxes. Some will be voters from Hillside Avenue or Fordham Road who supported President Trump a year before they voted for me, tired of being failed by their party's establishment. The majority will not use the language that we often expect from those who wield influence. I welcome the change. For too long, those fluent in the good grammar of civility have deployed decorum to mask agendas of cruelty.

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Many of these people have been betrayed by the established order. But in our administration, their needs will be met. Their hopes and dreams and interests will be reflected transparently in government. They will shape our future. 

And if for too long these communities have existed as distinct from one another, we will draw this city closer together. We will replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism. If our campaign demonstrated that the people of New York yearn for solidarity, then let this government foster it. Because no matter what you eat, how you pray, or where you come from -- the words that most define us are the two we all share: New Yorkers.

And it will be New Yorkers who reform a long-broken property tax system. New Yorkers who will create a new Department of Community Safety that will tackle the mental health crisis and let the police focus on the job they signed up to do. New Yorkers who will take on the bad landlords who mistreat their tenants and free small business owners from the shackles of bloated bureaucracy. And I am proud to be one of those New Yorkers.

When we won the primary last June, there were many who said these aspirations and those who held them had come out of nowhere. Yet one man’s nowhere is another man’s somewhere. This movement came out of 8 1/2 million somewheres -- taxi cab depots and Amazon warehouses, DSA meetings and curbside domino games. The powers that be had looked away from these places for quite some time -- if they’d known about them at all -- so they dismissed them as nowhere. But in our city, where every corner of these five boroughs holds power, there is no nowhere and there is no no one. There is only New York, and there are only New Yorkers. 

Eight and a half million New Yorkers will speak this new era into existence. It will be loud. It will be different. It will feel like the New York we love.

No matter how long you have called this city home, that love has shaped your life. I know that it has shaped mine. 

This is the city where I set land-speed records on my Razor scooter at the age of 12. Quickest four blocks of my life.

The city where I ate powdered donuts at halftimes during AYSO soccer games and realized I probably was not going to be going pro. The city where I devoured too-big slices at Koronets Pizza, played cricket with my friends at Ferry Point Park, and took the 1 train to the BX10 only to still show up late to Bronx Science.

The city where I have gone on hunger strike just outside these gates, sat claustrophobic on a stalled N train just after Atlantic Avenue, and waited in quiet terror for my father to emerge from 26 Federal Plaza.

The city where I took a beautiful woman named Rama to McCarren Park on our first date and swore a different oath to become an American citizen on Pearl Street.

To live in New York, to love New York, is to know that we are the stewards of something without equal in our world. Where else can you hear the sound of the steelpan, savor the smell of sancocho, and pay $9 for coffee on the same block? Where else could a Muslim kid like me grow up eating bagels and lox every Sunday?

That love will be our guide as we pursue our agenda. Here, where the language of the New Deal was born, we will return the vast resources of this city to the workers who call it home. Not only will we make it possible for every New Yorker to afford a life they love once again -- we will overcome the isolation that too many feel and connect the people of this city to one another. 

The cost of childcare will no longer discourage young adults from starting a family -- because we will deliver universal childcare for the many by taxing the wealthiest few.

Those in rent-stabilized homes will no longer dread the latest rent hike -- because we will freeze the rent. 

Getting on a bus without worrying about a fare hike or whether you’ll be late to your destination on time will no longer be deemed a small miracle -- because we will make buses fast and free. 

These policies are not simply about the costs we make free, but the lives we fill with freedom. For too long in our city, freedom has belonged only to those who can afford to buy it. Our City Hall will change that.

These promises carried our movement to City Hall, and they will carry us from the rallying cries of a campaign to the realities of a new era in politics.

Two Sundays ago, as snow softly fell, I spent 12 hours at the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, listening to New Yorkers from every borough as they told me about the city that is theirs.

We discussed construction hours on the Van Wyck Expressway and EBT eligibility, affordable housing for artists and ICE raids. I spoke to a man named TJ who said that one day a few years ago, his heart broke as he realized he would never get ahead here, no matter how hard he worked. I spoke to a Pakistani auntie named Samina, who told me that this movement had fostered something too rare: softness in people's hearts. As she said in Urdu: 'logon ke dil badalgyehe.'

One hundred and forty two New Yorkers out of 8 1/2 million. And yet -- if anything united each person sitting across from me, it was the shared recognition that this moment demands a new politics, and a new approach to power. 

We will deliver nothing less as we work each day to make this city belong to more of its people than it did the day before.

Here is what I want you to expect from the administration that this morning moved into the building behind me.

We will transform the culture of City Hall from one of 'no' to one of 'how?'

We will answer to all New Yorkers, not to any billionaire or oligarch who thinks they can buy our democracy. 

We will govern without shame and insecurity, making no apology for what we believe. I was elected as a democratic socialist and I will govern as a democratic socialist. I will not abandon my principles for fear of being deemed radical. As the great senator from Vermont once said: 'What's radical is a system which gives so much to so few and denies so many people the basic necessities of life.' 

We will strive each day to ensure that no New Yorker is priced out of any one of those basic necessities. 

And throughout it all we will, in the words of Jason Terrance Phillips, better known as Jadakiss or J to the Muah, be 'outside' -- because this is a government of New York, by New York, and for New York.

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Before I end, I want to ask all of you, if you are able, whether you are here today or anywhere watching, to stand with me.

I ask for you to stand with us now, and every day that follows. City Hall will not be able to deliver on our own. And while we will encourage New Yorkers to demand more from those with the great privilege of serving them, we will encourage you to demand more of yourselves as well. 

The movement we began over a year ago did not end with our election. It will not end this afternoon. It lives on with every battle we will fight, together; every blizzard and flood we withstand, together; every moment of fiscal challenge we overcome with ambition, not austerity, together; every way we pursue change in working peoples' interests, rather than at their expense, together. 

No longer will we treat victory as an invitation to turn off the news. From today onwards, we will understand victory very simply: something with the power to transform lives, and something that demands effort from each of us, every single day. 

What we achieve together will reach across the five boroughs and it will resonate far beyond. There are many who will be watching. They want to know if the left can govern. They want to know if the struggles that afflict them can be solved. They want to know if it is right to hope again. 

So, standing together with the wind of purpose at our backs, we will do something that New Yorkers do better than anyone else: We will set an example for the world. If what Sinatra said is true, let us prove that anyone can make it in New York -- and anywhere else, too. Let us prove that when a city belongs to the people, there is no need too small to be met, no person too sick to be made healthy, no one too alone to feel like New York is their home.

The work continues. The work endures. The work, my friends, has only just begun. 

Thank you."