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The capture of Nicolás Maduro is driving the Lefty-left batshit crazy for a very good reason: it portends the extinction of their financial life-support, since Señor Maduro used his country as a money laundry for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and, in turn, cartel drug money, to funnel gazillions through Cuba to America’s Democratic Party and its political satellites. Not even George and Alex Soros can fill that hole.

For a nearly failed state, Cuba has been able to exert undue influence on US political life through the decades. Mayor Karen Bass of Los Angeles was trained-up in Marxist revolution there in the 1970s and traveled to Cuba many times during her stint in Congress. Reps. Ilhan Omar and Pramila Jayapal dropped into Havana during the last election year. NGOs such as the Center for Democracy in the Americas act as distribution nodes for money that comes through Cuba and supports Lefty-left activists around the USA. Don’t be surprised if a lot of this laundered money ended up in the bank accounts of US congresspersons and senators, too. Remember this when you watch them howl on your screens.

Alas, Communist Cuba is about to expire of strangulation. Cuba has depended on Señor Maduro’s oil since the Soviet Union dissolved, and now that the supply is cut off, the island nation enjoys only a few hours-a-day of electricity. Soon it will be dark there. . . and things political start stirring and moiling in the dark. Odds are they won’t shake out so well for los communistas. So, that’ll be two down with a few more to go. Anyway, the Castro brothers are long gone and the old charisma with them. The current president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, is a nobody. ...

The oil is obviously a big part of the picture. But it’s a little more complicated than might appear superficially. Before Sr. Maduro, President Hugo Chávez seized the assets of ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips in 2007 and then reneged on compensation. The nationalized oil industry, Petróleos de Venezuela S.A. (PDVSA), entered a long and disastrous production decline, from 3.5-million barrels-a-day to about 1-million in 2025. The equipment is ancient and PDVSA has lost most of its technical expertise. Here’s why Mr. Trump is so hot to revive production there:

Venezuelan oil is generally heavy oil. America needs heavy oil because US shale oil, which is about 64 percent of total US output, is extra light, mostly gasoline. American oil refineries, built long ago, are calibrated for heavier oil. For years, the US has had to import heavy crude to mix with our shale oil to produce an adequate supply of heavier distillates, especially diesel and aviation fuel, which are critical to the US economy.

Federal Council freezes any assets held in Switzerland by Nicolás Maduro

Bern, 05.01.2026 — On 5 January 2026, the Federal Council decided to freeze any assets held in Switzerland by Nicolás Maduro and other persons associated with him with immediate effect. In doing so, the Federal Council aims to prevent an outflow of assets. The asset freeze does not affect members of the current Venezuelan government. Should future legal proceedings reveal that the funds were illicitly acquired, Switzerland will endeavour to ensure that they benefit the Venezuelan people. The asset freeze is in addition to the sanctions against Venezuela that have been in place since 2018 under the Embargo Act.

Federal Council freezes any assets held in Switzerland by Nicolás Maduro

Make no mistake - what the Trump Admin has done here is not ‘judicial’ or legal by any U.S. or international standard, it is extraordinary rendition - a Neocon policy requiring no real evidence other than innuendo & fabricated ‘intelligence’ which US never presented, even now,… pic.twitter.com/ZVELupSh7h

— Patrick Henningsen (@21WIRE) January 3, 2026

El Helicoide — The inside is even more punishing than the outside

Presenting, in honor of Nicolás Maduro, El Helicoide — or the Helix — in Caracas, Venezuela, the regime’s temple of pain. . . a prison and torture facility run by the National Intel Service of Venezuela,

Wikipedia sez: “Its construction was undertaken by a private company during the government of then-president Marcos Pérez Jiménez in 1956, designed by the architects Pedro Neuberger, Dirk Bornhorst and Jorge Romero Gutiérrez. The project was to have included 300 boutiques, eight cinemas, a heliport, a 5-star hotel, a park, a club of owners and a show palace on the seventh level. The building would include a four-kilometer long ramp spiraling around the structure itself, allowing vehicles to enter the building and park inside.”

Weren’t those the good old days? Wannabe hyper-consumerism! So quaint! The project was exhibited as a triumph of modernist design at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and Salvador Dalí offered to decorate the interior. ...

In 2010, it was turned into the headquarters of the National Experimental Security University dedicated to training state police forces. You kinda wonder what kind of experiments they were running in there. From there, the experimental techniques that proved successful were applied to the ongoing political situation, and the prison / torture facilities were added. ¡Ahí lo tienes!

In various revolts, coups, rebellions over the years, the building has suffered bomb damage, but none of that has improved its outward appearance. What’s next for this fabulous building, with Sr. Maduro on his way to a life sentence in some federal slammer. My bet: a super-hyper-casino! Yeah, go for it! Sports book where they used to do the waterboarding! Three cheers for adaptive re-use!

Democrats in Congress have filed a motion to appoint Maduro as a Federal Judge. He fits the ideal profile.

Energy is the lifeblood of the modern world

about 1.6 trillion barrels in proven oil reserves

Cuba confirms that during Nicolás Maduro’s capture, special forces eliminated all 32 of his Cuban guards.

