Oil Companies Are Key Partners in Trump’s Imperial Plans for Latin America

For months, U.S. President Donald Trump proclaimed that his pressure campaign against the government of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, backed by dozens of illegal killings through drone strikes, was about fighting drugs and cartels. But at his press conference after the U.S. abduction of Maduro, Trump couldn’t stop talking about oil.

“We’re gonna take back the oil,” Trump brazenly said. “Very large United States oil companies” will “go in” and “spend billions of dollars,” he promised. “We’re gonna be taking out a tremendous amount of wealth out of the ground.”

All told, Trump uttered the word “oil” at least 20 times during the press conference. Oil company stocks — ExxonMobil, Halliburton, ConocoPhillips, Valero, Phillips 66 — surged the following day, with Chevron, the only major U.S. oil corporation with a current foothold in Venezuela, seeing its share value jump more than 5 percent.

Further demonstrating the administration’s drug accusations to be mere propaganda, the Justice Department recently dropped its longstanding claim that Maduro was the head of “Cartel de los Soles,” implicitly conceding that it is indeed not a drug cartel but a slang term referring to political officials who have become corrupted by drug money.

The Trump administration’s barefaced imperial grab for Venezuela’s oil is fraught with challenges, and it’s far too early to predict what will happen. But its abduction of Maduro and effort to gain control over Venezuela’s oil industry aligns with the administration’s openly stated vision of reasserting undisputed political and economic hegemony across the Americas and the Caribbean, including control over natural resources and trade routes, through gunboat diplomacy backed by military threats. In doing so, Trump is looking to corporate allies like Chevron, which could stand to benefit handsomely from his administration’s action — though this is far from guaranteed.

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In An Attempt To Smear Trump The Left Is Butchering Ancient History

“Ancient Sparta explains 2026,” Ishaan Tharoor asserted in a Dec. 30 column for The Washington Post. Readers at first glance might be deceived into thinking Tharoor’s analysis would offer insightful commentary about the continued relevance of ancient Greece. But no.

“Myths of Sparta,” claimed Tharoor, “shadow” the rhetoric of the right, which, he said, implicitly carries themes aligned with fascism and even eugenics. Beyond straining the credulity of his readers, Tharoor’s tired analysis suggests that perhaps a good New Year’s resolution for the left would be to abandon ridiculous historical analogies that ironically say more about their liberal promoters than they do about contemporary conservatives.

Trying (and Failing) to Connect MAGA to Hitler via Sparta

Prominent on Tharoor’s list of supposed champions of the ancient militarized slave-based oligarchy of Sparta is Pete Hegseth. The War Department secretary, Tharoor argued, “openly channels supposed Spartan values when he extols the newfound ‘warrior ethos’ of the Trump administration, tightens the Pentagon’s standards for grooming and physical fitness and links the mission of the U.S. military more closely to the White House’s political agenda.” A Google search failed to find a single example of Hegseth talking about Sparta since he assumed office. And if promoting physical fitness standards is “Spartan,” then so is Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” campaign.

Yet Tharoor soldiered on with his faulty analogy: “The waning of the postwar ‘rules-based’ order and the apparent retreat of globalization — sped, in part, by President Donald Trump’s trade wars — has returned us to a kind of ‘Spartan’ moment, some analysts say.” He cites Swedish economic historian Johan Norberg: “There’s very much the Spartan mentality — that the world is a zero-sum game, and if somebody else benefits, you’re worse off. And that seems to be the Trumpian worldview as well, and why Sparta is an ideal for people on the MAGA right.”

Now I could be wrong, but I doubt Trump spends much time thinking about Thermopylae.

Failing to identify any obvious examples of conservatives embracing a “Spartan worldview,” Tharoor (surprise!) returned to Jan. 6. He noted that “some rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, wore Sparta-themed helmets. They also flew flags emblazoned with the Spartan idiom ‘Molon Labe.’” He also indicted gun owners: “U.S. gun rights activists invoke ‘Molon Labe’ as a slogan, a rejection of anyone who would contravene their Second Amendment freedoms.”

Thus did Tharoor make his tenuous connection: A single appropriated Spartan slogan and a few Sparta-themed helmets at a rally from five years ago are enough for him to associate conservatives with the Nazis, given that Hitler admired the Greek city-state for destroying “sick, weak, deformed children.” This comparison is beyond risible — it is sick, given that it is the contemporary left’s pro-abortion and pro-euthanasia policies that are a threat to vulnerable children, whose “quality of life” is deemed insufficiently worthy of being saved. Approximately two-thirds of babies diagnosed with Down syndrome in the womb, for example, are aborted in the United States.

