Yes, Cry for Venezuela
Posted By: RockyTCB, 1/6/2026 8:20:07 AM
It’s an excruciating economic lesson for the ages. How can one of the most resource-rich countries on the planet, with trillions of dollars of energy and mineral reserves, beautiful beaches, and beautiful people, become impoverished in just 25 years? It should have per capita wealth equal to Saudi Arabia and tourism like Bermuda. Yet half of its citizens now live in “extreme poverty.” The simplest explanation? Venezuelan communist leaders Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro abandoned free markets and “rugged individualism” in favor of the “warm embrace of collectivism.”
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Lack Of Trust In Media Continues As Perceived
Bias, Ideology Divide Readers: I&I/TIPP Poll 4 replies
Bias, Ideology Divide Readers: I&I/TIPP Poll 4 replies
Last year may have been good for most Americans, but not so much for big media groups. Confidence in the media hit a recent low in November, and bounced back only slightly in December, as the final I&I/TIPP Poll of 2025 indicates. Can the media ever regain their lost luster?
I&I/TIPP asks Americans each month two questions about the media. The first: “Generally speaking, how much trust do you have in the traditional or established news media (Example: Washington Post, New York Times, NPR, CBS News, etc.) to report the news accurately and fairly?”
Yes, Cry for Venezuela
4 replies
It’s an excruciating economic lesson for the ages.
How can one of the most resource-rich countries on the planet, with trillions of dollars of energy and mineral reserves, beautiful beaches, and beautiful people, become impoverished in just 25 years?
It should have per capita wealth equal to Saudi Arabia and tourism like Bermuda. Yet half of its citizens now live in “extreme poverty.”
The simplest explanation? Venezuelan communist leaders Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro abandoned free markets and “rugged individualism” in favor of the “warm embrace of collectivism.”
Some are estimating that more than half of federal income tax revenues are devoured by fraud. This should not come as a shock. A massive government that funds everything from small businesses to health care to child care to housing is a rich target for thieves. Sharply reducing its size would limit the opportunities to steal from taxpayers.
Bandits have been defrauding of the U.S. government on such a colossal scale that even the legacy media has had to cover it, at least somewhat. The Minnesota Somalis looting the public fisc blew the lid so high that now smart folks are finding institutionalized fraud far, wide, high and low.
You have to marvel at the sequence of events we just experienced. On Jan. 1, a socialist was sworn in as mayor of New York, promising the “warm embrace of collectivism.” On Jan. 3, President Donald Trump announced that he’d forcibly removed Nicolas Maduro from Venezuela, ending the country’s 23-year embrace of socialism.
We will leave it to the pundits, the lawyers, politicians, and various other “experts” to debate the merits of Trump’s action.
But what we can’t let happen is for the left and the mainstream media to ignore or downplay just how tragic Venezuela’s embrace of collectivism has been.
Politico Should Fire Josh Gerstein
5 replies
Just how corrupt are journalists these days? Consider this example from earlier in the week involving the explosive Minnesota fraud scandal – the one the mainstream media covered up for years and is now busy trying to downplay.
On Tuesday, Josh Gerstein, a “senior legal affairs reporter” for Politico, weighed in in response to the Nick Shirley video, in which the amateur journalist took his camera to various empty taxpayer-supported “day care centers” that were obvious fronts.
Instead of expressing outrage that fraudsters were stealing massive amounts of money meant to support poor families – and his
California’s ‘Get Out Now’ Tax
20 replies
It might seem that public policy insanity has reached an end in California. After all, what more could the state’s malevolent progressive politics concoct to make it more hostile to business, innovation, enterprise, and hard work than it already is? How about a tax on those who drive the economy? Yes, that should do it.
The Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West and St. John’s Community Health in Los Angeles have teamed up to concoct the 2026 Billionaire Tax Act, a citizen-initiated statute that might appear on the ballot next November. Should it pass, it would levy a “one-time 5% tax on California billionaires in this emergency
Nick Shirley’s 42-minute YouTube video on daycare fraud in Minnesota is shocking not just because of the scale of abuse he uncovered in a day. It’s shocking because it took a young kid to expose this years-long scheme. Where was the mainstream media all this time?
In the must-see video, Shirley teams up with a citizen investigator and goes door-to-door visiting various “daycare” facilities in Minneapolis that got millions in taxpayer money through a Child Care Assistance Program.
The first two “daycare centers” are both located at the same address in an industrial park,
Scrooge Was A Liberal
6 replies
Just about every year at this time, “A Christmas Carol” shows up somewhere on TV, as do headlines about how one Republican or another is the modern equivalent of the tale’s greedy miser, Ebenezer Scrooge.