America has seized control of Venezuela’s vast oil reserves, the largest in the world, and at a stroke applies crippling pressure to the economies of China, Iran, and Cuba (who were Venezuela’s best grey-market customers), as well as to the economies of its adversary Russia and its wayward sibling Canada (both of which depend for their prosperity upon high oil prices). Both China and Russia have been deprived of a key New World ally, and thus the Monroe Doctrine is reasserted, and foreign powers pushed out of Washington’s sphere of influence. A hostile communist government has been decapitated, opening the way for the millions of Venezuelans displaced by Bolivarian tyranny, refugees whose presence has destabilized Venezuela’s neighbours for many years now, to return home.




To be sure, there is still great uncertainty. Hugo Chavez’ tomb may have been destroyed, but his Bolivarian regime is still largely intact, his apparatchicks remain in control of Venezuela’s state apparatus and military, and his terrorist colectivos still control the streets of Caracas.

Trump’s declaration that America now owns Venezuela’s oil feels a bit premature. Can one really claim control, without boots on the ground? I confess that it is not at all clear to me exactly how this is all supposed to work. Perhaps it is meant to function through pure intimidation: whoever ends up assuming power in Venezuela, they will know that if they don’t do as they’re told, they might be next, and perhaps will not be given the grace of an arrest and a show trial but simply executed without warning by drone; meanwhile, America offers itself as the sole legitimate customer for Venezuela’s sole marketable product, while providing its oil industry engineers to rebuild (and assume control of) infrastructure fallen into disrepair following Chavez’ nationalization and subsequent decades of neglect and mismanagement. Trump holds out one hand in an offer of assistance and mutual benefit, while holding back his other curled in a mailed fist, a threat made plausible by the fact that he just punched them hard in the mouth. ...

The message to Washington’s European vassals is that America is playing hardball, again. The rules-based international order is a thing of the past. America will do what it is in America’s interests to do, because America has the power to do it. To start with, Greenland is on the table again. The US probably won’t take it from Denmark at gunpoint, although it easily could, and if it has to it will, which the Danes are now acutely aware of. Acquiring Greenland is a matter of national security: virtually every flight path from Eurasia to North America passes over the island. Much more likely than annexation, however, is that the US will woo Greenland’s Inuit population, offering them cash money and citizenship in exchange for recognition of American sovereignty ... which America already de facto has, given that the infrastructure and military installations on the island are all American in any case. As for the Danes – who have done nothing whatsoever with the land mass since the early Middle Ages – they would be well advised to take whatever Trump offers in trade, and be grateful. They’ll still be able to visit, not that many of them have ever bothered. ...

Rather than attempting to grind their way through tens of thousands of Venezuelan soldiers, with all the carnage and wreckage that would entail, the US military simply conducted a decapitation strike. They cut the head off of the snake, and with that one act threw not only the Venezuelan government, but governments all over the world, into terrified disarray. ...

Consider the technical prowess that the raid on Caracas required, the flawless coordination of a huge number of moving parts, each of which had to play its role impeccably.

CIA intelligence assets infiltrated the country months beforehand: they had to gather detailed intelligence on Maduro’s movements, habits, and defences, while evading detection. ...

This was no cake-walk. Maduro was guarded by dozens of supposedly elite Cuban officers; America’s spec ops team cut them down in minutes, without taking a single casualty.

The absurdly complex operation was executed with smooth perfection. It is probably the most impressive feat of combined arms that has been seen in living memory. It was both a tactical coup and a strategic masterpiece, rearranging the geopolitical chess board in America’s favour with one decisive cut. Not only that, but it was incredibly civilized. For all the mewling about violations of fictive international lawl, no one could help but notice that casualties were kept to an absolute minimum. Not a single American death; Venezuela and Cuba combined lost some 50 or 60 military personnel; there were only 2 civilian casualties. ...

It is the same American military that, until just a year ago, was struggling to fill its ranks, because the warrior class had concluded that it was not a military worth belonging to, that a government which held them in such contempt was not a government worth fighting for.

Only one thing changed: a year ago, when Trump won the election, the American state was decapitated.

Because Trump won the election, he could fire the fat bureaucrat Lloyd Austin as Secretary of Defence, and appoint in his place the energetic, muscular young Hegseth as Secretary of War. Because Hegseth was the Secretary of War, he could begin eliminating the dross of the Cancelled Years and refocus the American military on its actual mission.

It turned out to be that simple. Change the leadership, replace the dance troupe of hollow men and men in dresses that has cavorted through the halls of power for far too long with platoons of competent men, and allow the competent men to do what they know how to do, without interference from politicians, lawyers, and ideologues. Just point them in the right direction and get out of their way.

Elite circulation is the Fix Everything switch.




A bunch of extraordinarily capable people inside the services just put their heads down and kept going. A military that couldn’t plan or execute…could. The Mark Milleyfication of the American armed forces was imposed and discardable, a Potemkin transgendered village. ... This is both heartening and tragic to see. It means that we’re in better shape today than we thought we possibly could be, but it also means that a brutal twenty-year shambles was entirely avoidable. ... The weight of the symbol machine could always just be tossed aside. We didn’t have to put up with any of this.

