President Trump held a press availability on route to Washington, DC. Obviously, the primary topic is the current status of Venezuela and the administration plans for stability following the successful capture of Nicolas Maduro.
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Captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his arrested wife, Cilia Flores, landed at Stewart Air Force Base in Newburgh, New York late Saturday afternoon.
The couple have been charged with narcoterrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, and weapons offenses. [INDICTMENT HERE] Maduro and Flores are likely to be held at the Metropolitan Detention Center, a federal facility in Brooklyn, to be housed after being processed by the DEA.
DEA officers escorted Maduro for his customary perp walk through the airport as video and photographs were taken.
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(VIA AP) – […] The middle-of-the-night seizure of Maduro and his wife, who were transported on a U.S. warship and arrived in New York on Saturday evening to face narcoterrorism conspiracy charges, is beyond even the most high-profile historical examples of aggressive American actions toward autocratic governments in Panama, Iraq, and beyond, legal experts said. It came after a surprise U.S. incursion into the Venezuelan capital, rocked with overnight explosions.
Today at 11:00am ET President Donald Trump will deliver remarks and hold a press conference addressing the capture of Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro.
President Trump is expected to discuss the operation, its international implications, and next steps as details continue to emerge. Livestream Links Below:
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The indictment against Maduro has been unsealed and released – SEE HERE
My grandpa, and later my father, used to say something at particular moments that generally annoyed me but turned out to be entirely accurate, much to my youthful angst… “Well, hang around a one-legged group long enough, and you’re eventually going to end up limping.”
Yup, I learned to hate that lesson because the truth of it was always annoying.
This is perhaps the first time in memory when I look forward to Donald J Trump getting out of the Mar-a-Lago bubble and back to Washington DC. Good grief, just typing that I can’t believe I’m saying it. Here’s why:
Having followed and written about the optimal solution approach within the Trump Doctrine, a process that assigns responsibility to regional actors, then exits while providing support but not direct involvement [the delegation metric of high-support/low-direction], perhaps that is unfolding again in the background. However, it seems like Trump is accepting the annoying Iran monkey problem on our behalf. [REF: How to Make The Monkey Jump]
To be clear in my personal position, charity begins at home. (1) I don’t want conflict with Iran, nor do I really care about their internal political struggles; most of my day-to-day contacts feel the same. (2) At the same time, yes, I can imagine a scenario where Venezuela represents a threat to our continental objectives and national security, but would prefer to see them isolated from the outside. Embargo them, stuff them inside an economic confinement zone (if needed), tell them why, then let the internal mess work itself out; most of my day-to-day contacts seem to feel the same.
Granting President Trump the long view of support; I mean, we don’t know what he is aware of; I sure hope all of this Iran stuff has a direct connection to American strategic interests.
Simultaneously, I can certainly see where deconflicting the USA, vis-a-vis Ukraine (literally London and the EU) from friction with Russia, has a strategic interest and factual bearing on the dollar-based trade system. Attention on the Ukraine vs Russia stuff does have direct, albeit complicated outcomes attached to the economic standing of the average American. Iran less so.
The need for control is a reaction to fear. Suddenly, there’s a whole lot of corporate media voices rebranding themselves. Is the worm turning, or is this just opportunistic positioning? The nature of the irrelevance behind it all has me quite amused. Example #1 CBS:
Paramount/CBS, along with TikTok, were recently acquired by Larry and David Ellison. [NOTE: I refuse to separate the father and son into individual corporate elements, because that perspective requires a certain level of pretending that I’m incapable of.] David Ellison recently installed Bari Weiss as CBS News Editor in Chief. Larry and David are currently working to acquire Warner/CNN.
As the ‘great noticing’ of things continues to manifest, suddenly a lot of voices are trying to distance themselves from their corporate interests and rebranding as independent voices.
The next example is Catherine Herridge, who has a long and very visible career working for corporate media outlets, shaping stories for the corporate interest and doing yeoman’s work selling a controlled and approved narrative.
Now working within the structure of The Los Angeles Times platform, Catherine Herridge wants to share terrible stories about her experiences within the corporate media world.
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Ukraine did not target the personal residence of Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin, “according to U.S. officials.” However, Russia captured one of the drones intact and have said they were able to “extract a file containing a flight plan from the navigation unit” which they plan to share with the Trump administration through established channels. {LINK}
WSJ – WASHINGTON—U.S. national-security officials said Wednesday that Ukraine didn’t target Russian President Vladimir Putin or one of his residences in an alleged drone operation, challenging Moscow’s assertion that Kyiv sought to kill the Russian leader.
That conclusion is supported by a Central Intelligence Agency assessment that found no attempted attack against Putin had occurred, according to a U.S. official briefed on the intelligence. The CIA declined to comment.
The U.S. found that Ukraine had been seeking to strike a military target located in the same region as Putin’s country residence but not close by, the official said. (read more)
Who are we going to believe, Russian “special service” operations or anonymous “U.S. Intelligence Officials”?
Unfortunately, this question is no longer easy to answer given the history of the U.S. Intelligence Community, and yes, that includes the current embedded IC officials within the National Security Council, DNI and CIA even with Marco Rubio, Tulsi Gabbard and John Ratcliffe in position.
