On Saturday I reported on the kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro with a YouTube explainer that spoke to Marco Rubio’s obsession with Cuba. You read that correctly. Venezuela and Cuba are the closest of allies and in fact, according to U.S. officials, Maduro’s bodyguards were mostly Cuban. Rubio has long sought to foment conflict with Venezuela in an effort to dismantle the Cuban regime once and for all. He even revealed his hand in a press conference saying, “If I lived in Havana and worked in the government, I’d be concerned.”
I said my peace in that video and that’s not what Max Notes are about today. Instead, I want to turn your attention to the official statement from House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries following this incredibly illegal, unconstitutional and brazen act of kidnapping in a sovereign nation. It begins with, “Nicolas Maduro is a criminal and authoritarian dictator who has oppressed the people of Venezuela for years. He is not the legitimate head of government.” It goes on to suggest that Venezuela is better off and that the only crime committed by the Trump administration was not briefing Congress ahead of time.
When Americans cry foul at the “uniparty” politics of the United States, this is what they’re talking about.
And then we have a tale of two coasts. As Bernie Sanders was ushering in a new era in New York City by swearing in Zohran Mamdani as mayor, Gavin Newsom was busy running interference against a union-led proposal to propose a billionaire tax ballot initiative. According to the organizers, the one-time 5% tax on anyone with assets over one billion dollars could raise upwards of $100 billion to help defray healthcare costs. It would impact about 200 individuals.
If you’re alone or in an area where people won’t look at you funny, let’s read that last part out loud again.
“It would impact about 200 individuals.”
These two examples say everything about the state of the Democratic Party today. One leader who is counting the days until becoming Majority Leader in the House again can’t even write words of condemnation over a war crime committed directly by the United States. The other is building a case to be the Democratic nominee for president and is taking a hard line in defense of the billionaire class. While momentum is growing on the left toward the idea that billionaires should be unicorns and not commonplace, the Democratic frontrunner is making his bed with them.
What if this is all easier than it looks? What if running on a progressive platform that galvanizes the nation, as in the case of Mamdani, actually wins elections and provides a mandate for authentic change? A Jeffries House and Newsom White House feel almost inevitable at this point due to the corrupt practices of a DNC that refuses to represent the will of the people with its organizing efforts and campaign funds. Neither of these houses will be the “People’s House” if we keep this up.
Other things I’m obsessing over…
We’re the Millers was such a good movie. The actual Millers are shitbags as evidenced by Katie Miller’s Greenland post on the heels of kidnapping Maduro.
The Trump Kennedy Center makeover is nearly complete with artists dropping out left and right. Christmas and New Year’s events were cancelled in protest but at least January has several Shen Yun performances and an evening with Adam Carolla. And for those worried about the center’s staple whodunit act Shear Madness, they’ve got you covered with 34 performances coming this February alone. American art has never been better.
Stranger Things was so bad it was great. Who would have thought that Vecna and Hop would fall in love? Sorry. Should have warned about spoilers.
-Max
Killer Left Take of the Week
KLTW goes to Leeja Miller once againfor providing a clear-eyed take on the daycare fraud controversy in Minnesota. The angry pumpkin was rage-posting about a conservative YouTube “documentary” that claimed Somali-run facilities were committing extraordinary fraud and siphoning federal funds to terrorist organizations abroad. The controversy has right wing media absolutely frothing at the mouth, which has buried the truth under a pile of conspiracy theories. As usual, Leeja Miller comes to the rescue to break it all down and ensure that we can hold more than one thought in our minds. Here are three: There is fraud. No terrorists are being funded. America is racist.
Two for the price of one this week. I never would have anticipated talking about Repo markets as much as we did in 2025, but these markets have secrets to tell that the mainstream financial reports don’t talk about. As a refresher, these are open market operations run by the Federal Reserve that either inject (Standing Repo) or extract (Reverse Repo) cash from the financial system. The Fed does this to maintain order in the overnight markets to ensure that major financial institutions have a known range of borrowing rates. It’s an enormous, multi-trillion dollar overnight settlement market that provides stability and functions extremely well. But it does tell a story.
