United States | News & Politics

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7234317

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/17007

Update***:***

President Donald Trump said Saturday that the US intends to control Venezuela until a "proper transition can take place," indicating that the bombing of the South American country and abduction of its president were just the start of the Trump administration's illegal intervention there.

"We are going to run the country," Trump said during a press conference at his Florida resort, flanked by top US officials. Asked to elaborate, Trump said his administration is in the process of "designating various people" to run the government, adding that "we're not afraid of boots on the ground."

The president went on to say that US forces are prepared to launch "a much larger attack" on Venezuela if he deems it necessary, threatening other political figures in the country.

"What happened to Maduro can happen to them," he said.

Trump also declared that American fossil fuel companies will "go in and spend billions of dollars" in Venezuela, which has the largest known oil reserves in the world.

Earlier***:***

President Donald Trump is set to hold a press conference late Saturday morning at his Mar-a-Lago resort hours after US forces bombed Venezuela and abducted the nation's president, Nicolás Maduro, who is being taken to New York to face new federal charges.

The press conference is scheduled to begin at 11 am ET, and it comes as Trump is facing backlash at home and around the world for launching an illegal regime-change war.

Watch live:

In a Fox News appearance ahead of the press conference, Trump brushed aside criticism from Democratic lawmakers and others who said the US bombing of Venezuela and abduction of its president were illegal.

Democratic lawmakers expressing that view are "weak, stupid people," the president said, declaring that the actions he approved without congressional authorization and in violation of international law should be applauded.

“They should say, 'Great job,'” Trump said. “They shouldn’t say, ‘Oh, gee, maybe it’s not constitutional.’ You know the same old stuff that we’ve been hearing for years and years and years.”

Trump went on to declare that the US will "be involved" in Venezuela's political future following Maduro's abduction. Asked if he would throw his support behind right-wing opposition leader María Corina Machado, the US president said, "We have to look at it."

"They have a vice president, as you know," said Trump, referring to Delcy Rodríguez, who is next in line to take power.

An indictment unsealed Saturday morning shows that Maduro, his wife, and top Venezuelan officials will face federal drug trafficking and narcoterrorism charges.

The document characterizes Maduro as "previously the president of Venezuela."

CNN reported that the raid resulting in Maduro and his wife's capture was carried out by the US Army's elite Delta Force.

"The couple was captured in the middle of the night as they were sleeping," the outlet reported, citing unnamed sources. "A team of FBI agents was with the US special operation forces who carried out the capture."

From Common Dreams via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7234316

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/17005

A little after 2 am, Venezuela time, on January 3, 2026, in violation of Article 2 of the United Nations Charter, the United States began an attack on several sites in the country, including Caracas, the capital. Residents awoke to loud noises and flashes, as well as large helicopters in the sky. Videos began to appear on social media, but without much context. Confusion and rumor flooded social media.

Within an hour, the sky was quiet. US President Donald Trump announced at 4:21 am that his forces had conducted attacks on Venezuela and had seized President Nicolás Maduro Moro and his wife Cilia Flores. A short while later, Venezuela’s Vice President Delcy Rodriquez confirmed that the whereabouts of Maduro and Flores are unknown. The US Attorney General Pamela Bondi confirmed that Maduro and Flores were in the United States and had been charged with “Narco-Terrorism Conspiracy”.

The outcome of this attack on Venezuela is unclear. The government remains in control, even with the President having been kidnapped. The people of Venezuela are in shock but defiant. It is unclear if the United States will strike again, or if the US government has a clear political plan for the aftermath of this strike.

The war against Venezuela

The attack on January 3 is not the first against Venezuela. In fact, the pressure campaign began in 2001 when the government of Hugo Chávez enacted a Hydrocarbons Law in accordance with the sovereignty provisions in the Bolivarian Constitution of 1999. That campaign had the following aspects (this is an illustrative and not a comprehensive list):

