Full screen recommended.
Michael Bordenaro, 1/8/26
"Major Retailers Crumble As 12,000 Stores Close Forever"
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So, we rise from the rubble...
StatCounter
Thursday, January 8, 2026
"Dividing the Oils of War" (Excerpt)
"Dividing the Oils of War"
by David Haggith
Excerpt: "The new Donroe Doctrine is already taking shape around Venezuela’s vast oil plays. Chevron has just contracted eleven tankers to start transporting oil out of Venezuela, making Big, Big Oil the obvious winner. The normally pro-Trump, but always more pro-Putin Zero Hedge notes,
With the Monroe Doctrine effectively rebranded as the “Don-Roe Doctrine,” reflecting the Trump administration’s new approach to exerting control and influence across the Western Hemisphere and rooting out China and Russia, the developments this past weekend involving U.S. Delta Force operators capturing Maduro do not come as much of a surprise.
Consistent with the Don-Roe Doctrine, Chevron has contracted a fleet of tankers scheduled to arrive in Venezuela later this month, reinforcing its role as the dominant player, for now, a critical conduit for Venezuelan crude into US refineries along the Gulf of America.
The fact is that Chevron already had the largest footprint in Venezuelan oil of any company on earth, so this is no surprise. If this was all that happened, you might just think Chevron was continuing to do what it does every month. While eleven tankers is more than Chevron has contracted for the last two months, the lower numbers were during an unsteady oil embargo when bombs were dropping on boats. Now that the US Navy and Coast Guard are fully in place on the seas around Venezuela and now that the US has settled who is running the show, tanker companies working with US Chevron are probably more comfortable running more ships or, at least, making it easer for Chevron to find ships that want to contract for hauls in the region.
Shares of Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and ExxonMobil have jumped on news of regime change in Venezuela, and oil prices are hovering at one-year lows. However, Chevron’s step back to normal in tanker flow was far from the big thing happening today. President Donald Trump said Tuesday that Venezuela will turn over 30 million to 50 million barrels of sanctioned oil, which will be sold at market prices. “That money will be controlled by me, as President of the United States of America, to ensure it is used to benefit the people of Venezuela and the United States,” Trump said in a social media post….
The 50 million barrels are only the first tranche and shipments will continue indefinitely. You can be sure it will mostly be to the benefit of the United States. “Benefiting the people of Venezuela” by the outpouring of oil from the country is - if this goes like most neocon big-oil wars - mostly window dressing to sell your war to the American people. We’ll have to see who gets the biggest cut from the oil profits that are left after extraction and shipping costs. Proceeds from the oil sales will settle in U.S. controlled accounts, the sources said, with the money released back to Venezuela at the discretion of the U.S.
Well, we do have the power to take the oil; so, of course, it belongs to us if you accept Stephen Miller’s primary ethic as he stated it repeatedly yesterday. Energy Secretary Chris Wright later confirmed the plan at a conference hosted by Goldman Sachs in Miami on Wednesday. “We’re going to market the crude coming out of Venezuela,” Wright said. “First this backed up, stored oil and then indefinitely, going forward, we will sell the production that comes out of Venezuela into the marketplace….” “Secretary Wright remains in close contact with U.S. oil companies and plans to meet with several of them at the Goldman Sachs Energy Conference in Miami on Wednesday,” a Department of Energy spokesperson told CNBC.
So, yeah, we’ve got the oil and that is largely what this war was all about, not drugs; so we will convene a consortium to figure out how we are going to dive the plunder; but there is more in the geopolitical sphere (a lot more) to all of this. You may recall my speculating that gaining leverage over China right where it hurts was likely a big part of this oil play. We got confirmation of that today."
Complete article is here:
Wednesday, January 7, 2026
Scott Ritter, "NATO is "Rabid Dog" - Russia Ready to Put it Down"
Scott Ritter, 1/7/26
"NATO is "Rabid Dog" - Russia Ready to Put it Down"
Comments here:
"Douglas Macgregor, 2026 Doomsday Forecast: Doors Will Blow Off America - Mass Poverty Ahead"
"Douglas Macgregor, 2026 Doomsday Forecast:
Doors Will Blow Off America - Mass Poverty Ahead"
Comments here:
Musical Interlude: Liquid Mind, "Moment of Grace Part 1"
Full screen recommended.