Nearly every day the Fed has nothing to do. The market functions without having to tap into these markets, meaning every party has enough money to borrow and lend and the rates are within the range of acceptability on both sides. Every so often, there’s a hiccup where there’s a mismatch between parties and so the Fed steps in. Most of the time when you see the Fed step in to either inject or extract money from these institutions, it’s at the end of a fiscal quarter because this is when banks have to shore up their balance sheets for reporting. So timing becomes an issue. These interventions, in and of themselves, don’t necessarily signify a problem.
The end of a calendar and fiscal year adds additional pressure because everyone is trying to get their fiscal house in order. So let’s take a look at what happened at the end of 2025 then talk about what the hell might be going on here.
Standing Repo
At the end of the year, and even the first couple days of 2026, the Federal Reserve pumped more than $100 billion into the banks to help with their year-end “window dressing.”
On the flip side of the equation, the Fed also loaned about $100 billion over the same time period.
So what’s going on here?
The most honest answer is…no one knows for sure.
The Fed, the banks and the pundit class will tell you that this is the Fed managing the flow of money in the system appropriately. They inject cash to certain institutions that have too many securities and not enough cash on their balance sheets and they withdraw it from others that have too much cash. This might just be about interest rates. It might be about liquidity concerns. The problem goes back to that honest answer above. No one knows for sure.
What we do know is that this is all happening outside of normal banking activities so something is off kilter. So here’s my educated guess. The banks have too much cash because they’re required to hold massive reserves under post-GFC regulations. But the non-bank financial institutions (NBFIs) don’t have enough cash because their portfolios are starting to crack and they’re playing games with their loans. In this case, let me modify my “honest” answer to say, “someone knows but isn’t telling.”
Headlines
A Thoreau Victory
A small victory in Massachusetts gives hope to wider struggles and examples of Civil Disobedience. Fitting that it took place just a couple of hours from Thoreau’s Walden Pond. A group of senior citizens were cleared of all charges under the “necessity defense” after breaking into the headquarters of a defense contractor and spilling paint on the floor of the lobby. It was the kind of small act of resistance that would have tickled Howard Zinn.
From the article:
“Writ small, the necessity defense has a clear, logical function to assure that legal contradictions do not stymy justice. But writ large, what is the leeway given to a good Samaritan when confronted by the massive criminal intentions of their own government? Do we, as US citizens, hold the right to intervene in state-sponsored criminal violence?”
Closing wind farms. Eliminating solar incentives. Doubling down on coal and fracking. This is the Trump administration energy policy and Big Tech is here for it.
From the article:
“Under Trump, data centers are also giving new life to dying and dirty coal plants, and many data centers are backed up by super-polluting diesel generators that some fear could come to be used more frequently.”
Activists might not be able to stop masked ICE agents, but they can dox them. These activists are tracking the unmarked cars that carry America’s gestapo.
From the article:
“The database is built around community submissions of photos of ICE vehicles in action. Once the images come in, volunteers vet each picture to confirm that the plate and vehicle in question are being used by agents.”
Unf*ckers know this is my not-so-guilty pleasure. Everything about the Rewatchables scratches my pod listening brain itch. It’s far and away my go-to pod and this one was particularly satisfying. Don’t expect art films or documentaries, just 50 movies that are a “good hang” according to Bill Simmons.
“In a special edition of The Rewatchables, Bill Simmons is joined by Sean Fennessey and Chris Ryan to reveal his 50 most rewatchable movies of the 21st century.”
Since I’m listing my favorite podcast this week, might as well put my favorite political book of all time on the list as well to kick off 2026. It’s an oldie but a goodie about the ultimate scoundrel that everyone loved to hate. Buddy Cianci.
“Welcome to Providence, Rhode Island, where corruption is entertainment and Mayor Buddy Cianci presided over the longest-running lounge act in American politics. In The Prince of Providence, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Mike Stanton tells a classic story of wiseguys, feds, and politicians on a carousel of crime and redemption.”
“The mission of the Ms. Foundation for Women is to build women’s collective power in the U.S. to advance equity and justice for all. We achieve our mission by investing in, and strengthening, the capacity of women-led movements to advance meaningful social, cultural and economic change in the lives of women.”
We’re back! It’s 2026 and we’re feeling gooooood. Not about the world, the state of the economy or the fact that we’re kidnapping world leaders, of course. Just that we had a few days of R&R at the end of 2025. Unf*ckers new and old still managed to come through to support us so thank you to our new and returning members!
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