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Relative of Woman Killed During Minneapolis ICE Operation Says She “Should Have Minded Her Own Business”

As the radical left continues to use the death of Renee Nicole Good to fuel their anti-ICE narrative, a surprising voice has emerged from within her own family circle, suggesting the fatal encounter could have been avoided if she hadn’t injected herself into a high-stakes federal operation.

Good, 37, was shot and killed Wednesday morning in Minneapolis after she “weaponized” her vehicle against federal agents.

While the mainstream media and local Democrat politicians like Governor Tim Walz and Mayor Jacob Frey have rushed to martyr Good, calling her a “legal observer” and “peaceful neighbor,” those who knew her are offering a much more complicated picture.

In an exclusive interview with the Daily Mail, Joseph Macklin, the former brother-in-law of the deceased, didn’t hold back.

He suggested that Good had no business being at the scene of the ICE raid in the first place.

“She had no reason to be there, in my opinion. It had nothing to do with her,” Macklin told the outlet. “She shouldn’t have been in the way. She had nothing to do with the ICE agents or immigration, so she shouldn’t have been there. She should have minded her own business.”

Joseph said Good had three children, including a six-year-old son she shared with his brother, Tim Macklin Jr., an Air Force veteran who tragically died in 2023.

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem and President Trump have stood firmly behind the agents, describing the incident as an act of “self-defense” against “domestic terrorism.”

According to federal officials, Good was not merely “driving home” from a school drop-off, as her ex-husband claimed.

DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin stated that Good had been “stalking and impeding” ICE’s work throughout the day before eventually attempting to run over an officer with her SUV.

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78% of Somali Immigrant Households Still on Welfare After a Decade, Congressman Gill Says, Citing State Welfare Stats

78 percent of Somali immigrant households remain on welfare even after a decade in the United States—a statistic that ignited a fierce debate on Capitol Hill and reopened the debate over immigration, welfare dependency, and political accountability. 

The statistic, cited by Rep. Brandon Gill, during a heated Oversight Committee hearing, has become a flashpoint in a broader reckoning over Minnesota’s sprawling welfare system and recent revelations of large-scale fraud.

The exchange unfolded as Rep. Gill pressed state officials and witnesses on disparities in welfare usage. He contrasted the figures he cited for Somali-headed households with far lower rates among native-born Minnesota households, arguing that the gap raised serious questions about policy outcomes.

When challenged, Democratic witnesses attempted to blur the distinction, insisting that many Somali Minnesotans are American-born and culturally integrated. Gill rejected that framing, returning repeatedly to the numbers and arguing that outcomes—not intentions—are what ought to matter in public policy.

The congressman went further, stating that more than 80 percent of Somali-headed households receive some form of welfare assistance. Even after ten years of residency, he said, nearly four in five remain dependent on government support—a figure he argued is incompatible with claims of successful integration.

These remarks landed amid a cascade of corruption investigations in Minnesota that have shaken public confidence. State and federal authorities have uncovered what they describe as one of the largest fraud scandals in recent US history, involving alleged abuse of childcare subsidies, food assistance programs, and healthcare funding.

Investigators estimate that as much as $9 billion may have been siphoned off through fake nonprofits and shell organizations. According to prosecutors, many of these operations inflated enrollment numbers or fabricated services while collecting taxpayer dollars.

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James Comer Slams Pam Bondi DOJ After Viral Chart Shows ZERO Arrests — DOJ Still Sitting on Biden Autopen Pardons Trump Says Are Null and Void

The American people are demanding accountability, but the Department of Justice under Pam Bondi is still dragging its feet.

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer is publicly blasting the Department of Justice under Attorney General Pam Bondi after investigative reporter Catherine Herridge highlighted a viral chart circulating on X that exposes a jaw-dropping lack of accountability — zero arrests tied to some of the biggest political scandals of the last decade.

The chart lays out a long list of scandals that dominated headlines for years, from the Russia collusion narrative and Benghazi to election fraud and the Biden autopen scandal, and they all share the same outcome: zero arrests.