Liquid Mind, "Moment of Grace Part 1"
"A Look to the Heavens With Chet Raymo"
“Like Rubies Ringed With Gold”
by Chet Raymo
“Here’s a Hubble Space Telescope composite photograph of two colliding galaxies in the constellation Corvus.
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Each of the three books of Dante’s “Divine Comedy” ends with the same words: “the stars.” The Inferno concludes with distant stars glimpsed through the narrow exit of hell. “We emerged,” says the poet, “and saw the stars.” The poet’s journey through Purgatory ends on Earth’s highest mountain, with the heavens seemingly not so far away. He is “ready to ascend to the stars.” Finally, Dante looks down upon the stars from above, from the luminous realm of Paradise. He has experienced “the Love that moves the sun and the other stars.” The beauty of that final destination, the Empyrean Sphere that encloses the created universe in divine brilliance, taxes the poet’s powers of description:
“I saw light in the shape of a river
Flashing golden between two banks
Tinted in colors of marvelous spring.
Out of the stream came living sparks
Which settled on the flowers on every side
Like rubies ringed with gold…”
Nothing in Dante’s experience could have prepared him for the splendors of the heavens as revealed by the Hubble. The photograph of colliding galaxies in Corvus is a work of genius in the tradition of the “Divine Comedy” – imagination in service to humankind’s loftiest aspirations and longings.
In Dante’s time, astronomy was one of the seven liberal arts – with grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, geometry, and music – required of every student who aspired to a university degree. Of all the secular sciences, astronomy was deemed most likely to lead one to the contemplation of things divine. Yesterday’s Hubble pic made the hair stand up on the back of my neck, which is about as close to the divine as I ever get. Dante’s “Divine Comedy” is based on the medieval astronomical conception of the world – a system of concentric spheres centered on the Earth and bounded just up there by the Empyrean.
In the Hubble photograph of colliding galaxies we see something akin to Dante’s paradisal vision, but it is not a cosmos centered on the Earth. Here are other Suns and other Earths being born, in prodigious numbers, massive stars destined to die soon as supernovas, and other less massive stars that will live long lives, perhaps evolving life or consciousness on their planets. We see in the Hubble photograph a universe of a fullness and dimension that makes Dante’s human-centered cosmos of concentric spheres seem like a dust mote in an immense cathedral.
Astronomy is no longer a required course of study in our universities, and it’s something of a shame. Who can look at the photograph of colliding galaxies and not be moved to rapture? An understanding of the size, age, and prodigality of the universe should be part of every liberal arts graduate’s intellectual furniture.”
The Poet: Fernando Pessoa, “I Don’t Know If The Stars Rule The World”
“I Don’t Know If The Stars Rule The World”
“I don’t know if the stars rule the world,
Or if Tarot or playing cards
Can reveal anything.
I don’t know if the rolling of dice
Can lead to any conclusion.
But I also don’t know
If anything is attained
By living the way most people do.
Yes, I don’t know
If I should believe in this daily rising sun
Whose authenticity no one can guarantee me,
Or if it would be better (because better or more convenient)
To believe in some other sun,
One that shines even at night,
Some profound incandescence of things,
Surpassing my understanding.
For now...
(Let’s take it slow)
For now
I have an absolutely secure grip on the stair-rail,
I secure it with my hand –
This rail that doesn’t belong to me
And that I lean on as I ascend...
Yes... I ascend...
I ascend to this:
I don’t know if the stars rule the world.”
- Fernando Pessoa
"Russian Orthodox Christmas - What The Western Media Won’t Show You!"
Full screen recommended.
Scottish Guy In Moscow, 1/7/26
"Russian Orthodox Christmas -
What The Western Media Won’t Show You!"
"Today is Orthodox Christmas Day here in Russia. I will take you on a walk through one of my favorite streets in the centre of Moscow and show you what you will never seen on TV in western media."
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o
Full screen recommended.
Lisa The Russian, 1/7/26
"First Days in Vladivostok! Different from Moscow?"
