January 24 2025

1. Housing Shortage Driving US Home Affordability Crisis
2. Cartels Declared Foreign Terror Organizations
3. Trump Orders Plans to Declassify JFK, RFK, MLK Assassination Documents
4. Trump Says States Should Manage Disasters. Former FEMA Leaders Agree.
5. Battle for Eurasia Update: Russia Dismisses Trump's Ukraine Peace Overtures as Bannon Warns of 'Vietnam' Risk
January 24, 1935: First canned beer goes on sale

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1. Housing Shortage Driving US Home Affordability Crisis

Years of underdevelopment following the Great Recession reduced the number of opportunities to become a homeowner. The issue was exacerbated during the pandemic when a buying spree inflated home prices, and later on efforts to tame higher inflation that sent mortgage rates sharply higher. These high mortgage rates—once again above 7%—have discouraged people who otherwise might want to sell the houses they own.  

Zillow estimates the U.S. housing market is short by about 4.5 million homes. Regulatory hurdles and other obstacles to development at the local level stymie growth in home supplies, and many areas are struggling to make housing affordable. New challenges may arise if President Trump fulfills pledges to raise tariffs and removes millions of undocumented immigrants, many of whom work in construction. “Not to oversimplify, but you really can boil the housing affordability crisis down to an availability crisis,” Wacksman said. “Getting more homes available is going to be ultimately what starts to unstick the housing market.”

Article Source: WSJ

2. Cartels Declared Foreign Terror Organizations

President Trump’s landmark executive order designating major drug cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs) marks a watershed moment in America’s approach to national security and strategic competition against China. This reclassification acknowledges an uncomfortable truth: the fentanyl crisis is not merely a law enforcement challenge but a sophisticated form of irregular warfare targeting American society, with cartels serving as proxies in a broader strategic campaign orchestrated by China against U.S. interests. The devastating impact of this proxy warfare is reflected in stark statistics. According to the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics, synthetic opioids, primarily fentanyl, were responsible for over 70,000 deaths in 2022. The Drug Enforcement Administration has meticulously documented how Mexican cartels have industrialized fentanyl production using precursor chemicals sourced predominantly from China, creating what amounts to a chemical weapons supply chain targeting American communities. These aren’t merely crime statistics – they represent casualties in an irregular war being waged through proxy forces, with networks stretching from Beijing through Sinaloa and into every major American city.

Article Source: Small Wars Journal

3. Trump Orders Plans to Declassify JFK, RFK, MLK Assassination Documents

US President Donald Trump has ordered officials to make plans to declassify documents related to three of the most consequential assassinations in US history - the killings of John F Kennedy, Robert F Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr. "A lot of people are waiting for this for long, for years, for decades," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday. "And everything will be revealed." The order directs top administration officials to present a plan to declassify the documents within 15 days. That does not make it certain it will happen, however. President John F Kennedy was killed in Dallas in 1963. His brother Robert F Kennedy was assassinated while running for president in California 1968, just two months after King, America's most famous civil rights leader, was murdered in Memphis, Tennessee.

Article Source: BBC

4. Trump Says States Should Manage Disasters. Former FEMA Leaders Agree.

President Trump plans to tour damage on Friday from last year’s hurricanes in North Carolina and this month’s fires in California after saying that disaster response should be shifted from the federal government to the states. In an interview on Fox News on Wednesday, the president criticized the performance of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. “FEMA is going to be a whole big discussion very shortly,” he said. “I’d rather see the states take care of their own problems.” Mr. Trump continued, “The FEMA is getting in the way of everything.” Referring to Oklahoma, he said: “If they get hit with a tornado or something, let Oklahoma fix it. You don’t need — and then the federal government can help them out with the money.” The past four administrators of FEMA — two appointed by Democrats, and two appointed by Mr. Trump — have made versions of that argument, calling for states to do more. But states generally want more help, not less. Mr. Trump may force states to take on a greater role. “The gentle nudging hasn’t changed the outcome,” said Roy Wright, who held senior roles at FEMA during the Obama and first Trump administrations. “We need a different approach.”

