Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger
“American interventionists are besides themselves with glee over the deaths of 32 members of Cuba’s national-security establishment who were serving as part of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro’s security team during the U.S. national-security establishment’s violent abduction of Maduro. Their ecstasy demonstrates that the old Cold War mentality that held interventionists in its grip for some 45 years never went away, not even with the ostensible end of the Cold War in 1989, at least not insofar as Cuba is concerned. But the excitement among among these old Cold War dead-enders pails in significance to their ecstasy over the fact that Cuba is now in the throes of a grave economic crisis, one that threatens the Cuban people with death by starvation and illness.” (01/07/26)
“A House Oversight panel on Wednesday approved subpoenas for Les Wexner and others in connection with the Epstein investigation. Les Wexner, billionaire founder of The Limited (now Bath & Body Works, Inc.) and longtime friend of Jeffrey Epstein, will be subpoenaed along with Darren Indyke and Richard Kahn, the executors of the Epstein estate, Rep. Robert Garcia, Ranking Member of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, announced. … Wexner was named in a heavily redacted email sent from someone at the FBI’s New York office in 2019, with the subject line ‘Co-conspirators.’ The email was released as part of the DOJ’s document dump following the passage of the Epstein Files Transparency Act.” (01/07/26)
“Across the world, free societies are under assault from a resurgent fascism. Across the world, fears about immigration have been one of the main — arguably the main — weapon used. And across the world, there has been a timidity on the part of progressives [sic] about countering these arguments. … We are locked into a battle we did not seek and our timidity is keeping us on the defensive. It isn’t working. … We are locked into a battle we did not seek and our timidity is keeping us on the defensive. It isn’t working. Our pessimism is self-fullfiling. In any contact sport, you get hurt more by flinching from the tackle than you do from committing to it.” (01/07/26)
“Two people have been killed and several others wounded in an Israeli strike on a home in Gaza City’s eastern Tuffah neighborhood a short while ago, according to Palestinian media. The dead are not immediately identified. Footage published by Palestinian media shows people wounded in the strike arriving at Gaza City’s al-Ahli Baptist Hospital, including an elderly woman in a bloodied headscarf and a young man lying on a stretcher. The IDF and Shin Bet said they targeted a ‘senior terrorist’ in the northern Gaza Strip this evening in response to shots fired toward IDF troops by Hamas operatives earlier.” (01/07/26)
“efore Covid, I would have described myself as a technological optimist. New technologies almost always arrive amid exaggerated fears. Railways were supposed to cause mental breakdowns, bicycles were thought to make women infertile or insane, and early electricity was blamed for everything from moral decay to physical collapse. Over time, these anxieties faded, societies adapted, and living standards rose. The pattern was familiar enough that artificial intelligence seemed likely to follow it: disruptive, sometimes misused, but ultimately manageable. The Covid years unsettled that confidence — not because technology failed, but because institutions did.” (01/07/26)
“Pope Leo XIV on Wednesday opened a new phase of his pontificate by gathering the world’s cardinals to Rome and indicating some reform-minded priorities by calling the modernizing teachings of the Second Vatican Council the ‘guiding star’ of the church. Red-capped cardinals trickled into the Vatican’s audience hall for the opening session of the two-day meeting, the first of Leo’s papacy. Several cardinals said they didn’t know what to expect, since Leo’s written invitation had spoken only in vague terms about four main agenda items. … But during his morning general audience Wednesday, Leo gave the strongest signal yet about the direction of his still-young pontificate, calling for the full implementation of the reforms of Vatican II, the 1960s meetings that modernized and revolutionized the Catholic Church and remain a source of debate today.” (01/07/26)
“Venezuela is well rid of Nicolás Maduro, a corrupt, oppressive, and illegitimate leader who presided over that country’s continuing decline after succeeding Hugo Chávez in 2013. And judging from what happened after the 1989 invasion of Panama, when U.S. forces nabbed a similarly odious strongman who likewise faced a federal drug indictment, the courts will not stand in the way of Maduro’s prosecution. The ‘law enforcement’ rationale for Saturday’s attack on Venezuela is nevertheless both implausible and troubling. It offers an open-ended license for any president who wants to excise Congress from decisions about the use of military force, accelerating a trend that threatens to nullify its constitutional war powers.” (01/07/26)
“A senior French judge warned Tuesday against ‘unacceptable’ foreign interference after the U.S. reportedly considered sanctioning members of France’s judiciary. ‘If such facts were true or were to materialize, they would constitute unacceptable and intolerable interference in our country’s internal affairs,’ Peimane Ghaleh-Marzban, president of the Paris court that handled a contentious case involving far-right chief Marine Le Pen, said in an inaugural speech to new magistrates, according to AFP. His comments come after German news outlet Der Spiegel reported that the U.S. State Department had considered imposing sanctions on the judges who sentenced Le Pen to a five-year election ban last spring over embezzlement of EU funds, preventing her from running in the presidential election planned for 2027. … Le Pen, who denies all charges, will face an appeal trial from next week, with a decision expected ahead of the summer.” (01/07/26)
Source: Karl Dickey’s Freedom Vanguard
by Karl Dickey
“In case you’ve been hiding under a rock, you know that NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani has just appointed Cea Weaver to lead his new tenant protection office. If the name sounds familiar, it’s because Weaver is the architect of New York’s aggressive ‘cancel rent’ movements. And it’s her past comments that are currently setting the internet on fire. In resurfaced posts, Weaver labeled private property — and specifically homeownership — as a ‘tool of white supremacy.’ She has since pulled her X account. As an American, I find her perspective not just radical, but dangerously racist and seriously flawed.” (01/07/26)