I would be very surprised if the U.S. Intelligence Community would be honest with President Trump on this issue if, and that is a big “if”, they even factually had any specific intelligence about it. [This WSJ narrative could be fake news]
Again, CTH will also assert the likelihood that Volodymyr Zelenskyy likely didn’t carry out the attack; everything about the timing of it during his meeting with President Trump just doesn’t fit. Instead, it is more likely British intelligence, specifically MI6 carried out the attack, timed specifically for the Trump/Zelenskyy meeting.
The tenuous legal theory permitting the U.S. government to conduct surveillance on U.S. citizen data (emails, texts, phone calls, messages etc.) rests on the unconstitutional ability of the government to intercept your “private papers” with the use of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, specifically FISA-702. The “702” aspect is the term for U.S. citizen intercepted.
The authority for the United States government to capture the electronic records of all Americans without warrant falls under the auspices of FISA-702. The current authority expires in April of 2026. The 702 authorities have been abused to conduct political surveillance for just about everything in Washington DC. Millions of unauthorized searches have been identified; it is unconstitutional.
Politico, an outlet for the concerns of the administrative state, begins the new year by noting there is increased resistance to the reauthorization. However, in order to carry out the domestic national security agenda of the Trump administration, the Deep State considers JD Vance, Marco Rubio and others as likely supporters for reauthorization.
(Politico) – […] During the last reauthorization debate in 2024, then-candidate Trump urged Congress to “kill” the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the larger spy law that Section 702 is nested under. Trump’s decision frustrated supporters of the program — in part because they believe he conflated the foreign-target spy program with the broader surveillance law that was not up for reauthorization.
A crucial Biggs-sponsored House amendment that would have added a warrant requirement for any communications involving Americans failed on a 212-212 tie, with Speaker Mike Johnson casting a rare and decisive vote to kill it.
The House Judiciary Committee has released the [VIDEO] and [TRANSCRIPT] of special prosecutor Jack Smith’s deposition. What is outlined within it is alarming in the extreme. I strongly urge anyone with any platform to review the details and quickly highlight the content therein. There is no time to waste.
Jack Smith appeared before the committee with three personal lawyers to support him. The content of the deposition is chilling in the extreme. While many will focus on the granular details of the testimony, I wish to highlight one of the more alarming aspects to the bigger picture.
The predicate for Jack Smith to prosecute President Trump for his efforts to “interfere in the 2020 election”, and thereby “challenge all democratic norms”, essentially boils down to Jack Smith accusing President Trump of participating in a fraud when he challenged the outcome of the 2020 election.
To get beyond President Trump’s first amendment right to free speech, Jack Smith claims Trump knowingly understood that Joe Biden had won the election; President Trump was told by senior Republican advisors that Biden had legitimately won the 2020 election; President Trump rejected the reality of the “truthful information” presented to him, and instead chose to launch a psychological operation against the American people, i.e. “fraud.”
It is the charge of “fraud” which underpins the entirety of the case against Donald Trump, as pursued by Jack Smith. The charge itself is predicated on definitions of what constitutes truthful information, and within that subset of predicate you begin to realize just how important it is to professional leftists that they control information.
A recent article in Politico quoting several cabinet members of Prime Minister Mark Carney reflects a particular reality of the problem their economy will face in 2026.
It appears that Canadian government officials have finally recognized the Trump administration plans to dissolve the USMCA or what Canada calls CUSMA next year. With that reality they have a big problem.
Mexico has been working throughout the year to initiate economic policies in alignment with the United States. However, structurally and politically this is an alignment that is impossible for Canada to do. Like many contracting European countries, the economic policies of Canada are centered around their climate change agenda and green energy goals.
For the past few decades Canada bought into the carbon scam and enacted climate change goals into law for carbon pricing, alternative energy production, industry and manufacturing costs. These mechanisms to control “climate change” are nuts in the big picture.
In order for Canada to position their economy to be in alignment with the rest of North America (USA and Mexico), Carney would have to reverse years of legislated rules and regulations. That is not going to happen, and Canada will always be at a disadvantage because of it.
(Politico) – […] It’s a moment of existential crisis for Canada, a senior Carney government official told POLITICO. Waiting out the Trump administration isn’t an option, the official said, arguing that what’s happening in the United States reflects a generational shift — not a temporary disruption — and that returning to a policy of closer integration with America would be foolish. (more)
With three quarters of their economic production tied to exports into the USA, and with the USMCA likely to be dissolved in favor of a bilateral trade agreement, Canada now has to find other markets for its products or lower all the trade barriers currently in place. Prime Minister Mark Carney is trying to find alternative markets.
A few context points on this: #1) Mark Levin has a direct and personal line to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Levin can and does talk to ‘Bibi’ all the time. #2) If Levin was confident in the position of President Trump toward Israel, this would not be needed. #3) This same level of toxicity is also being directed toward Trump’s vice-president, JD Vance.
This is the current state of mind of Mark Levin:
Toward Megyn Kelly (3.6 million followers]
[SOURCE]
Toward Jack Posobiec (3.2 million followers):
[SOURCE]
What’s going on?
It is exactly what I said was happening – SEE HERE.
The use of Alinsky tactics is a left-wing approach.