U.S. Threats to Venezeula Are Ramping Up, Not Down

Reporting has recently emerged that the United States is considering direct strikes on Venezuela that could increase volatility in the region and the risk of war.

Under the pretext of disrupting the flow of drugs into the United States by Venezuelan drug cartels, the U.S. has militarized the waters off the coast of Venezuela, flooding them with Aegis guided-missile destroyers, a nuclear-powered fast track submarine, P-8 spy planes and F-35 fighter jets. On September 2, American forces fired on a small speed boat that the U.S. claims was running drugs for a Venezuelan cartel.

The Donald Trump administration is yet to offer evidence for its claim. They have neither publicly identified who the eleven people who were killed on the boat were nor what drugs they were carrying. Congress has still not been briefed.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the boat was “probably headed to Trinidad or some other country in the Caribbean.” Trump says it was bound for the United States. Turns out, it was headed back to Venezuela.

U.S. officials familiar with the operation have now told The New York Times that, having “spotted the military aircraft stalking it,” the boat has already “altered its course and appeared to have turned around before the attack started.” The twenty-nine second video that Trump posted on social media spliced together several clips but edited out the boat turning around. Despite this lack of imminent threat, the aircraft, either an attack helicopter or an MQ-9 Reaper drone, “repeatedly hit the vessel before it sank.”

The Trump administration has claimed the right to supplant the National Guard and law enforcement with the military and lethal force on the grounds that the drug cartels are terrorist organizations who pose a threat to the national security of the United States because the drugs they bring into the country to kill Americans. The U.S. has invoked the right to self-defense, and Rubio has insisted that the speed boat was “an immediate threat to the United States.” Except that if it had turned around, it wasn’t.

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UN Faces Big Budget Cuts And Job Losses After US Funding Dries Up

The UN has announced it will need to cut $500m from their 2026 budget and will lay off 20% of its staff as it struggles to cope with a massive reduction in funding by the Trump administration.  Trump has eliminated at least $1 billion in total funding from the UN.  

The plan is likely to involve an initial minimum 3,000 job cuts out of a 35,000-strong main workforce, with eventual job losses at around 7,000. The overall UN core or regular budget would be cut from $3.7bn to about $3.2bn next year. It means reductions of 15.1% in resources and 18.8% in posts in the regular budget compared with the 2025 budget.

Despite the funding losses, UN Secretary General António Guterres continues to press ahead with his new “pact for the future” focusing on artificial intelligence and policies for sustainable development.  The UN is now looking for alternative funding for their operations, though, it is unlikely they will be able to fill the void left by US cuts.  Most countries have no interest in paying more; the reliance has been entirely on Americans for generations.

Critics of the Trump Administration argue that distancing the US from the UN will lead to disaster.  They claim that in the aftermath of World War I, the failure of the United States to join the League of Nations (supported by elitist President Woodrow Wilson) was a contributing factor to the outbreak of World War II. 

In reality, the League of Nations and the UN are precursors to global centralization.  Widespread war has always been the excuse used to push individual nations into greater compliance with globalist ideologies.  The end goal is ultimately to erase nation states and citizen governance altogether.  Just as the European Union is run by a gaggle of faceless and unaccountable bureaucrats, a “global union” would be operated in the same fashion. 

War is an acceptable risk, because separate nations and cultures help to prevent homogenized global tyranny.

Global organizations have only brought the US public misery in recent years through universal pandemic mandates and multiculturalist agendas that lead to mass immigration from the third world.  The UN has been the spearhead for “climate change” regulations around the world, from carbon emissions taxation to population control.  Man-made climate change claims have been largely debunked in recent years and the public is waking up to the reality that carbon emissions have little or nothing to do with changing temperatures. 

Faith in the UN’s purpose is dying, and their humanitarian efforts look more and more like a cover for a group that wants power and control more than it want’s what’s best for the public.  It’s difficult to defend the idea of taxpayer dollars continuing to pay for their operations.

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Matt Gaetz Blasts Israel: Secret Hamas Funding, Propaganda Deals, and Political Screening Exposed

Matt Gaetz launched a blistering critique of Israel, exposing shocking secrets and tangled alliances behind the Gaza conflict. He revealed Netanyahu’s secret $30 million monthly funding request to Hamas via Qatar—an admission only recently made public—while condemning Israel’s bombings of Qatar despite the Gulf state gifting the U.S. a $400 million jet.

