🌊 Loca for Coca in Colombia

Plus: Engineer in DOGE house, Europe's MEGA movement, & Zyn's massive revenue numbers

February 10, 2025

Bad night to be Drake, a Chiefs fan, a Philly cop, or a…

Chief Marketing Officer of a company who had an ad run in the fourth quarter. What a barn burner, huh? Kendrick Lamar’s “turn the TV off” message wasn’t a cute lyric; it was friendly screen time advice. He knew what was coming.

Congratulations to all you Eagles fans, condolences to all you Chiefs fans, and our apologies to any of you who will have to share an office break room with any Eagles fan for even a moment this week.

🇪🇺 Make Europe Great Again conference

😔 In the DOGE house

📈 Zyn's massive revenue numbers

–Max and Max

KEY STORY

Colombia’s Cocaine Boom

Colombian President Gustavo Petro called for cocaine’s legalization as his country’s production of the drug booms

  • Colombia is the world’s largest cocaine producer. Since taking power in 2022, Petro – a former leftist guerilla – has reduced military and police operations targeting coca farmers. The nation’s coca and cocaine production has since soared

  • Last week, in a televised press conference, Petro declared that “cocaine is illegal because it is made in Latin America, not because it is worse than whiskey” and said the criminal trade “could be easily dismantled if they legalized cocaine in the world”

Dig Deeper

  • "[Cocaine] would be sold like wine,” he added. “Scientists have analyzed this: cocaine is not worse than whiskey"

  • According to the most recent UN data, Colombia’s cocaine production jumped 53% in 2023 to over 2,600 tons. Meanwhile, the area used for cultivating coca – the base plant of cocaine – grew by 10% and is now more than five times the total at the time of Pablo Escobar’s death in 1993

  • The growth comes despite the Colombian authorities seizing record amounts of cocaine

KEY STORY

“MEGA!”

Leaders of the European Parliament’s anti-immigration bloc met in Madrid at a “Make Europe Great Again” conference

  • The bloc includes many of Europe’s leading anti-immigration politicians, like France’s Marine Le Pen, Hungary’s Viktor Orban, and the Netherlands’ Geert Wilders

  • At this weekend’s MEGA conference, the group celebrated Trump: One Greek politician said his return represents “the Western world’s final opportunity,” while Hungary’s Orban said, “Trump’s tornado has changed the world in just a couple of weeks”

  • The conference comes as establishment European parties fret about Trump’s use of tariffs, potential moves on Greenland, and dealmaking with Russia

Dig Deeper

  • Numerous politicians echoed Trump’s points about an “invasion” of migrants and the need to curb environmentalist policies, “wokeness,” and “gender theory”

  • Orban declared, “Yesterday we were the heretics, now we are the mainstream”

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KEY STORY

Palantir’s Big Year

Defense contractor Palantir’s shares have risen 340%+ in the past year

  • The company – founded in 2003 with early funding from the CIA's venture capital arm – initially developed software to help intelligence agencies process data after 9/11. It’s now a data analytics software company

  • Palantir was the S&P 500’s best-performing company in 2024. Its stock has continued to climb – 34% last week – as analysts project it will benefit from Trump’s cuts to federal spending

  • Palantir’s founders and investors, including Peter Thiel, are close to Elon Musk and Donald Trump

Dig Deeper 

  • Since Trump took office, Palantir executives have moved into influential roles at the Pentagon, the State Department, and other government agencies

  • Thiel has also long been a key mentor and ally of VP JD Vance, including providing funding for Vance’s venture capital career and bankrolling his Senate campaign in 2022

KEY STORY

In the DOGE House

A DOGE engineer resigned after the WSJ unearthed his tweets, sparking a political battle

  • Among various posts, 25-year-old Marko Elez tweeted in 2024, “Just for the record, I was racist before it was cool”; “You could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity”; and “Normalize Indian hate.” The unearthing of the posts led him to resign

  • JD Vance came out in his defense, writing that "stupid social media activity" shouldn't ruin a young person's career

  • Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) – an influential progressive who represents Silicon Valley – replied, “Are you going to tell him to apologize for saying ‘Normalize Indian hate’ before this rehire? Just asking for the sake of both of our kids”

Dig Deeper

  • We covered this situation – and that at DOGE more broadly – in depth in this morning’s We the 66 deep-dive newsletter. You can read that here