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"Alert! USA Captures Russian Ship! Russia Activates World's Biggest Nuclear Submarine"
Prepper News, 1/7/26
"Alert! USA Captures Russian Ship!
Russia Activates World's Biggest Nuclear Submarine"
Comments here:
o
"How Russia Could Destroy the Entire World"
"How Russia Could Destroy the Entire World"
"In today’s world, the threat of global annihilation is a very real possibility. Among the nations with the power to end all civilization in a matter of minutes, Russia stands out as number 1. With advanced weapons systems capable of unparalleled destruction, Russia could trigger the end of the world in just five minutes and bring humanity to its knees."
Full screen recommended.
"This Is What a Nuclear War Would
Look Like Minute by Minute"
o
"Russia Puts Advanced Sarmat
Nuclear Missile System On ‘Combat Duty’"
"Moscow has put into service an advanced intercontinental ballistic missile that Russian President Vladimir Putin has said would make Russia’s enemies “think twice” about their threats, according to reported comments by the head of the country’s space agency. Yuri Borisov, the head of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, said Sarmat missiles have “assumed combat duty”, according to Russian news agency reports.
“The Sarmat strategic system has assumed combat alert posture,” the state-run TASS news agency quoted the Roscosmos chief as saying. “Based on experts’ estimates, the RS-28 Sarmat is capable of delivering a MIRVed warhead weighing up to 10 tons to any location worldwide, both over the North and South Poles,” TASS said in its report.
Putin said in February that the Sarmat – one of several advanced weapons in Russia’s arsenal, is deployed now. In 2022, some two months after Russian troops invaded Ukraine, Putin said the Sarmat would “reliably ensure the security of Russia from external threats and make those, who in the heat of aggressive rhetoric try to threaten our country, think twice”.
The Sarmat is an underground silo-based missile that Russian officials say can carry up to 15 nuclear warheads, though the United States military estimates its capacity to be 10 warheads. Known to NATO military allies by the codename “Satan”, the missile reportedly has a short initial launch phase, which gives little time for surveillance systems to track its takeoff.
Weighing more than 200 tons, the Sarmat has a range of some 18,000km (11,000 miles) and was developed to replace Russia’s older generation of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICMBs) that dated from the 1980s. Russia test-fired the Sarmat missile in April 2022 in the Plesetsk region of the country, located some 800km (almost 500 miles) north of Moscow, and the launched missiles hit targets on the Kamchatka peninsula, in Russia’s far east region."
o
RS-28 Sarmat
15 warheads per missile, 11,000 mile range, hypersonic speed of 15,880 mph.
One Sarmat can destroy an area the size of Texas or France.
A hypersonic nuclear missile launched from Russia will hit Washington, DC in 23 minutes.
o
The Poseidon Torperdo
Full screen recommended.
Fully operational and deployed, the Poseidon torpedo with a 100 megaton warhead explodes deep underwater, causing a 1,600 foot high tidal wave which destroys everything on the U.S. East Coast as far inland as West Virginia. England would simply disappear beneath the waves...
It would look exactly like this, only twice as high...
Do we really want to do this? Pray to God we don't...
"Putin's Nuclear Poseidon To Hit US Like Tsunami? What Russia's 'Super Weapon' Can Do"
Full screen recommended.
Times Of India, 10/29/25
"Putin's Nuclear Poseidon To Hit US Like Tsunami?
What Russia's 'Super Weapon' Can Do"
"Russia has conducted its second nuclear-capable test in 10 days - this time of the Poseidon underwater “super weapon,” following the Burevestnik nuclear cruise missile trial. President Vladimir Putin announced the successful test of the Poseidon 2M39, calling it a revolutionary nuclear-powered torpedo capable of evading all existing defences. The Kremlin described it as a “strategic breakthrough,” signalling Moscow’s determination to revive the 21st-century arms race. The Poseidon, powered by a compact nuclear reactor, can reportedly travel thousands of miles underwater at high speeds and to extreme depths, carrying a warhead up to two megatons - 133 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Weighing over 90 tons and stretching nearly 60 feet in length, it is designed to trigger tsunami-like destruction along enemy coastlines. The weapon, known to NATO as Kanyon and to Russian engineers as Status-6, could be deployed aboard the Belgorod nuclear submarine. Watch for more details."
