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Good Friday Morning! And Happy New Year! I hope your 2026 is blessed, and thank you for being a subscriber. The last time I wrote this, it was just before Christmas, and approximately 1,000 things have seemingly happened since then. But no matter what has happened, or what your personal goals are for the year, they won’t beat a woman in Alexandria, Virginia, who eats her meals by “snorting it through a straw, up her nose.”
Yes, you read that correctly. The New York Post interviewed the lady, who was featured on TLC’s show “My Strange Addiction,” who “snorts” all her food through a straw up her nose and into her stomach. And that is everything from fruit smoothies and drinks to steak and omelettes.
Everything gets blended up, and down the nostril it goes. If you click on that link, you can see a picture of her lining things up. The television show focused on her springing this habit on an unlucky guy who watched her down some grits through a straw at a restaurant. She literally asked the waiter if they had a blender…
Dating apps are something else. I’m adding this personality quirk to the “No” column. Sorry, ladies.
Don’t swipe away just yet, though. I’m not going to write about food snorters all day – though, it is entertaining – we’ve got lots of news to cover. 2026 is kicking off with a bang, literally, if you’re in Venezuela, I’ll cover that and more below with links to follow.
Quick Hits:
- The Minnesota shooting reveals an escalating left. I watched the Minnesota shooting involving the ICE agent break on X/Twitter. I’ve got a column on that below. More broadly, though, it is disturbing how far the left is shifting on violence and confrontation with the federal government. Tim Walz put the National Guard on standbywhile hinting pretty heavily that they could be used to counter ICE/CBP actions. That state vs federal government standoff is the kind of stuff we haven’t seen since the Civil War. An exposé on the money behind the anti-ICE movements, and how “car attacks” against federal officials have skyrocketed, explains where we are. Democrats are blaming ICE and Trump for violence – but they have legal authority to act. These amateur hour “activist” groups, who are increasingly physical and violent with federal authorities, are creating the dangerous situations. They actively want blood. And that’s creating a lot of issues.
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Where you can find me this week
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The United States Remembers Its Power – Conservative Institute
America Reminded Everyone: It’s A Unipolar World – Conservative Institute
The Left Is Creating Deadly Situations In Minnesota – Conservative Institute
2026: America Reasserts A Unipolar World
I said that 2026 started with a bang above, and that’s for numerous reasons, not the least of which is that America as a superpower is fully back. I’ve written multiple columns on this so far. I could write many others, but embarrassing Venezuela, China, Russia, and communists all in one fatal swoop with Maduro is one of the more remarkable things we’ve ever done.
But that’s not all that’s happening worldwide, making this an exciting year already.
- Venezuela is leaderless, with the United States controlling it (and kicking out China, Russia, Iran, and Hamas)
- A radical leftist group knocked out electricity in Berlin, Germany. Entire segments of the city have been dark for weeks. The Trump administration declared this specific Antifa group a terrorist organization last year.
- Cuba is on the brink of collapse. It was already experiencing rolling blackouts and more. The loss of Venezuelan oil will likely kill shot their economy. It would not be shocking if Trump/Rubio used that to cripple them.
- Protests are roiling Iran. The country is in its second week of sensational demonstrations, with people swarming cities demanding change. Thursday evening, reports came out of the government gunning for these protesters, bringing that country back to the brink (and a question of whether Trump strikes the government).
- And then… there’s Minnesota. Fraud investigations are exploding. To give you a sense of how bad: a report came out this week that TSA is aware that Somalians have moved $700 million in actual cash through the airport, to be flown to Somalia.
Last year at this time, I was mainly looking at the economy for the year ahead. Trump’s move on that has been to ignore inflation, pursue tariffs, and run the economy hot. That’s why we’re getting hot GDP prints, rising unemployment, and other issues. It’s a repeat of the 1970s, except with an extra layer of rapidly expanding artificial intelligence.
This year, the outlook is really focused on geopolitics. We do not live in the same world in 2026 that we did 12 months ago.
Russia and China learned in that span that their militaries were decades behind the United States. China’s radars were worthless against U.S. technology. We took Maduro while they were there visiting him.