RUNDOWN
Some Quick Stories for the Office

🛩️ Ten people died after a small aircraft carrying nine passengers and one pilot crashed in Alaska after experiencing a sudden loss of altitude

🇺🇸 President Trump announced he's revoking President Biden's security clearance and daily intelligence briefings, saying Biden “set this precedent in 2021.” Upon taking office, Biden had ended Trump’s intelligence briefings, citing "erratic" behavior

🇨🇦 Canadian PM Justin Trudeau was caught on a hot mic telling business leaders that he believes Trump may be serious about annexing Canada as the "51st state"

🇮🇱 Hamas and Israel conducted another hostage/prisoner exchange. The three freed hostages’  condition – visibly malnourished and haggard – sparked outrage in Israel

🇺🇦 President Trump told the New York Post that he and President Putin have spoken by phone about a deal to end the war in Ukraine. When asked how many times they’ve spoken, Trump said, “I’d better not say”

COMMUNITY
What does Roca Nation think?

🧠 Today’s Question: Reactions to last night’s Super Bowl? Take your choice of topics: Commercials, Kendrick Lamar, Taylor Swift, and oh yah the game itself.

POPCORN
Some Quick Stories for Happy Hour

🏀 From Front Office to Safe House: Dallas Mavericks GM Nico Harrison is getting full-time security at his home after receiving death threats following his decision to trade away Luka Doncic

🏎️ Fast and Furry-ous: A Connecticut man caught driving 130 MPH told police he was rushing home to see his cat

💵 Zyn’s Revenue Record: Philip Morris International rode the Zyn wave to better-than-expected Q4 revenue of $9.71B, as the nicotine pouches continue to be the company's new cash cow

🏈 Betting Big: Americans are projected to have waged a record-breaking $1.39B on Super Bowl LIX between the Chiefs and Eagles, with legal sports betting now in 38 states plus DC and Puerto Rico

🧑‍⚖️ Order in the Court: A New Mexico courtroom erupted into chaos when three people attacked a homicide defendant, with one combatant using a chair as a weapon

ROCA WRAP
Changing Tides?

Khartoum

Sudan's army claims it is close to recapturing this capital city.

Khartoum – Sudan's capital and largest city – has been under control of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) since civil war erupted in April 2023. The war has pit the RSF, an unofficial military, against the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), the country’s official military. The city of 3.6M has largely emptied as residents fled the fighting, which has devastated Africa's third-largest country.

Until recently, the war – which has likely claimed hundreds of thousands of lives – has appeared to be at a stalemate. In recent months, though, the SAF has reported rapid gains across the country, including progress toward the RSF-held Republican Palace in Khartoum.

On Friday, SAF sources confirmed that their troops were "close to reaching the centre of Khartoum," while Sudan's London embassy predicted a full recapture within days.

Among various recent developments, the SAF has broken the RSF siege of its army headquarters and recaptured Wad Madani, a vital agricultural area. Intelligence suggests many RSF fighters have retreated to their home region of Darfur in western Sudan, potentially setting up the war's final battles.

The two-year conflict has sparked a grave humanitarian crisis and forced 12M+ to flee their homes. And it may get worse before it gets better: Médecins Sans Frontières has reported "mass influxes of war-wounded patients" in both Khartoum and Darfur, while the regions face famine conditions.

ROCA VIDEO
Inside the California Trans Cult Behind 4 Murders

A radical transgender cult in California is reportedly behind four recent murders: Two in Pennsylvania, one in Vermont, and one in California. The name of the cult is the Zizians. This video investigates the Zizians, their history, and the spree of murders they're allegedly behind.

EDITOR’S NOTE
Final Thoughts

It’s hard not to be happy for Jalen Hurts today. As Alabama’s quarterback, he was benched at the halftime of the national championship for a true freshman whose name nobody could pronounce at the time cause they hadn’t heard it. Then the next year he lost the starting job to Tua Tagovailoa but didn’t pout and rescued the team in the SEC Championship game against Georgia (he even got Nick Saban to choke up for his performance in that one). He transferred to Oklahoma, was snubbed in the draft, and is now a Super Bowl MVP. Incredible.

Now back to bolting our doors and shuttering our windows as we hide from the Zizians.

–Max and Max