“When New York’s new mayor vowed to replace rugged individualism with collectivism, he echoed an ideology history has already tested, and buried. Ayn Rand warned us what happens when societies punish excellence. In 2026, New York chose to learn the lesson anyway. On January 1, 2026, in his inaugural address as Mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani stated it plainly: ‘We will replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.’ This was not a flourish or a metaphor gone astray. It was a governing declaration, delivered from the seat of American commerce and offered as the philosophical blueprint for how the nation’s largest city would now be run … Socialist (cough, cough—Communist). History has heard this language before, and it has always ended the same way.” (01/05/25)
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“It’s not just that they stole Venezuela’s president in order to steal its oil, it’s that they’re working to steal the whole damn country. To steal its sovereignty. Its right to conduct its own affairs on its own terms as an independent nation. Dopey right wingers who learned the phrase ‘Monroe Doctrine’ like ten seconds ago have been mindlessly parroting those words all day to defend Trump’s Venezuela assault, and what’s grating about it is they actually think they’re talking about a real thing. They’re like, ‘No no it was totally legit, see there’s this thing called the Monroe Doctrine which says we get to control everything that happens in the western hemisphere and treat half the planet like it’s our own personal property.'” (01/05/25)
“The American capture of Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro as an alleged fugitive from U.S. justice – while an impressive military feat – has opened a vigorous, global debate about its legality. Is unilateral foreign intervention justified when a failing authoritarian state commits atrocities at home and exports drugs and migrants? Yet for millions of Venezuelans – joyful over a dictator’s exit – the question is less about international law than about their quest for the very basis of law: the freedom of sovereign individuals to choose their government and maintain a shared civic identity. ‘The time has come for popular sovereignty and national sovereignty to prevail in our country,’ Venezuelan opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate María Corina Machado declared in a weekend social media post.” (01/04/25)
“As 2026 begins, what a strange planet we find ourselves on. The two great empires of my youth, the Soviet Union (now Russia) and my own country, are clearly experiencing some version of imperial decline, even if Vladimir Putin is acting otherwise in Ukraine (as is Donald Trump in his own strange fashion in the Caribbean Sea and Venezuela). No less curiously, the country visibly on the rise, China, is distinctly not acting like a typical imperial power of history (at least the history I’ve known). In a world where the United States still has 750 or so military bases around the world, China, as far as I can tell, has at most just one (in Djibouti, Africa).” (01/05/25)
“For three years, the Washington foreign policy establishment has insisted that there is only one acceptable outcome in Ukraine: total victory over Russia achieved through relentless military aid, indefinite financial support and escalation readiness regardless of the risks. But strategy and morality are not always the same thing — and real leadership demands confronting reality as it exists, not as we wish it to be. I write this not as an academic or pundit, but as someone who worked at the center of this conflict. As U.S. ambassador to the European Union during the first Trump administration, President Donald Trump tasked me with bringing Europe into alignment — truly into alignment — behind Ukraine. That meant ending the EU’s habitual double-game: proclaiming solidarity with Kyiv while enriching Moscow through energy purchases and dragging its feet on serious sanctions.” (01/05/25)
“The Trump administration is cutting off more than $10 billion in social services and child care funding meant for a handful of Democrat-led states, officials told The Post Monday. The Department of Health and Human Services will freeze taxpayer funding from the Child Care Development Fund (CCDF), the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program and the Social Services Block Grant program. At least $7.35 billion in TANF money will be prevented from going to California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota, and New York. The CCDF funding block of $2.3 billion affects all those states except Colorado. Another $869 million from the Social Services Block Grant coffers is being kept from all five states. The funding pauses were to be announced via letters to each state, citing concerns that benefits were fraudulently going to non-US citizens.” (01/05/25)
“Seven years ago, US Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard wrote in 2019 on Twitter: ‘The United States needs to stay out of Venezuela. Let the Venezuelan people determine their future. We don’t allow other countries to choose our leaders, so we have to stop trying to choose theirs.’ Now as director of National Intelligence in the Trump administration, Tulsi Gabbard is a key part of the US overthrow of the Venezuelan government and the kidnapping of the Venezuelan president and his wife and the deaths of at least 40 persons in Venezuela. During her 2018 Congressional reelection campaign, she warned of ‘regime change wars’: ‘Every dollar spent on interventionist regime change wars is a dollar not spent on education, healthcare, infrastructure, and a myriad of other needs desperately needed right here at home,’ Gabbard said in 2018.” (01/05/25)
“Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Democrats’ 2024 candidate for vice president, is ending his bid for a third term as governor amid President Donald Trump’s relentless focus on a fraud investigation into child care programs in the state. Less than four months after announcing his reelection campaign, Walz said Monday that negative attention and Republican attacks have contributed to an ‘extraordinarily difficult year for our state,’ making it impossible for him to serve full-time as governor while also being a candidate to keep his job.” (01/05/25)
“‘How dare you?’ Remember that fiery 2019 United Nations speech, when a 16-year-old Greta Thunberg stared down world leaders and accused the adults in the room of stealing her future by ignoring climate change? The moment catapulted the perpetually pinch-faced teen towards unfathomable stardom as a self-anointed champion for human rights and the planet’s survival. But fast-forward to today, and Greta is falling quite short of that promise. She’s not a savior — in fact, she’s a malignant force trying to erase the horrors inflicted on some of the world’s most vulnerable, the victims of Hamas’[s] Oct. 7 massacre. How can someone who built her life around securing youth a future be so hell-bent on obliterating the past, silencing Jewish voices and denying the suffering of children burned alive, women raped and families slaughtered? Let’s look at her latest escapades.” (01/05/25)
“Donald Trump has again proposed annexing Greenland, after Denmark’s leader urged him to ‘stop the threats’ over the island. Speaking to reporters, the US president said ‘we need Greenland from the standpoint of national security.’ Trump has repeatedly raised the prospect of the semi-autonomous Danish territory becoming an annexed part of the US, citing its strategic location for defence purposes and mineral wealth. Greenland’s Prime Minister Jens Frederik Nielsen responded by saying ‘that’s enough now’ and described the notion of US control over the island as ‘a fantasy.’ ‘No more pressure. No more insinuations. No more fantasies of annexation. We are open to dialogue. We are open to discussions. But this must happen through the proper channels and with respect for international law.'” (01/05/25)