“The GOP’s sad Scrooge agenda.” “GOP Protecting Ebenezer Scrooge.” “Maher Likens Republicans to Ebenezer Scrooge.” “Republicans play the role of the stingy Scrooge.”
You have to wonder if these folks have actually read “A Christmas Carol” or spent any time pondering what Scrooge actually says and does. Because if you do, you come to realize that Scrooge more closely resembles a modern liberal than a conservative.
Timing is everything in humor, and in politics. So, it was particularly amusing to read a piece in MS NOW on Monday quoting Democrats who were all singing from the same hymnal – namely that President Donald Trump “owns the economy.”
‘When you take office, you take ownership,’ Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., told MS NOW. ‘That’s what leadership is about.’
‘It became Trump’s economy a long time ago,’ Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., said.
Obviously, these Democrats meant it in a bad way.
But then, on Tuesday, the Bureau of Economic Analysis released its estimate for GDP growth
The Eco-Zealots Were Wrong Again
8 replies
Remember the bratty but fabulously worshipped Greta Thunberg thundering “How dare you” in front of the United Nations, in a screeching speech in which she claimed “We are in the beginning of a mass extinction”? The adults swooned at her feet, not just at the U.N. but at every stop she has made on her never-ending, neurotic speaking tour. But did anyone fact-check her? They should have. She was wrong.
Then 16, several years before she caught the next trend and became a Palestinian justice warrior, Thunberg told the General Assembly in 2019 that “People are suffering. People are dying.
Imagine you are holding for dear life onto the table of an examination room, sick, sore, worried, and weary to the marrow of your bones, and expecting any moment to experience the calming presence and soothing tones of your longtime, trusted family physician.
When in bursts a garish figure not in a white coat, but top hat and tails, shouting at the top of his lungs …
Ladies and Gentlemen! Boys and Girls! Welcome to the greatest medical practice on earth … no! in the history of the earth! No! In the history of the universe!
Featuring amazing feats of doctoral derring-do,
We have been writing about the weaponization of government under the Obama and Biden regimes for many years, but even we were shocked by the two revelations of FBI corruption this week, neither of which has received the attention that both deserve.
On Sunday, Just the News reported on evidence it had obtained of how the FBI actively thwarted an investigation into the Clinton Foundation in the run-up to the 2016 election. On Tuesday, it reported newly disclosed evidence that the FBI ignored concerns about not having probable cause to mount its unprecedented raid on Donald Trump’s home in August 2022.
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In one of his autopen’s last acts before Joe Biden left office was to pardon Capt. Mike Byrd, the DC officer who shot and killed January 6 protester Ashli Babbitt in cold blood during the protests on Capitol Hill on January 6, 2021.
As TGP’s Brian Lupo noted, video evidence captured Byrd shooting an unarmed Babbitt without warning as she attempted to climb through a narrow window near a barricaded entryway to the Speaker of the House’s office area in the U.S. Capitol.
Following an investigation, Byrd was cleared of any wrongdoing, although questions remain about the escalation to lethal force without attempts to subdue or detain Babbitt.
A Minnesota hotel operating under the Hilton Hotels brand canceled reservations for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Department of Homeland Security agents earlier this month, a decision that led Hilton to cut ties with the independently owned location.
“The independent hotel owner had assured us that they had fixed this problem and published a message confirming this,” Hilton said in a statement Tuesday morning. “A recent video clearly raises concerns that they are not meeting our standards and values. As such, we are taking immediate action to remove this hotel from our systems.”
Sens. Rand Paul (R-KY) and Mike Lee (R-UT) have balked at the billions of dollars included for refugee funding in one of the nine appropriations bills for fiscal year 2026.
The appropriations bill for the Department of Labor and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) contains $5.69 billion in funding for refugee assistance services, which is three times higher than it was prior to President Joe Biden’s time in office.
Paul, the chair of the Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Committee, said, “The big spenders in Congress are back in DC, hoping to pass a bill that spends billions on refugee benefits despite widespread reports of fraud.
Dramatic video purportedly shows the moment an ICE agent opened fire and killed a 37-year-old woman who attempted to barrel her SUV into the officer’s path in Minneapolis Wednesday morning — as the mayor furiously demanded the agency “get the f–k out” of the city.
In the footage being widely circulated on social media from varying angles, ICE officers approach a plum-colored Honda Pilot and order the driver out of the vehicle after she blocked the path of their truck.