Now the truth is plain.

Decline is a choice.

A choice being made, every day, in every way, by the usurpers and pretenders who insinuated themselves into the key nodes of power and influence in our societies so that they could murder our civilization with malice aforethought while claiming that it is succumbing to natural causes in its senesence.

Mass third world invasion is a choice. Economic sabotage in the name of preventing the weather from changing is a choice. Ruining the lives of young men with DEI is a choice. Blackwashing our history and mythology is a choice. Predatory taxation is a choice. Overregulation is a choice. Brainwashing the young to hate themselves is a choice. Yasslighting the young women into choosing girlbossery over family is a choice. Sacrificing the lives of the young to the fears of the old during the COVID lockdowns was a choice.

Allowing the incompetent to run things in the name of ‘social justice’ is a choice, and the contrast between the litany of inept fumbles that has resulted in and the smooth professionalism on display in the Caracasian raid has thrown the consequences of that choice – and the consequences of its alternative – into sharp relief.

And all we have to do to reverse the decline is decapitate the beast, put the right men in charge, and everything will follow naturally from there. Nature will begin to heal, as surely as Yellowstone’s ecology repaired itself once wolves were returned to their rightful place at the predatory apex. ...

Trump was already popular with the trigger-pullers; in the afterglow of Operation Absolute Resolve, they are probably burning incense to his effigies in the barracks. As Roman history tells us, the support of the legions is often politically decisive on the home front, particularly when there are influential enemies at home with whom the sovereign can deal only by declaring a state of exception.

I have just been informed that Venezuela is going to be purchasing ONLY American Made Products, with the money they receive from our new Oil Deal. These purchases will include, among other things, American Agricultural Products, and American Made Medicines, Medical Devices, and Equipment to improve Venezuela’s Electric Grid and Energy Facilities. In other words, Venezuela is committing to doing business with the United States of America as their principal partner – A wise choice, and a very good thing for the people of Venezuela, and the United States. Thank you for your attention to this matter!

The revived Monroe Doctrine is crushing it. Already, other narco-states in the American hemisphere are paying exceedingly close attention to what just happened in Venezuela. They don’t want it to spread. Namely, President Trump reported yesterday that Colombia’s president isn’t just waiting around for the midnight caller; he phoned the White House with a whole new and more helpful tone...

President Trump also made several dramatic announcements about Venezuela itself. First, and suddenly, our former hemispheric adversary will now, for some reason, be spending their vast oil revenues right here at home, in the United States, instead of paying the Russians and Chinese for military hardware...

Not just that. Also yesterday, President Trump dramatically announced that Venezuela would be “donating” to the U.S. millions of barrels of high-quality crude oil (worth billions), immediately. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

It’s still not over. In any other news cycle, this would be all anyone was talking about. The Wall Street Journal poured out a story yesterday headlined, “Trump Team Works Up Sweeping Plan to Control Venezuelan Oil for Years to Come.” The subheadline, get this, almost casually added, “President believes the effort could lower oil prices to his target of $50 a barrel.”

Fifty dollars a barrel.

“If successful,” the Journal modestly explained, “the plan could effectively give the U.S. stewardship of most of the oil reserves in the Western Hemisphere, when factoring in deposits in the U.S. and other countries where U.S. companies control production.” That’s not all. “It could also fulfill two of the administration’s primary goals,” the article continued, “namely, to box Russia and China out of Venezuela and to push energy prices lower for U.S. consumers.”

In other words, the Journal just described the Monroe Doctrine to a “T”: (1) stewardship of most of the oil reserves in our Western Hemisphere, (2) kicking China and Russia back to their own hemispheres of influence, and (3) making life more affordable for Americans. This also, not coincidentally, describes “America First.”

Along those lines, the military executed two more dramatic missions yesterday, all buried in the avalanche of news. The Washington Post sailed out the story under the headline, “U.S. seizes two tankers as Venezuelan oil blockade intensifies.” The sub-headline noted that, “In separate operations, a Russian-flagged vessel was boarded in the North Atlantic and another ship was apprehended near the Caribbean.”

The Russian-flagged oil tanker (now owned by the U.S.) initially sailed out of Venezuela with a shady fake registration. After being trailed by suspicious Coast Guard vessels to the Arctic, the tanker’s crew hastily painted a Russian flag on its bow. Later, Moscow advised that the Bella I was being escorted by a Russian nuclear submarine. The Coast Guard intercepted it anyway, without incident.

The Coast Guard was legally justified in at least two ways. First, it enforced Venezuelan sanctions, which were imposed or continued by Democrats during the Biden Administration. Second, maritime law allows seizure of improperly registered vessels. The post-hoc effort by the Russians to fix the fake registration using a couple buckets of paint proves the Bella (renamed in mid-cruise to the Marenara, a type of bland Italian pasta sauce).

Specifically, and allowing that I’m not a maritime lawyer (trust me, they are certifiably insane), UNCLOS Article 92 says that a ship that changes nationality during a voyage (if for other purposes than a true sale) is a stateless ship that can be boarded by any state. So.