Comments here:
Full screen recommended.
The Poseidon torpedo with a 100 megaton warhead explodes deep underwater, causing a 1,600 foot high tidal wave which would destroy everything on the U.S. East Coast as far inland as West Virginia. England would simply disappear beneath the waves...
o
Full screen recommended.
"The True Power of Russia's Tsunami Bomb"
"Mankind has reached a point in its destructive capabilities that it is literally beyond our comprehension. So what is it we really have to fear? The Poseidon (Russian: Посейдон, "Poseidon", GRAU index 2M39, NATO reporting name Kanyon), previously known by Russian codename Status-6 (Russian: Статус-6), is an autonomous, nuclear-powered unmanned underwater vehicle reportedly in production by Rubin Design Bureau, capable of delivering both conventional and nuclear warheads. The Poseidon is one of the six new Russian strategic weapons announced by Russian President Vladimir Putin on 1 March 2018."
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"How It Horrifyingly Really Will Be"
Full screen recommended.
"The 2026 Super Crash: Why It Begins in January"
"Is the "Soft Landing" a lie? Economist Harry Dent is predicting a historic 90% Stock Market Crash beginning in January 2026. While Wall Street celebrates the AI boom, the "Everything Bubble" is facing a critical breaking point that could dwarf the 2008 financial crisis. In this video, we break down the terrifying math behind Dent’s prediction and why the "Demographic Cliff" makes an economic collapse inevitable this year. We explain why the 17-year cycle is ending and how the corporate debt wall will trigger a cascade of bankruptcies."
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Adventures With Danno, "My Amazing Shopping Day at Costco!"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, 1/7/26
"My Amazing Shopping Day at Costco!"
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o
Full screen recommended.
Frugal Fit Mom, 1/7/26
"The End of Dollar Tree, Insane Price Increases!?"
"Join me for a store walkthrough as we discuss the end of an era: the Dollar Tree's dollar pricing. With inflation impacting everything, the shift from $1 to $1.25 and now even higher prices is changing how we approach shopping. This video explores customer reactions and news reports on the Dollar Tree's evolving pricing strategies, offering smart shopping tips to navigate these changes."
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"Unemployment Explosion Coming in 2026, Mass Layoffs Begin"
Full screen recommended.
Snyder Reports, 1/7/26
"Unemployment Explosion Coming in 2026,
Mass Layoffs Begin"
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o
Full screen recommended.
Jay Reed, 1/7/26
"GM Lays Off Entire Team As Car Market Collapsed,
Now Workers Are Furious"
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o
Full screen recommended.
Jay Reed, 1/7/26
"How Is Best Buy Still Open, Stores Empty"
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"¡Don't Cry For Me, Venezuela!"
"¡Don't Cry For Me, Venezuela!"
by Joel Bowman
“Maduro, whom I met, is a dictator, plain and simple.”
~ Joe Biden
Buenos Aires, Argentina - "Whoa! What a difference a year makes! On January 10, waaay back in the Olden Days of 2024, Joe Biden’s totally qualified press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, threw some baitfish to the seal-clapping propagandists performing in the White House press cesspool. There she explained, in no uncertain terms and using her very best “serious Obama” voice, the Biden administration’s tough, no-nonsense stance on Nicolás Maduro, a man the administration openly and repeatedly labeled an “illegitimate” president:
“Let us quickly turn to Venezuela, where Maduro once again demonstrated his complete disregard for democratic norms and proceeded with his illegitimate inauguration. As President Biden emphasized earlier, during his meeting with President Elect, Edmundo González, on Monday January 6, we believe that it is essential that the will of the Venezuelan people is respected.” Jean-Pierre then went on to announce that the reward money for information that led to Maduro’s arrest, as part of the United States’ “narcotics rewards program,” would be increased to $25 million.
Gee... for a moment there, it almost seemed like they wanted the man arrested or something? That they did not recognize his legitimacy as Venezuelan president. That rather than a pillar of democracy, Biden & Co. considered him a threat to it.