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‘The View’ Co-Host Joy Behar Says ‘Fascism’ Has Arrived in America, Now Living Under Trump ‘Dictatorship’

The View co-host Joy Behar has warned that “fascism” has arrived and that Americans are living under a Trump “dictatorship.”

During Thursday’s edition of the left-wing panel show, Behar urged people to “wake up” to the reality of what they are living under.

She ranted:

Are we in the middle of fascist America? Because in this day yesterday in the left, just this last week, I’m just going to give you a summary of what we’ve been through one week.

Pete Hegseth started an illegal war for oil in Venezuela. Right. Stephen Miller threatened a military takeover of Greenland. RFK Jr. slashed childhood vaccine recommendations and ICE shot and killed a United States citizen in Minneapolis.

Yeah, that sort of adds up to me like a dictatorship in the making that we are now in it. We are in it now.

And American people, I think, have to wake up to this a little bit more than we are. We try very hard to give you what we know, but people have to start reading and watching and paying attention a little bit more than we have, because we can lose it.

These ICE agents, by the way, they get a $50,000 bonus when they sign up. They’re highly motivated people who probably don’t have much going on.

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Democrats’ Faux-Masculinity Superhero Tim Walz Implodes

Tim Walz dropping out of Minnesota’s gubernatorial race hearkens back to the early days of the Harris-Walz 2024 ticket. Less than a week after Kamala Harris secured the Democrat presidential nomination, she selected Walz as her running mate. In Democrats’ imagination, the Minnesota governor would magically sweep the working class, rural voters, and men into the fold like Joe Biden 2.0, all while serving as the Democrat model of manhood — an obsequious, plushie personality nearly entirely feminine in nature, with a few accoutrements of manhood tacked on. Mercifully, the plan failed, along with the Harris-Walz candidacy.

The leftist faux man failed then too, with Trump winning men by a wide margin, but Walz’s resignation from the race for governor is the formal confirmation of that failure, the last sputter in his puttering tenure as Dem comic book star. Democrats won’t let go of their perverted concept of manhood, but it’s a bust as a political tool.

Notably, the welfare fraud dumpster fire that finally sank Walz is really a feature, not a bug, of leftist masculinity. Filled with “compassion” and “Minnesota nice,” Walz oversaw the shoveling of billions of dollars into the coffers of Minnesota’s Somali population, and even on his way out, he touted a new welfare program rife with more fraud opportunities. But that’s exactly what the ideal leftist man does. Forking over taxpayer dollars, whether to spoon-feed the insatiable appetite of “empathy” or atone for colonialist escapades (U.S. or otherwise), is an essential duty. To do so to any lesser degree — even to benefit U.S. citizens — is a cardinal sin that will ostensibly lead to the deaths of millions.

As Democrats’ apex male protagonist, Walz engaged performatively in numerous other activities, such as installing tampons in men’s bathrooms. He also pushed through legislative revisions removing protections for babies born alive after failed abortions — in a state where babies so-called “doctors” tried to kill were already being left to die anyway. He also signed off on driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants, along with taxpayer-funded health care (a measure he’s since repealed). He made Minnesota a sanctuary state for trans-identifying children, inserting himself in parent-child relationships as a fierce proponent of permanent bodily mutilation. Less significantly, Walz spent the 2024 campaign overzealously hurrahing Harris like an insecure male cheerleader desperate not to steal her thunder.

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Zelensky’s Ousting of Popular Intel Leaders Is Drawing Heavy Criticism – Kiev Leader Accused of Clearing the Field of Competitors Before Eventual Election

Is Zelensky getting rid of the competition?

While the eyes of the world are fixated on US moves in Venezuela or Greenland, and on the popular uprising in Iran, the war in Ukraine is unfolding, brutal as ever.

But, getting more exposure than the actual movements in the ground, with Russian forces making gains in the southern Zaporozhie region, it’s the internal machinations of the Kiev regime that is being talked about.

We have reported here on TGP about the removal of the two most powerful directors of intelligence in Ukraine: SBU’s Vasily Malyuk and Kyrylo Budanov from the military intel agency GUR.

The two men were credited with successful operations and countless assassinations.

Their ousting is part of leader Volodymyr Zelensky’s largest intelligence reshuffle of the war.

But the reaction to the changes has been mixed at best.

The New York Times reported:

“Critics say the shake-up risks disrupting operations already underway and may have been made in part for political reasons.

