President Trump’s push to take control of Venezuela and its oil resources under Operation Absolute Resolve is good news for the United States and Europe, and bad news for Cuba, Russia, China, and Iran: America is reclaiming strategic ground.

It matters because the world is entering an era of unprecedented energy demand driven by artificial intelligence, data centres, and digital infrastructure. Reliable, affordable energy is now a prerequisite for technological leadership. Nations that fail to secure supply will fall behind.

China currently receives the majority of Venezuela’s crude exports. US leverage over Venezuelan exports  disrupts China’s ability to secure discounted crude and reinforcing America’s position in global energy markets.

This shift also weakens China’s broader resource strategy in South America, where it is seeking critical minerals for electric vehicles and AI technologies.

But the ripple effects extend beyond China:

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The dramatic change in Venezuela's leadership is going to have impacts around the world, but probably most significantly in Cuba, which has relied on Venezuela for fuel for decades.

For decades, Venezuela provided the communist-run island with the bulk of its fuel and financing in exchange for Cuban doctors, teachers and security personnel. Without those programs, the island’s already devastating energy woes will worsen and its shortages of food, medicine and basic goods will become even more pronounced.

“They’ve been left without a godfather, a benefactor that has been paying their bills, and they’re totally bankrupt,” said Emilio Morales, president of the Miami-based Havana Consulting Group. “How are they going to survive?”

During a meeting of Cuba’s legislature last month, officials painted a grim economic picture as they placed blame for the current crisis on long-running US sanctions. But a cut-off of shipments of Venezuelan crude is catastrophic.

The lack of fuel is leading to massive, economy-crushing blackouts in Cuba.

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The recent Democrat cry of “affordability” is ironic in many ways.

The left-wing narrative of Trump hyperinflation was one of desperation and came only after previous memes had failed to resonate.

The 2025 generic “dictator,” “fascist,” and “Nazi” smear points never helped the left much.

Nor did the nihilist government shutdown over the “Obamacare crisis” work other than perhaps to depress fourth-quarter GDP.

Nor did the earlier spring 2025 melodramatic predictions of an impending “Trade War,” “Recession,” and stock-market “Meltdown” resonate.

Nor did the “Gestapo,” “SS,” and “Nazi” ICE smears become effective talking points.

The “illegal orders” and “unconstitutional use of force” in destroying narcotraffickers’ shipments in transit of lethal drugs were mostly empty rhetoric.

Then the Democrats got smart and remembered how Trump had won in 2024.

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“I don’t know what you mean by ‘glory,’” Alice said.

Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. “Of course you don’t—till I tell you. I meant ‘there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!’”

“But ‘glory’ doesn’t mean ‘a nice knock-down argument,’” Alice objected.

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”

“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”

“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that’s all.”

~ Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

In the past, I’ve talked about the left's deliberate shift of language, but I’ve never mentioned the foundational shift I’m going to talk about now. This one is different. It doesn’t just twist one word or one idea — it changes the ground we stand on.

This shift attacks logic itself. It strikes at the roots of reasoning, the process by which we decide what is true. It happened quietly and almost no one saw it occur.

The term critical thinking has been redefined.

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It was the political equivalent of Bill Belichick’s teenybopper girlfriend — a moment so utterly incomprehensible, all you could do was shake your head in disbelief when you heard the news. “Wait… WHAT happened?!”

Only this time, it wasn’t an old man in his 70s lusting after a babe in her 20s (which, if we’re being honest, is at least straightforwardly explainable).

It was a woman in her late 60s with a well-earned reputation as a shrewd, disciplined taskmaster getting bamboozled by the mainstream media. Susie Wiles, the White House Chief of Staff, was supposed to be every bit the super-genius strategist, game-manager, and cat-herder as Bill Belichick was a football savant.

Well, you can kiss that reputation goodbye.

That after her selfish unforced error with Vanity Fair, of all publications — in which she roped in every single top White House official, including Donald Trump! — I’m wondering if her similarities to Belichick should be expanded.

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In the shadow of every government shutdown, a deeper crisis emerges, one not of policy, but of identity.

The headlines may focus on delayed paychecks, frozen programs, and political gridlock, but beneath the surface lies a more troubling revelation: millions of Americans, including the middle class and federal employees, have become so conditioned to government assistance that they no longer know how to navigate hardship without it.

This is not merely an economic issue; it is a cultural and spiritual unraveling.

The American ethos of personal responsibility, once the bedrock of national pride and familial strength, is being quietly replaced by a subconscious belief that survival itself depends on the state.

 

A Nation Built on Self-Reliance

Fifty years ago, the average American understood that life was unpredictable and often unforgiving. Families saved for emergencies, churches and communities formed safety nets, and personal pride was tied to one’s ability to provide and persevere.

Government programs existed, but they were limited in scope and seen as temporary bridges, not permanent lifelines.

The middle class, in particular, took pride in its independence. To rely on government aid was not a badge of shame, but it was certainly not a default expectation.

In those days, when hardship struck, a job loss, a medical emergency, a cold winter without heating oil, people turned first to family, then to community, and finally to their own ingenuity.

They bartered, budgeted, and leaned on one another. Churches organized food drives, neighbors shared firewood, and civic organizations offered support.

The government was a last resort, not a first response.

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In 2016, Dahir Adan, part of a Somali refugee family that had been resettled in Fargo, stabbed 10 people in the Crossroads mall in Minnesota while shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ and demanded to know if his victims were Muslims or non-Muslims and therefore ‘fair game’.

The FBI claimed that the Muslim terrorist’s motive may never be known. ISIS or the ‘Islamic State’ took credit for the attack and its ‘unknown motive’ in the name of Islam.

Fargo, North Dakota’s largest city, likes to brag about its diversity and the fact that nearly 1 in 10 in the city are ‘foreign born’.  Somalis flooded Fargo, as did Iraqis, Bosnians and Bangladeshis. Amid the winter snows rose mosques, ethnic welfare nonprofits, Halal markets and other outposts of the new population.

After President Trump’s outrage at the $1.5 billion in Somali fraud, Rep. Hamida Dakane, the first Somali Muslim to hold office in the North Dakota legislature, dismissed Trump and bragged about a Somali Muslim population encompassing Minnesota, Ohio, Wisconsin, Washington, Virginia, Maine, and North Dakota. “We are history,” she declared. “And we will always rise.”

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The racialist influencer Nick Fuentes has caused an uproar with his appearance on Tucker Carlson’s podcast.

Fuentes, a 27-year-old live-streamer, has built a reputation as the most controversial voice on the right. He’s embraced seemingly every taboo: praising Hitler, disputing the Holocaust’s death toll, calling himself a “white nationalist,” musing about domestic violence, and opposing interracial marriage.

Carlson’s invitation has divided conservatives. Some suggest that Fuentes’s appearance on the podcast represented an unacceptable mainstreaming of his views. Others, most notably Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts, argue that Fuentes must be debated instead of “canceled.”

Both sides fail to understand the Nick Fuentes phenomenon.

They take his statements seriously and engage with them in good faith. But Fuentes’s stated beliefs, while abhorrent, are not best parried by taking them at face value.

Instead, the Right should consider him an actor in what postmodern theorist Jean Baudrillard called “hyperreality” – a system in which the simulation of reality comes to replace reality itself.

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