Gaetz also called out Israel’s $45 million deal with Google to push propaganda on the Gaza war and took aim at Speaker Mike Johnson’s controversial stance on screening congressional candidates for alignment with Israeli government policies amid waning support.

Gaetz stated on his show, “Israel is using American-made weapons to bomb Qatar — a country that hosts our largest military base in the Middle East. This isn’t just a conflict; it’s a betrayal of a close ally.”

Gaetz is right to point out the alarming reality that Israel used American-made weapons to attack Qatar — a vital U.S. ally that hosts the largest American military base in the Middle East.

This unprecedented strike against a partner nation raises serious questions about Netanyahu’s intentions: Is he targeting the U.S. military presence in Qatar next? What further aggressive moves might be planned in this escalating regional conflict?

The attack marks a dangerous escalation with major implications for U.S. defense cooperation and Middle East stability.

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‘I hope he’s the first of many’: Trans activist pushes ‘bloody’ fight, urges others to rise up and murder Americans who think like Charlie Kirk

A transgender activist has issued a graphic call to assassinate other Americans who think like Charlie Kirk, the Christian conservative champion who was gunned down Sept. 10.

Video of the activist, whom social media users identify as Kimberly McNeely, a purported tarot-card reader from Murfreesboro, Tennessee, reveals a disturbing call for blood recorded a day after Kirk was struck by a bullet while speaking at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah.

“F*** Charlie Kirk,” the individual begins. “I don’t want to see people hurt. Nobody deserves that. Some people do deserve that. People whose lives are causing death and harm to others, they f***ing deserve it.

“I hope he’s the first of many because it’s not like our kindness, our empathy is keeping our people from getting killed. It’s not.”

“It’s time for minorities to stop being small, to stop being quiet, to stop being digestible. It’s time for minorities to rise the f*** up, to fight f***ing back. And sometimes fighting is messy, sometimes it’s bloody. And that’s the f***ing way it has to be. I’m not gonna apologize for that. I will die on this f***ing hill.

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Harris: Trump Is a ‘Tyrant’ Killing Capitalism to Stroke His ‘Fragile Ego’

Monday on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show,” former Vice President Kamala Harris called President Donald Trump a “tyrant” for demanding concessions from law firms, universities and entertainment companies.

She claimed that destroys capitalism.

Harris said, “I am a lifelong public servant, and but I’ve worked closely with the private sector over many years, and I always believed that if push came to shove, those titans of industry would be guardrails for our democracy, for the importance of sustaining democratic institutions. One by one by one, they have been silent. They have been, you know, yes, I use the word feckless. They’re it’s not like they’re going to lose their yacht or their house in the Hamptons. And here’s the thing. democracy sustains capitalism. Capitalism thrives in a democracy and right now we are dealing with, as I called him at my speech on the ellipse, a tyrant. We used to compare the strength of our democracy to communist dictators. That’s what we’re dealing with right now in Donald Trump.”

She continued, “These titans of industry are not speaking up. Perhaps it is because his threats and the way he has used the weight of the federal government to take out vengeance on his critics is something that they fear.”

Harris added, “Perhaps it is because they want to please him and nominate him for a Nobel prize. Perhaps it’s because they want a merger approved, or they want to avoid an investigation. But at some point, they’ve got to stand up for the sake of the people who rely on all of these institutions to have integrity and at some point be the guardrails against a tyrant who is using the federal government to execute his whim and fancy because of a fragile ego.”

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What’s In a Name? The ‘Defense’ Department Has Always Been About War

The renaming of the Defense Department should have surprised no one. Donald Trump is an incipient fascist doing what such figures do. Surrounded by a coterie of illiberal ideologues and careerist sycophants, he and his top aides have dispensed with pretense and precedent, moving at breakneck speed to demolish what remains of the battered façade of American democracy.

In eight months, his second administration has unleashed a shock-and-awe assault on norms and institutions, civil liberties, human rights, and history itself. But fascism never respects borders. Fascists don’t recognize the rule of law. They consider themselves the law. Expansion and the glorification of war are their lifeblood. Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini put it all too bluntly: the fascist “believes neither in the possibility nor the utility of perpetual peace… war alone brings up to its highest tension all human energy and puts the stamp of nobility upon the peoples who have courage to meet it.”