’I see it as removing two competent leaders’, said Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, a former director of the SBU, Ukraine’s domestic intelligence agency, and now a member of Parliament in the political opposition. ‘During the war, my suggestion would be to keep, not shake up, the leadership’. I see nothing good for the security of the country and for special operations.”

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President Trump Withdraws U.S. from 66 International Organizations — Here’s the Full List

President Trump just signed a proclamation withdrawing the United States from dozens of foreign organizations.

These include over 30 United Nations entities, as well as dozens of other international groups that do not serve American interests.

Here’s the full list of all the organizations President Trump just pulled us out of:

Non-UN Organizations
• 24/7 Carbon-Free Energy Compact
• Colombo Plan Council
• Commission for Environmental Cooperation
• Education Cannot Wait
• European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats
• Forum of European National Highway Research Laboratories
• Freedom Online Coalition
• Global Community Engagement and Resilience Fund
• Global Counterterrorism Forum
• Global Forum on Cyber Expertise
• Global Forum on Migration and Development
• Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research
• Intergovernmental Forum on Mining, Minerals, Metals & Sustainable Development
• Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
• Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity & Ecosystem Services
• International Centre for the Study of the Preservation & Restoration of Cultural Property
• International Cotton Advisory Committee
• International Development Law Organization
• International Energy Forum
• International Federation of Arts Councils & Culture Agencies
• International Institute for Democracy & Electoral Assistance
• International Institute for Justice & the Rule of Law
• International Lead & Zinc Study Group
• International Renewable Energy Agency
• International Solar Alliance
• International Tropical Timber Organization
• International Union for Conservation of Nature
• Pan American Institute of Geography & History
• Partnership for Atlantic Cooperation
• Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy in Asia
• Regional Cooperation Council
• Renewable Energy Policy Network for the 21st Century
• Science & Technology Center in Ukraine
• Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme
• Venice Commission (Council of Europe)

United Nations Organizations
• UN Department of Economic & Social Affairs
• ECOSOC — Economic Commission for Africa
• ECOSOC — Economic Commission for Latin America & the Caribbean
• ECOSOC — Economic & Social Commission for Asia & the Pacific
• ECOSOC — Economic & Social Commission for Western Asia
• International Law Commission
• International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals
• International Trade Centre
• Office of the Special Adviser on Africa
• SRSG for Children in Armed Conflict
• SRSG on Sexual Violence in Conflict
• SRSG on Violence Against Children
• Peacebuilding Commission
• Peacebuilding Fund
• Permanent Forum on People of African Descent
• UN Alliance of Civilizations
• UN-REDD Programme
• UN Conference on Trade & Development
• UN Democracy Fund
• UN Energy
• UN Women
• UN Framework Convention on Climate Change
• UN Human Settlements Programme
• UN Institute for Training & Research
• UN Oceans
• UN Population Fund
• UN Register of Conventional Arms
• UN System Chief Executives Board for Coordination
• UN System Staff College
• UN Water
• UN University

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WHO IS RENEE NICOLE GOOD? “She/Her” Recently Moved Back From Canada Where She Was Trying To Escape Trump—She Was “Trained against these ICE agents” and Won Prize For Grotesque Poem “On Learning To Dissect Fetal Pigs”

Yesterday, several videos went viral of Renee Nicole Macklin Good blocking ICE from driving down a neighborhood street in Minneapolis with a vehicle during an ICE raid.

In one of the videos, several ICE agents are seen approaching the vehicle where Good was sitting in the driver’s seat. Her Honda SUV was parked perpendicular to traffic.

Two ICE agents approach the window of the vehicle and demand that she move. She backs up, repositions her tires so she is aiming directly at the ICE agent standing to her right, and points her vehicle at the ICE agent in front of her.

In the video, she appears to accelerate, and her vehicle appears to be moving toward the ICE agent. The ICE agent in front of her vehicle then opens fire at Ms. Good.

The 37-year-old Renee Nicole Macklin Good was killed by the gunshots fired by the ICE agent who appeared to be in her path.

According to a report by the Daily Mail, Jon Ross, the ICE agent who reportedly shot Nicole Macklin Good Ross is an ‘experienced’ officer, sources told the Minneapolis Star Tribune, but last year suffered gruesome injuries in Bloomington, MN, as he tried to arrest an illegal immigrant sex offender.

‘He’s the same ICE agent who got dragged by car 50 feet back in June, so he has a history,’ an FBI agent who spoke to the Daily Mail on condition of anonymity confirmed.

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