It’s not just embarrassing for the Chinese; they now have to assume we can strike them anywhere within their country at will, and that includes places like the Three Gorges Dam, which would wreck vast segments of the country if it exploded.
Russia’s military equipment has proven useless in Ukraine, Iran, and now Venezuela. Russia, quite literally, only has its nuclear arsenal to fall back on. That is its only deterrence right now.
That brings me to Taiwan: any invasion of that island would have to be carried out in a way that could overcome U.S. tech. China would have to, for the first time, project force abroad. They can’t do that right now. They have no military presence abroad, and now they look even weaker.
That’s not to say China won’t do anything. Everyone can and will respond to this moment of American supremacy. But the tactical reality has radically changed. Everyone got exposed in one fatal raid, and there’s no going back.
Europe’s complaints are the most annoying out of this group. They demand to be taken seriously and to be part of everything that’s happening. But they can’t project force anywhere, either. They continue to do little to stop Russia while trading with China. They are quite literally useless.
A common refrain you’ll hear is that the United States is a “bully.” And I can see why it comes off that way. But this is one of those moments when the entire world is reminded that it does not live in a community of nations: it is a unipolar world. America is the Rome of our day. We rule everything because we can put forces anywhere we want, for any reason. We toppled Venezuela in about 3 hours.
There’s no “great power” competition going on right now. It’s America versus everyone else. And the problem for everyone else is simple: we’re generations ahead of them on technology.
I don’t know how all these different scenarios play out. It’s impossible to tell for now. But America’s enemies are living in fear, and that’s a good thing. If Trump and Rubio continue this push, we will end up locking down the Arctic (through Greenland), kicking all the communists out of Central and South America, and reestablishing a stronghold in the western hemisphere. I’ll take it.
If the United States does this, we’ll effectively be walled off from what happens on the other side of the globe. The pandemic showed that stuff can still spread. But we’ll have a better grip on things.
The Iran bombing and the Maduro raid stand out as the two massive decisions for the president so far. Those two decisions have also radically altered what Beijing and Moscow think and believe.
That’s a good thing in my book. Where things move from here is a mess. Venezuela will have to get new leadership eventually, and be allowed to purge itself of Maduro/communist loyalists. How that plays out is anyone’s guess.
But if Cuba topples, too, we’re looking at a complete reshaping of the Middle East and South America in two blows. With the midterms looming as the big event of the year, Trump will likely focus even harder on his “Donroe Doctrine.” It’s the script most presidents play in their second term.
Links of the week
The Maduro indictment appears legally solid – The Atlantic
Dear Democrats: What is Your List of Demands? – Sasha Stone
The Future of the Left in the 21st Century (Part Three): Merit, biology, and patriotic realism. – The Liberal Patriot
The Demise of Religion Among Democrats: It is difficult for a party dominated by secular elites to connect with the values and beliefs of other Americans. – The Liberal Patriot
It Turns Out That Americans Like Success – Harry Enten
Fetterman on Greenland: ‘Ideally, we purchase it’ – The Hill
Many Schools Don’t Think Students Can Read Full Novels – The Guardian
Meet the Group Behind the Pro-Maduro Protests: The People’s Forum is an “incubator” for leftist radicals—and eerily reminiscent of a cult. – City Journal
Here’s who’s really behind the Minneapolis ICE resistance movement – NYPost
X/Twitter Thread(s) of the week
Anti-ICE protestors chant for Kristi Noem’s death.
The group behind the mass protests in Minnesota.
Satire of the week
RFK Jr. Recommends Drinking Anything That Comes Out Of Cow – Onion
Tim Walz Calls In Somali Military To Fight Against ICE – The Babylon Bee
Exhausted Nation Wishes Minnesota Would Be Normal For Like Five Minutes – The Babylon Bee
5 reasons this war for oil will be better than the last war for oil, and the one before that – Duffel Blog
How to Keep Your Home Guest-Ready by Never Hosting Anyone – Reductress
Baby Saves Marriage, Kills Band – The Hard Times
As a Rollerblading Graffiti Artist, I Resent How Easy “Jet Grind Radio” Makes My Job Look – The Hard Drive
“You Think You Have It Bad?” Office Man United Fan Cautions Venezuelan Co-Worker – Waterford Whispers News