1. (2001) US funding of anti-Bolivarian social and political groups through the National Endowment for Democracy and USAID.
2. (2002) US role in the attempted coup d’état.
3. (2002) Creation by USAID’s Office of Transition Initiatives of a Venezuela program.
4. (2003-2004) Funding and political direction for the work of Súmate (led by Maria Corina Machado) to recall Chávez by referendum.
5. (2004) Development of a 5-Point Strategy to “penetrate” Chávez’s base, “divide” Chavismo, “isolate” Chávez, build up groups such as Súmate, and “protect vital US business interests”.
6. (2015) US President Barack Obama signs an executive order that declares Venezuela to be an “extraordinary threat”, which is the legal basis for the sanctions that followed.
7. (2017) Venezuela banned from access to US financial markets.
8. (2018) International banks and shipping companies pressured to over-comply with illegal US sanctions, while the Bank of England seized the Venezuelan Central Bank gold reserves.
9. (2019) Create an “interim” government by “appointing” Juan Guaidó as the US authorized president and organize a (failed) uprising, and freeze Venezuela’s ability to sell oil as well as seize its oil assets overseas.
10. (2020) Attempt to kidnap Maduro through Operation Gideon (and by placing a bounty for his capture), while the US put a “maximum pressure” campaign on Venezuela during the pandemic (including International Monetary Fund denial of Venezuela’s own reserves).
11. (2025) Gift of the Nobel Peace Prize to Maria Corina Machado with the Nobel Committee saying that Maduro should leave office.
12. (2025-2026) The attacks on small boats off the coast of Venezuela, the positioning of an armada to form an embargo of Venezuela, and the seizure of oil tankers from Venezuela.

The attack on January 3 is part of this war that began in 2001 and will continue long after the engines of the Chinook helicopters cool down.

The eagle is angry

When the United States government decides to act unilaterally, whether against Iraq in 2003 or Venezuela between 2001 and 2026, no other force has been able to stop it yet. In 2003, millions of people – including in the United States – marched on the streets to demand no war, and most governments in the world cautioned against the war, but the governments of George W. Bush and Tony Blair (of the United Kingdom, acting as his no. 2) went ahead with their illegal war. This time, major powers informed the United States that a war in South America and the Caribbean would be immensely destabilizing: this was the view of leaders who govern countries that neighbor Venezuela (Brazil and Colombia) and major powers such as China (whose special envoy – Qiu Xiaoqi – met with Maduro only hours before the US attack). Not only could the world not stop the US in 2003, but it has also been unable to stop the US between 2001 and now in its obsessive war for oil against Venezuela.

The attack on Venezuela was timed so that Trump could stand before the US houses of Congress on January 4, when he will give his annual address, and claim that he has scored a major victory. This is not a victory. It is just another example of unilateralism that will not improve the situation in the world. The US illegal war on Iraq ended with the US forced to withdraw after a million civilians had been killed in a ruthless decade; the same transpired in Afghanistan and Libya – two countries ruined by the American Eagle.

It is impossible to imagine a different future for Venezuela if the United States continues with its bombing and sends ground troops into the country. No good comes from these “regime change wars”, and none will come here either. There is a reason why Brazil and Colombia are uneasy with this attack, because they know that the only outcome will be long-term destabilization in the entire northern half of South America, if not in the entire region of Latin America. This is precisely what has transpired in the northern half of Africa (Trump’s bombing of Nigeria is part of the detritus of the 2011 NATO bombing of Libya).

Trump will get his standing ovation at the US Congress, but the price for that has already been paid by hundreds of dead civilians in Venezuela and millions more who are struggling to survive the long-term hybrid war imposed by the United States on Venezuela for the past two decades.

Taroa Zúñiga Silva is a writer and Spanish media coordinator for Globetrotter. She is the director of the publishing house La Trocha and a member of the Mecha cooperative, a project of the Liberation Communication Army. She is co-editor, along with Giordana García Sojo, of the book Venezuela, vortex of the 21st-century war (2020).

Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian, editor, and journalist. He is a member of the editorial board and chief correspondent for Globetrotter. He is editor-in-chief of LeftWord Books and director of the Tricontinental Institute for Social Research. He has written more than 20 books, including Dark Nations and Poor Nations. His most recent books are Fighting Makes Us Human: Learning from Movements for Socialism, The Retreat: Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, and the Fragility of American Power, and On Cuba: 70 Years of Revolution and Struggle (the latter two co-authored with Noam Chomsky).

This article was written by Globetrotter.