In Their Own Words: Indeed, Biden’s own state department openly declared as much. Here’s his Secretary of State, Antony Blinken: “Maduro lost clearly the 2024 presidential election and does not have the right to claim the presidency. The United States does not recognize Nicolás Maduro as president of Venezuela.” And Ned Price, State Department spokesperson: “Again, Maduro is a dictator. His repression, corruption, and mismanagement have created one of the most dire humanitarian crises this hemisphere has seen.”
Their words, dear reader. Of course, Mr. Biden’s administration was not alone in refusing to recognize Maduro’s “illegitimate” claim to the presidency. The European Union likewise refused to legitimize the military strongman’s proclaimed victory and officially withheld participation in his inauguration. The United Kingdom and G7 issued statements denouncing the “lack of democratic legitimacy” in Maduro’s proclaimed continuation in power and resoundingly condemned what they considered his regime’s grave repression of civil liberties.
Neighboring nations Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico all denied Maduro’s election claim, while several countries in the western hemisphere went so far as to officially recognize the opposition leader, Edmundo González Urrutia, as the legitimate president-elect. These countries included The United States, Argentina, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Dominican Republic, and Uruguay.
Nobel Aside: As astute readers will recall, Edmundo González, who was widely considered to have won by a landslide (and who actually produced the electoral receipts to prove it), had the backing of popular opposition leader María Corina Machado, whom he replaced on the ballot after she was barred from running for office by “officials” from Maduro’s regime. Señora Machado even won a prize for her efforts, a prize enlightened individuals in academia and the legacy media used to care about, no less...
According to the Norwegian Nobel Committee, María Corina Machado was awarded the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize: “...for her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy.” One can only imagine that things got a bit icy for the Nobel Committee when Machado dedicated the award “to the suffering people of Venezuela and to President Trump for his decisive support of our cause.” Hmm...
Strange Bedfellows: Of course, Sr. Maduro was not without support... as a handful of countries with deep interests and ongoing “trade deals” – in drugs, arms, oil, humans... you know, the usual stuff – recognized his claim to the presidency, among them those notable bastions of free and open democracy, Russia, China, Cuba, Nicaragua and Iran. Curiously, these countries are not often at the top of the list when people yammer on about human rights records and civil liberties.
Who, then, would stand beside them... and beside Maduro himself? That is, for those who claim to cherish democracy... if the US, the EU, the UK and the G7, along with the majority of Venezuela’s South American neighbors – to say nothing of the Venezuelan people themselves... eight million of whom were forced into exile in the past decade alone – did not recognize Nicolás Maduro as the legitimate president of that country... then the obvious question begs itself: What was he?
Put another way, if Maduro was occupying The Miraflores Palace (Venezuela’s equivalent of The White House) illegally, if he was doing so “against the will of his people,” and creating the “most dire humanitarian crises this hemisphere has seen”...would that not make him, as Mr. Biden so bluntly put it, “a dictator, plain and simple”?
Again, these are not our words, dear reader... but those of our enlightened moral and political betters, who let us know whether we are “at war with Oceana or Eurasia,” as George Orwell had it in his classic novel, "1984". After all, democracy is not our favorite plaything, nor have we spent the last eight years telling anyone who would listen that “democracy is on the ballot.” We’re simply asking the obvious question...
As for “taking out” brutal dictators (or escorting them on non-military aircraft to courts of law where they have been formally indicted on criminal charges), it would be beyond naive to pretend that superpowers do not do what they please, when they please, so-called “international law” be damned.
We do not say this is right... only that it has been the way of the world, observably, since the dawn of time. It’s what governments – and the psychopathic actors who typically head them – do. Statists gonna State, in other words. It’s what men in dark suits sometimes call “realpolitik.”
Heads of State: Indeed, compared to the treatment of similar dictators this century, Maduro may come to feel rather fortunate to find himself in a New York courtroom, with his head still attached to his shoulders, and not dragged through the streets, publicly tortured and executed... or at the bottom of the deep, blue sea.
According to the United Nations (ESCWA) data, Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi’s scalp is said to have cost the United States just over $1 trillion (including ongoing regional instability through 2025), with between ~14,500 and ~18,900 deaths (all sides). Gaddafi was dragged through the streets, publicly beaten, tortured and then executed for his troubles.
