Source: New York Post
by Kirsten Fleming

“It’s time to evict Cea Weaver from her new gig. Less than a week after Mayor Zohran Mamdani appointed the radical-left tenant advocate to head up his Office to Protect Tenants, it’s clear that Weaver is not fit to work in city government. Besides being an avowed Communist and posting a social media call to ‘seize private property’ in 2018, the 37-year-old is also a woker-than-woke lady who clearly hates whitey — specifically, white men. According to Weaver, homeownership is a ‘weapon of white supremacy’. In a video from 2021 that’s making the rounds now, she says property should be transitioned ‘toward a model of shared equity’. She adds: ‘It will mean that families — especially white families, but some POC families — who are homeowners are, well, are gonna have a different relationship to property than the one we currently have.'” (01/07/25)

https://nypost.com/2026/01/06/opinion/mamdanis-tenant-advocate-needs-to-be-evicted-from-her-job/

Source: CounterPunch
by Rich Gibson

“Going downhill, like a Slinky on a staircase, the empire rolls down almost imperceptibly, until it reaches the floor and collapses in on itself. But the empire isn’t a Slinky. It is busy with class and imperial warfare, the few attacking the many in ways more numerous than a short essay can outline. Where is the resistance? Where are the unions? Even conservative Catholic, David Brooks, has called for a general strike and mass civil disobedience. It only makes sense.” (01/07/26)

https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/01/07/the-empire-is-teetering-why-is-there-no-general-strike/

Source: Antiwar.com
by Ted Snider

“At 4:21 in the morning of January 3, U.S. President Donald Trump posted that ‘The United States of America has successfully carried out a large scale strike against Venezuela and its leader, President Nicolas Maduro, who has been, along with his wife, captured and flown out of the Country.’ No one had anticipated such a military operation prior to the announcement, and no one anticipated the comments Trump would make later that morning in his press conference. The press conference, and the comments that followed shortly after, contained several shocking statements.” (01/07/26)

https://original.antiwar.com/ted_snider/2026/01/06/the-venezuelan-coup-the-most-shocking-statements-in-trumps-most-shocking-press-conference/

Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Dan Grazier & Benjamin Gedan

“During the first game of the season in the second-greatest baseball movie of all time, ‘Major League,’ the character Willie Mays Hayes makes a basket catch at center field. Upon returning to the dugout, his manager shakes the outfielder’s hand and tells him, ‘Nice catch Hayes, don’t ever f&%#ing do it again!’ (‘Bull Durham’ is No. 1.) In some way, the success of Operation Absolute Resolve makes the episode more dangerous than if the mission had failed. That is because success can lead to overconfidence — and costly mistakes. In the wake of a spectacular military operation involving a lot of fancy aircraft and special forces, it is easy to start believing that warfare is nothing more than the proper application of technology. But what happened in Venezuela is the exception, not the rule.” (01/07/26)

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/trump-venezuela-dangerous/

Source: The American Prospect
by David Dayen

“We are just a few weeks away from another deadline on government funding, and all sides want you to know something: This will not go the way it did the last time. Nobody wants to see a replay of the longest shutdown in American history that happened last October and November. Democrats are not going to ask for an extension of Obamacare subsidies, which ran out on December 31, as a condition of passing appropriations. (There will be a House vote on a three-year extension of the subsidies on Thursday, but that’s happening outside of the government funding process.) Republicans are going to try to negotiate appropriations bills with Democrats, rather than a unilateral demand to extend current funding. The sting of that shutdown, the subsequent Republican wipeout in special elections, and the Democratic capitulation to end the impasse have made all sides wary of disrupting the flow of government funding.” (01/07/25)

https://prospect.org/2026/01/07/trump-government-shutdown-tanf-minnesota-congress/