Pete Hegseth is now equally blunt. From the Pentagon, he’s boasting of restoring a “warrior ethos” to the armed forces, while forging an offensive military that prizes “maximum lethality, not tepid legality. Violent effect, not politically correct.” The message couldn’t be clearer: when the U.S. loses wars, as it has done consistently despite commanding the most powerful military in history, it’s not due to imperial overreach, political arrogance, or popular resistance. Rather, defeat stems from that military having gone “woke,” a euphemism for failing to kill enough people.

The recent rechristening of the Department of Defense as the Department of War was certainly a culture-war stunt like Trump’s demand that the Gulf of Mexico be renamed the Gulf of America. But it also signaled something more insidious: a blunt escalation of the criminal logic that has long underwritten U.S. militarism. That logic sustained both the Cold War of the last century and the War on Terror of this one, destroying millions of lives.

When Hegseth defended the recent summary executions of 11 alleged Venezuelan drug smugglers on a boat in the Caribbean, he boasted that Washington possesses “absolute and complete authority” to kill anywhere without Congressional approval or evidence of a wrong and in open defiance of international law. The next day, in responding on X to a user who called what had been done a war crime, Vance wrote, “I don’t give a shit what you call it.” It was the starkest admission since the Iraq War that Washington no longer pretends to operate internationally under the rule of law but under the rule of force, where might quite simply makes right.

While such an escalation of verbiage — the brazen confession of an imperial power that believes itself immune from accountability — should alarm us, it’s neither unprecedented nor unexpected. Peace, after all, has never been the profession of the U.S. military. The Department of Defense has always been the Department of War.

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Vermont Christian School Reinstated After Being Banned for Refusing to Compete Against Trans Athlete

A federal appeals court has ruled in a favor of a Christian school in Vermont that was banned by state officials from participating in school competitions for refusing to play against a team with a transgender-identifying athlete. 

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit issued an order on September 9 overturning a lower court order and granting a preliminary injunction to Mid Vermont Christian School blocking the Vermont Principals’ Association (VPA) expulsion of the school as litigation goes on, Fox News reported. The panel of judges ruled that the school is “likely to succeed” on its Free Exercise claim because the VPA’s actions show “hostility toward the school’s religious beliefs.” 

In February of 2023, Mid Vermont’s girls basketball team “forfeited a playoff game against Long Trail School” after they found out “a transgender-identifying male student” was on the opposing team. Mid Vermont school officials said at the time that they were concerned about fairness and safety for their female players, according to the report.

A few weeks later, the VPA responded by expelling the Christian school from all state-sponsored sports, as well as non-athletic events such as science fairs and spelling bees.

Alliance Defending Freedom subsequently filed a lawsuit against state officials on behalf to the Christian school and one of its families. The lawsuit alleges that state officials punished the school for exercising its religious liberty, which is protected by the First Amendment.

VPA Executive Director Jay Nichols allegedly accused the school of “blatant discrimination under the guise of religious freedom” just two days after the school forfeited the game, according to court documents. The VPA’s appeals committee also called the school’s safety concerns a “myth” and labeled its religious objection “wrong,” the report states. 

“It is a myth that transgender students endanger others when they participate in high school sports or create unfair competition,” the committee wrote.

Head coach Chris Goodwin, who has held the position for almost a decade and whose daughter is a member of the team, told the outlet that the school’s decision was tough but necessary. 

“It’s clear in Scripture that there is a difference between males and females. So if we decided to play that game, in essence, we’d be agreeing with the state’s belief system that boys can be girls and male athletes can be female athletes,” he said.

Goodwin told the outlet his team had to drive several hours away to neighboring states to compete in a Christian league after the VPA’s decision, which resulted in athletes losing exposure and scholarship opportunities. 

“Athletics in high school and junior high is a really big part of the overall educational experience. So for that to be taken away from the kids was very disappointing, and for them to lose out on opportunities to be recognized in the state as all-state athletes or all-conference athletes and also have the possibility of receiving scholarships is a big deal. And they were denied that opportunity by the state,” he said.