As one of the agents attempts to open the door, she quickly throws the car into reverse before trying to speed forward in the direction of another agent in her path.
The Pentagon has ordered an investigation into whether the presence of women in 'tip of the spear' combat roles is damaging the military's ability to win wars. A leaked memo obtained by NPR reveals that defense bosses are launching a grueling six–month review of thousands of female soldiers and Marines currently serving in infantry, armor and artillery units. In a private online support group leaked exclusively to the Daily Mail, one service member raged against the double standard, writing: 'You mean your guys can't focus on the mission without trying to stick it in... not my problem.'
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said Monday an American takeover of Greenland would amount to the end of the NATO military alliance. Her comments came in response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s renewed call for the strategic, mineral-rich Arctic island to come under U.S. control in the aftermath of the weekend military operation in Venezuela.
The dead-of-night operation by U.S. forces in Caracas to capture leader Nicolás Maduro and his wife early Saturday left the world stunned, and heightened concerns in Denmark and Greenland, which is a semiautonomous territory of the Danish kingdom and thus part of NATO.
An ICE agent shot and killed a woman who allegedly “weaponized her vehicle” Wednesday morning in Minneapolis.
NBC News reported that a group of people began trying to block ICE agents as they were carrying out “targeted operations” in Minneapolis. In the course of this, a woman allegedly used her vehicle to attack agents.
Homeland Security posted to X, “Today, ICE officers in Minneapolis were conducting targeted operations when rioters began blocking ICE officers and one of these violent rioters weaponized her vehicle, attempting to run over our law enforcement officers in an attempt to kill them—an act of domestic terrorism.”
DHS says the person shot by an ICE agent has died.
In a statement to FOX 9, ICE says officers were conducting its operation when protesters began blocking officers.
"One of these violent rioters weaponized her vehicle, attempting to run over our law enforcement officers in an attempt to kill them—an act of domestic terrorism," the statement reads. "An ICE officer, fearing for his life, the lives of his fellow law enforcement and the safety of the public, fired defensive shots.He used his training and saved his own life and that of his fellow officers."
Lawsuit accuses Chicago-based McDonald's
of deception on grounds that McRib has
no rib meat 19 replies
of deception on grounds that McRib has
no rib meat 19 replies
A lawsuit filed late last month took Chicago-based McDonald's to task over the McRib sandwich, calling its name a form of false advertising. (snip) The lawsuit said McDonald's has "cultivated a sense of anticipation around the McRib, leveraging its scarcity to drive sales across its many locations."
As CBS News has reported before, the notorious 520-calorie sandwich contains just five simple ingredients: seasoned boneless pork dipped in BBQ sauce, sliced onions, and dill pickles in a toasted homestyle bun.
There is some good news within this announcement as Justin Trudeau’s former Deputy Prime Minister to Canada is well known to both President Donald Trump and North American political followers for a decade.Chrystia Freeland was the former lead of the Canadian trade delegation when Trudeau realized he needed to try and offset the economic damage within the renegotiated NAFTA agreement known as the USMCA. Freeland was also the lead attack agent behind the debanking effort against Canadian truckers who opposed the vaccine mandate.
In addition to holding Ukraine roots, the ideology of Chrystia Freeland as a multinational globalist and promoter for the World Economic Forum’s ‘new world order’ is well documented.
Tuesday on MS NOW’s “The Beat,” Democratic strategist James Carville predicted Democrats will “have a massive win” in the November midterms.
Carville said, “He knows he is going to lose in November. He’s saying the Democrats are going — and of course, the Democrats are going to investigate you. Why wouldn’t they? It’s closing in on him. And what I’m fearful of, and I think everybody should be, today it’s Venezuela, I don’t know, now they’re talking about Greenland and Mexico, but who knows what they’ll do to try to save him and try to get between the Epstein scandal and Donald Trump, which is going to be hard to do.”
Hakeem Jeffries endorses NY Rep. Dan Goldman
against left-wing challenger — setting
up Mamdani rift 17 replies
against left-wing challenger — setting
up Mamdani rift 17 replies
It’s a proxy war!
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) endorsed embattled Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) for re-election as the fellow New York Democrat faces a tough primary challenge from the left.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani backs fellow lefty Brad Lander, the former city comptroller challenging Goldman — showing growing division between the far-left and mainstream Dems. Goldman, a two-term congressman who officially kicked off his re-election campaign Tuesday, is vulnerable because of his support of Israel, while many primary-voting Dems have turned on the Jewish state over the war in Gaza.