Sadam Hussein’s head cost the US$1.7 trillion dollars and 4,500 American soldiers... not to mention 268,000-295,000 total deaths (which is a low estimate; The Lancet reckons closer to 600,000 “excess deaths” over the entire Iraq War, with all its dubious casus belli). Hussein was later hanged and his body destroyed.
But the costliest scalp of the 21st century (so far) goes to Osama bin Laden. Until his capture and killing in 2011, according to estimates from Brown University, the War in Afghanistan cost the United States empire between $3.2 trillion and $4 trillion.
The Costs of War Project estimates roughly 176,000 total deaths in the Afghanistan War, including civilians, Afghan security forces, and opposition fighters. Within hours of bin Laden’s killing (according to the official story), he was transported by helicopter to Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, then to the USS Carl Vinson, from which his body was dumped in the North Arabian Sea, never to be seen again...
Readers will no doubt notice that all of these killings were carried out on the other side of the world, in poor and backward places that could not conceivably have posed a serious, existential threat to the mighty US Empire. And yet, they were dealt with mercilessly. As for this latest scalp, captured in what might be called America’s “near abroad,” there are certainly many questions outstanding...
The Latest Scalp: If Maduro was, indeed, an illegitimate dictator, why hand the leadership baton to his equally illegitimate Vice President, Delcy Rodríguez, and not to the candidate who was, until five minutes ago, officially recognized by the US (and many others) as the country’s true leader, Edmundo González (or his Nobel Prize winning backer, María Corina Machado)?
Was Maduro’s capture “pre-arranged,” as some have suggested, staged for all the world to see? Did Rodríguez serve her former boss up to Trump as part of a power negotiation, in which she would tow Washington’s line while he would grant her some level of immunity? What of the remaining power brokers and cartel henchmen in the country and around the region? They are unlikely to go along with any of Trump’s plans that do not involve a significant slice of the lucre.
And what of Maduro himself? Now that he is in US custody, what fates do the Powers That Be have in store for him? Will he be banished to a Five Star retreat for his remaining days... or will he be “suicided,” Epstein style?
What does this mean for the global balance of power, in particular vis-á-vis Maduro’s staunchest supporters/trading partners in Russia, China, Cuba, Iran? And what of the long-suffering Venezuelan people themselves, who not only endured the worst humanitarian crisis of the present century, but now have to hear about how the rights of a man the world once knew as a “brutal dictator” are suddenly more precious than their right to live peacefully in their own country? See their hopeful celebrations here in Buenos Aires in our weekend Note, here.)
Given the rhetoric from both sides of the political aisle over the past few years, we are not at all surprised that Maduro’s head was the latest to roll (if only metaphorically)... but we will be shocked if it is the last. Power plays in Venezuela… rumblings from Greenland to Colombia… and now news that the UK and France are mulling a “coalition of the willing” to put boots on ground in the Ukraine... And 2026 is barely a week old!"
Bill Bonner, "Back to Barbarity"
"Back to Barbarity"
by Bill Bonner
Baltimore, Maryland - "On to Greenland! CBS News: "White House discussing range of options for acquiring Greenland, Leavitt says."
But whoa. Let’s slow down. We look back to the ‘indictment’ of Nicolas Maduro for a residue of ‘due process of law.’ He is to be tried by a legitimate court on legitimate charges. No mention of Fentanyl. No reference to the mythical group, Cartel de los Soles. Nothing about stealing oil. Instead, he’s charged with conspiracy to distribute cocaine.
Readers might wonder why the time and unique skills of US military forces...and billions of dollars...should be engaged in what is really a relatively minor law-enforcement effort. The engineers actually built a replica of the Venezuelan presidential palace, so US troops could rehearse without scaling a high wall or bumping their heads on a low door. As it turned out, they all came back, as if from a lark, safe and sound, with nary a scratch or a powder burn.
Why bother? Everyone knows the supply of cocaine in the US will not go down, not by one jot or tittle, thanks to this headline kidnapping. But that is the advantage of asymmetric power. You don’t have to justify your actions. We kidnap them; they don’t kidnap us. We bomb Nigerians; they don’t bomb us. We lay down the law...and then walk all over it. We don’t need a good excuse.