David Cortman, senior counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom, told the outlet the Second Circuit’s decision should set a precedent and protect other religious schools that face similar dilemmas. 

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L.A. School District to Ban Fifth-Grade Plays About U.S. History: ‘Culturally Insensitive’

The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) is banning a celebrated series of fifth-grade musical plays about American history at a local charter school because, the district says, they are “culturally insensitive.”

For nearly three decades, the fifth-graders at Marquez Charter Elementary in Pacific Palisades have performed musicals about crucial periods in the formation of the United States.

These include Miracle in Philadelphia, about the Constitutional Convention; Hello, Louisiana!, about the voyage of Lewis and Clark; and Water and Power, about the Industrial Revolution. (A fourth-grade play, Gold Dust or Bust, focuses on the history of California.)

The musicals, co-written by Jeff Lantos (with music composed by the late jazz pianist Bill Augustine), are so successful in conveying historical details that Marquez students consistently score off the charts in history assessments.

A 2004 academic study of the Marquez plays observed: “Students who attended Marquez Elementary School scored more than twice as many items correctly [on history tests] as did students from other schools.”

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US Officials Say Regime Change in Venezuela Is the Real Goal of Military Action in the Caribbean

US officials have told The New York Times that the real goal of the US military buildup in the Caribbean, and the bombing of boats in the region, is regime change in Venezuela.

The policy is being largely driven by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has long wanted to remove Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro from power. Back in 2019, when the first Trump administration attempted to back a coup against Maduro, Rubio posted a photo on Twitter of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in the moment he was being brutally murdered in an apparent threat to the Venezuelan leader.

The Trump administration claims that Maduro is the leader of a drug cartel, but has not produced any evidence for the charge. Maduro and other Venezuelan officials have forcefully rejected the accusation and have pointed to data that shows the majority of the cocaine that is produced in Colombia doesn’t go through Venezuela.

President Trump has also framed the military campaign in the region as a response to overdose deaths in the US due to fentanyl, but fentanyl isn’t produced in Venezuela, and it does not go through the country on its way to the US.

The Times report, which was published over the weekend, reads: “Several current and former military officials, diplomats, and intelligence officers say that while fighting drugs is the pretext for the recent US attacks, the real goal is to drive Mr. Maduro from power, one way or another.”

The US began bombing boats allegedly running drugs in the Caribbean on September 2. According to numbers released by President Trump, at least 17 people have been extrajudicially executed by the US military since the campaign began. US officials have said the Trump administration is considering direct strikes on Venezuelan territory, which could lead to a full-blown war with the country.

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Israeli Foreign Ministry Says It Won’t Allow Aid Flotilla To Break Blockade on Gaza

The Israeli Foreign Ministry on Monday issued a threat to the Global Sumud Flotilla, which is attempting to break Israel’s starvation siege on Gaza, warning that it wouldn’t allow the boats to breach the Israeli blockade.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry has also labeled the flotilla as “Hamas,” suggesting that Israel may target the boats with military strikes. Earlier this month, two of the boats came under drone attack while they were in port in Tunisia, causing fires and damage but no injuries to the crew.

“Statement Regarding the Hamas Flotilla (‘Sumud’): This flotilla, organized by Hamas, is intended to serve Hamas,” the Israeli Foreign Ministry wrote on X. “Israel will not allow vessels to enter an active combat zone and will not allow the breach of a lawful naval blockade.”

The ministry said that if the “flotilla participants’ genuine wish is to deliver humanitarian aid rather than serve Hamas, Israel calls on the vessels to dock at the Ashkelon Marina and unload the aid there, from where it will be transferred promptly in a coordinated manner to the Gaza Strip.” But the IDF continues to block food aid and humanitarian goods from entering Gaza despite an ongoing famine in the Palestinian territory.

Dozens of boats are participating in the Sumud Flotilla, marking the fourth attempt this year to break Israel’s blockade, and the first time multiple vessels are being used in a single effort. According to a flotilla tracker, a total of 51 boats are heading to Gaza, with the majority currently off the coast of Libya.

The first boat to try to break the blockade this year, the Conscience, came under Israeli drone attack off the coast of Malta in May, halting its journey.

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