Article Source: NYT

5. Battle for Eurasia Update: Russia Dismisses Trump's Ukraine Peace Overtures as Bannon Warns of 'Vietnam' Risk

Editors note: This ongoing conflict pits the West, led by the United States, against an axis of adversaries, including China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. At stake is dominance over the vast and strategically critical landmass of Eurasia. The conflicts in Ukraine, the Middle East, and rising tensions with China in East Asia are all interconnected, forming part of a larger struggle: the Battle for Eurasia. To dive deeper into my framework for understanding the Battle for Eurasia, see my article.

A. I’m not looking to hurt Russia. I love the Russian people, and always had a very good relationship with President Putin - and this despite the Radical Left’s Russia, Russia, Russia HOAX. We must never forget that Russia helped us win the Second World War, losing almost 60,000,000 lives in the process. All of that being said, I’m going to do Russia, whose Economy is failing, and President Putin, a very big FAVOR. Settle now, and STOP this ridiculous War! IT’S ONLY GOING TO GET WORSE. If we don’t make a “deal,” and soon, I have no other choice but to put high levels of Taxes, Tariffs, and Sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the United States, and various other participating countries. Let’s get this war, which never would have started if I were President, over with! We can do it the easy way, or the hard way - and the easy way is always better. It’s time to “MAKE A DEAL.” NO MORE LIVES SHOULD BE LOST!!! 

Editors note: I disagree with Trump’s statement that the Russian economy is “failing” and question the threat of additional taxes, tariffs, and sanctions but he is trying to make a deal to end the war. I would expect a Trump-Putin summit in the next 100 days.  

B. President Trump’s initial attempts to lure Russian President Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table on Ukraine have been met with what essentially amounts to a shrug. “We don’t see anything new here,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Thursday, a day after Trump took to Truth Social to warn he would be willing to increase the economic pressure on Moscow after a raft of sanctions were applied following its invasion of Ukraine nearly three years ago. 

C. Donald Trump is in danger of failing to make a clean break with Ukraine and could be sucked deeper into Vladimir Putin’s war — just as Richard Nixon was stung in his attempts to pull out of Vietnam — Trump’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon warned in a wide-ranging interview with POLITICO. The host of the influential “War Room” podcast is girding for a major political showdown over United States intervention in Ukraine. He advocates ending America’s all-important military aid to Kyiv, but fears his old boss is going to fall into a trap being set by an unlikely alliance of the U.S. defense industry, the Europeans and even some of Bannon’s own friends, whom he argues are now misguided. These include Keith Kellogg, a retired U.S. general who is Trump’s pick to be special envoy to Ukraine and Russia. “If we aren’t careful, it will turn into Trump’s Vietnam. That’s what happened to Richard Nixon. He ended up owning the war and it went down as his war not Lyndon Johnson’s,” Bannon said.

Article Source: @realDonalTrump, WSJ, Politico

January 24, 1935: First canned beer goes on sale

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Sources

2. https://www.wsj.com/economy/housing/housing-shortage-not-volatile-rates-is-biggest-obstacle-for-buyers-zillow-ceo-says-62db72c5?st=25rN9v&reflink=article_copyURL_share

3. https://smallwarsjournal.com/2025/01/22/the-new-front-in-americas-national-security-combating-narcoterrorism/

4. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy8pgp0e1g6o

5. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/24/climate/trump-says-states-should-manage-disasters-former-fema-leaders-agree.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

6. A https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/113872782548137314
B https://www.wsj.com/world/russia/russia-brushes-off-trumps-threats-on-ukraine-2e1e306c?st=qDN3DL&reflink=article_copyURL_share
C https://www.politico.eu/article/ukraine-russia-donald-trump-vietnam-steve-bannon-richard-nixon-war-room/