Another example is America’s partner, Israel. With US backing, last year, Israel attacked Palestine, Iran, Lebanon, Qatar, Syria and Yemen. It also carried out strikes against flotillas that were trying to bring aid to Gaza. The number of attacks was breath-taking - a total of 10,631 up to December 5th, 2025. You can’t do that unless you’re pretty sure they can’t strike back.
But watch out. Asymmetry is a temptation to wickedness. The gods will put up with it - even relish it - for a long time. But not forever. Then, asymmetry flips. Human history is a pendulum, swinging back and forth between progress and retrogression...prosperity and poverty...civilization and barbarity. The material and technical progress of humankind is manifest, all around us. It seems to go forward, step by step, with little backsliding. Indoor plumbing and refrigeration, for example, are clear winners. Once installed, people rarely want to live without them.
But not every new thing is ‘progress.’ A baby born in the US today immediately takes on his share of a $38 trillion debt -' about $115,000 each. Is that progress? In human affairs, progress, if there is any, is tentative and cyclical. After WWII, steps were taken toward a more foreseeable, and more civilized, world. The US Department of War was renamed the Department of Defense in 1947. The United Nations Declaration of Human Rights was put forward in 1948. The Geneva Convention came out in 1949. All were intended to avoid another WWII-type bloodbath..
Trump’s re-re-renaming of the War Department tells us all we need to know about the direction this administration is headed. It is leading a counter-trend, returning to an era where nations use their power to get what they want. The Trump team bombs Nigeria and kidnaps the first couple of Venezuela not because it is fulfilling the law, but because it is thumbing its nose at it.
But if it is okay for the US to take out the president of Venezuela and put in a puppet of its choice, shouldn’t it be okay for China to do the same with Taiwan? China has asymmetric power too. And Russia with the Donbas? The US gave $359 billion to Ukraine to stop Russia from asserting control. But why? America has its reasons for attacking Venezuela. Russia must have its own reasons for taking up arms against the Ukraine.
‘Equal rights’ and the ‘rule of law’ are just concepts. They make human interactions seem ‘fair’ and predictable. But they are not guaranteed, neither by God nor by man. And if an advanced race of aliens landed on the White House lawn, they would have the asymmetric upper hand. Would they respect the Bill of Rights? Would they file US income taxes? Would they stop their space mobiles for red traffic signals and leave handicapped spaces for cripples? Not likely.
And now that Trump, supposedly, has control over the vast oil reserves of Venezuela, the coast is clear for the US to join forces with the Israelis to pull off an even bigger caper. Until now, or so goes the logic, the US was afraid Iran could crush the worldwide economy by cutting off oil supplies. According to the scuttlebutt on the internet, one of the reasons Trump attacked Venezuela was to neutralize that threat. Now, Trump - working with the new Vichy Venezuela - has control over 300 billion barrels of oil reserves. And now, with that accomplished, a bigger war in the Mideast can go forward.
Antiwar.com: "Trump Says He’ll Support an Israeli Attack on Iran If Tehran ‘Continues’ Its Missile Program." "The president made the comments at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida before a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, when asked if he would back more Israeli attacks on Iran. “If they continue with the missiles, yes. The nuclear, fast,” he said."
Yes, the US may continue the noble work of George W. Bush, hunting for Weapons of Mass Destruction! And with similar results. America’s real influence will probably go down, as the widening circle of ‘enemies’ finds ways to get even. This is not so much a ‘paradox’ as it is an obvious and predictable swing of the pendulum."
"John Mearsheimer: Venezuela, Greenland & the End of NATO"
Glenn Diesen, 1/7/26
"John Mearsheimer:
Venezuela, Greenland & the End of NATO"
"John J. Mearsheimer is the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, where he has taught since 1982. Prof. Mearsheimer discusses why we may be on the path to the end of NATO."
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"Alert! Russia Is About To Level Ukraine; NATO Troops Greenlight; Greenland Nukes!"
Full screen recommended.
Prepper News, 1/6/26
"Alert! Russia Is About To Level Ukraine;
NATO Troops Greenlight; Greenland Nukes!"
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