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After capturing Maduro, Trump warns Cuba, Mexico and Colombia could be next

After capturing Maduro, Trump warns Cuba, Mexico and Colombia could be next

Axios reports: Hours after the U.S. invaded Venezuela to seize President Nicolás Maduro, President Trump sent a warning to the governments of Mexico, Cuba and Colombia that their countries could be next. Why it matters: The stunning attack on Caracas follows Trump’s recent assertion of his own version of the Monroe Doctrine, and the president’s comments that the U.S is not afraid to put “boots on the ground” in the country suggest that the administration won’t hesitate to have an ongoing presence in the…

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American justice was supposed to be blind and impartial. Now it aims at vengeance

American justice was supposed to be blind and impartial. Now it aims at vengeance

Paul Rosenzweig writes: Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, have been forcibly taken from Venezuela and are being moved to the United States to face criminal drug-trafficking charges. Regardless of the international-law implications of this military action, the Trump administration’s description of what awaits Maduro and Flores has also transgressed basic principles of American domestic criminal law, as well as the underlying philosophical justification for punishment. Attorney General Pam Bondi has promised that Maduro and Flores “will soon face…

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Trump claims the job market is booming for U.S.-born. The data shows the opposite

Trump claims the job market is booming for U.S.-born. The data shows the opposite

The Washington Post reports: President Donald Trump and White House leaders say that American workers are winning because of his immigration crackdown. But the data doesn’t back that up. Since the summer, Trump officials have been trumpeting the idea that job creation is booming for U.S.-born workers. Trump said so, too, during a prime-time address last month aimed at assuaging Americans’ concerns about the economy. “In the year before my election, all net creation of jobs was going to foreign…

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Why Trump is quickly losing Hispanic support

Why Trump is quickly losing Hispanic support

Sam Sanchez and Massey Villarreal write: Forty-eight percent of Hispanic voters supported Donald Trump in 2024. He and his party ought to make a New Year’s resolution for 2026: Listen to Hispanic voters. Ahead of the 2026 midterms, Republicans are bleeding Hispanic support, driven by frustrations over economic hardship and overreaching immigration enforcement. Mr. Trump won record Hispanic support by promising durable solutions on immigration and the economy. Nearly a year later, the administration is taking an enforcement-only approach to…

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Trump’s Iran intervention claims are ‘escalatory rhetoric’ says former U.S. diplomat

Trump’s Iran intervention claims are ‘escalatory rhetoric’ says former U.S. diplomat

  Reuters reports: U.S. President Donald Trump threatened on Friday to come to the aid of protesters in Iran if security forces fired on them, days into unrest that has left several dead and posed the biggest internal threat to Iranian authorities in years. “We are locked and loaded and ready to go,” he said in a social media post. The United States bombed Iranian nuclear facilities in June, joining an Israeli air campaign that targeted Tehran’s atomic programme and…

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After Watergate, the presidency was made legally accountable. Trump decided that doesn’t apply to him

After Watergate, the presidency was made legally accountable. Trump decided that doesn’t apply to him

Matthew Purdy writes: A power-hungry president had twisted the government into a tool for his personal political benefit. His aides kept an “enemies list” of opponents to be punished. His cronies ran the Justice Department and he made puppets of other agencies that were meant to be independent. Corporations that wanted favorable treatment from the White House were pressured to make illegal contributions to the president’s political coffers. As revelations of rot in the Nixon administration tumbled out through the…

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Musk indicates he’s ‘going all in’ on financing the GOP ahead of the midterms

Musk indicates he’s ‘going all in’ on financing the GOP ahead of the midterms

The Independent reports: In the aftermath of his spectacular falling out with President Donald Trump last year, Elon Musk blasted the Republican Party as a corrupt force that was “bankrupting” the United States of America. But now, after months in the political wilderness, the volatile tech baron has indicated that he will once again devote his enormous fortune to electing GOP politicians, this time ahead of the midterm elections in 2026. “America is toast if the radical left wins,” declared…

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The AI Raj: How tech giants are recolonizing power

The AI Raj: How tech giants are recolonizing power

Allison Stanger writes: On December 31, 1600, Queen Elizabeth I signed a royal charter granting the East India Company exclusive rights to conduct trade in the Indian Ocean region. The document was precise in its limitations: The company could establish trading posts, negotiate with local rulers, and defend its commercial interests. Nothing more. Seventy-seven years later, the same company had acquired the right to mint currency on behalf of the British crown. By 1765, it controlled the tax collection (ruthlessly…

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‘I will not abandon my principles’: Zohran Mamdani’s inauguration speech

‘I will not abandon my principles’: Zohran Mamdani’s inauguration speech

  I have been told that this is the occasion to reset expectations, that I should use this opportunity to encourage the people of New York to ask for little and expect even less. I will do no such thing. The only expectation I seek to reset is that of small expectations. Beginning today, we will govern expansively and audaciously. We may not always succeed. But never will we be accused of lacking the courage to try. To those who…

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They tried to smear him as an antisemite – but Mayor Zohran Mamdani walks in a rich Jewish tradition

They tried to smear him as an antisemite – but Mayor Zohran Mamdani walks in a rich Jewish tradition

Molly Crabapple writes: Billionaires raised fortunes against him. The president threatened to strip his citizenship. Mainstream synagogues slandered him as the spawn of Osama Bin Laden and Chairman Mao. But today, Zohran Mamdani became the first socialist mayor of New York City. For all the hysteria, when I look at Mamdani, I didn’t see some radical departure from the past. I see him as the heir to an old and venerable Jewish tradition – that of Yiddish socialism – which…

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Nick Shirley, the right-wing YouTuber behind viral Minnesota fraud video, has long anti-immigrant history

Nick Shirley, the right-wing YouTuber behind viral Minnesota fraud video, has long anti-immigrant history

The Intercept reports: The day after Christmas, far-right YouTuber Nick Shirley posted a video claiming to have exposed fraud at Somali-owned day care centers in Minnesota. Portions of the 42-minute video — mostly scenes where Shirley is turned away at the day cares — went viral in conservative circles, catching the attention of the Trump administration, which was already at work targeting Minnesota’s Somali community amid its broader war on immigrants. The video, which has been viewed more than 2.2…

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China signals it won’t give an inch to the U.S. in Latin America

China signals it won’t give an inch to the U.S. in Latin America

The Wall Street Journal reports: China intends to keep playing in the U.S. backyard, Latin America. The Trump administration took veiled swipes at China in its national-security strategy with the vow to “restore American pre-eminence in the Western Hemisphere” and “deny non-Hemispheric competitors.” Less than a week after the release of the U.S. strategy in December, Beijing issued a little-noticed policy paper on Latin America and the Caribbean that geopolitical analysts say foreshadows more U.S.-China jostling for regional influence. “China…

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ICE plans $100 million ‘wartime recruitment’ push targeting gun shows, military fans for hires

ICE plans $100 million ‘wartime recruitment’ push targeting gun shows, military fans for hires

The Washington Post reports: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials are planning to spend $100 million over a one-year period to recruit gun-rights supporters and military enthusiasts through online influencers and a geo-targeted advertising campaign, part of what the agency called a “wartime recruitment” strategy it said was critical to hiring thousands of new deportation officers nationwide, according to an internal document reviewed by The Washington Post. The spending would help President Donald Trump’s mass-deportation agenda dominate media networks and…

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As Trump raised tariffs, fines for money laundering fell by 61%

As Trump raised tariffs, fines for money laundering fell by 61%

PYMNTS reports: American regulators collected 61% less in money laundering/sanction breach fines in 2025. That’s according to a report Wednesday (Dec. 31) by the Financial Times (FT), which ties this decline to a more lenient approach to financial regulation under the Trump administration. Total fines levied against companies for what the FT calls “dirty money” offenses came to a little less than $1.7 billion as of Dec. 19, the report said, citing data from compliance software provider Fenergo. Last year,…

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Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club sent spa employees on house calls to Epstein for years

Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club sent spa employees on house calls to Epstein for years

The Wall Street Journal reports: Jeffrey Epstein wasn’t just a frequent visitor to Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The club was also sending spa employees—usually young women—to Epstein’s nearby mansion for massages, manicures and other spa services, according to former Mar-a-Lago and Epstein employees. The house calls went on for years, even as spa employees warned each other about Epstein, who was known among staff for being sexually suggestive and exposing himself during the…

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Longtime MAGA ally Boebert lashes out at Trump over veto

Longtime MAGA ally Boebert lashes out at Trump over veto

The Washington Post reports: Rep. Lauren Boebert, the Colorado congresswoman long associated with the MAGA wing of the Republican Party, on Wednesday criticized President Donald Trump for vetoing bipartisan legislation to support a major drinking-water project in her district, saying she hopes the rejection “has nothing to do with political retaliation.” The legislation Trump vetoed, known as the Finish the Arkansas Valley Conduit Act, would have helped complete the final component of the decades-old Fryingpan-Arkansas Project. Colorado lawmakers supporting the…

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