The post The United States attacks Venezuela and kidnaps its president in an illegal operation appeared first on Peoples Dispatch.

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Mayor Mamdani chose the third full day of his tenure to announce that he will complete the full safety redesign of deadly McGuinness Boulevard in Greenpoint — a project that was created under Mayor Bill de Blasio, but watered down by Mayor Adams in a corruption scandal.

By reviving the originally proposed DOT plan, Mamdani said McGuinness Boulevard would be narrowed to one travel lane in each direction between the Pulaski Bridge and the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway to accommodate a parking-protected bike lane. Currently, only the southern portion of the stretch enjoys the benefits of a road diet; north of Calyer Street, the Adams administration maintained two car lanes in either direction of the dangerous stretch.

"The city committed to a redesign of McGuinness Boulevard ... to deliver the safety and improvements that residents had been asking for until the prior administration bowed to big money interests, leaving the project incomplete and Greenpointers still at risk. Today, however, there is a new mayor in City Hall," he said, evoking the "ax" swung by Robert Moses to widen a then-residential street into the McGuinness Boulevard highway we know today.

By MEE staff
Published date: 3 January 2026 09:34 GMT
Last update: 09:11 EST

In a statement, the Venezuelan government said it "rejects, condemns and denounces the extremely serious military aggression" carried out by the US against its territory and population.

"The objective of this attack is nothing other than the seizure of Venezuela’s strategic resources, particularly its oil and minerals, through an attempt to forcibly break the nation’s political independence," the statement said.

"The attempt to impose a colonial war to destroy the republican system of government and force a 'regime change', in alliance with a fascist oligarchy, will fail like all previous attempts," it added.

Trump announced the operation on his Truth Social platform hours after explosions were reported near civilian and military facilities in the capital, Caracas, as well as in the states of La Guaira, Aragua and Miranda.

Original pic by whitehouse: https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/P20251021MR-0281.jpg

The original post with 15k upvote was deleted on reddit on some rule about incorrect tittle format: https://old.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/1on1nqr/i_know_trumps_plan_image_is_from_oct_21st_at_the/

https://imgur.com/a/12hPQhT

What can be read:

The Trump Doctrine For Colombia and the Western Hemisphere

Despite decades of close partnerships between the United States and her allies in South America, the government of Colombia has been taken over by Gustavo Petro, who was elected with the help of drug cartels. There is ----- the Trump Doctrine for Colombia and the Western Hemisphere.

Designate additional cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations Support pro-United States leaders in the Western Hemisphere Establish targeted ------- for Petro, his family, and his ------- ------- corrupt, anti-American criminal ----- -------- a comprehensive investigation into Petro's campaign ------

The United States hit Venezuela with a “large-scale strike” early Saturday and said its president, Nicolás Maduro, had been captured and flown out of the country after months of stepped-up pressure by Washington — an extraordinary nighttime operation announced by President Donald Trump on social media hours after the attack.

Multiple explosions rang out and low-flying aircraft swept through Caracas, the capital, as Maduro’s government immediately accused the United States of attacking civilian and military installations. The Venezuelan government called it an “imperialist attack” and urged citizens to take to the streets.

It was not immediately clear who was running the country, and Maduro’s whereabouts were not immediately known. Trump announced the developments on Truth Social shortly after 4:30 a.m. ET.

Maduro, Trump said, “has been, along with his wife, captured and flown out of the Country. This operation was done in conjunction with U.S. Law Enforcement. Details to follow.” He set a news conference for later Saturday morning.

The explosions in Caracas, Venezuela’s capital, early on the third day of 2026 — at least seven blasts — sent people rushing into the streets, while others took to social media to report hearing and seeing the explosions. It was not immediately clear if there were casualties. The apparent attack itself lasted less than 30 minutes, but it was unclear if more actions lay ahead, though Trump said in his post that the strikes were carried out “successfully.”

The Federal Aviation Administration issued a ban on U.S. commercial flights in Venezuelan airspace because of “ongoing military activity” ahead of the explosions.

The strike came as the Trump administration has escalated pressure on Maduro, who has been charged with narco-terrorism in the United States. The CIA was behind a drone strike last week at a docking area believed to have been used by Venezuelan drug cartels — the first known direct operation on Venezuelan soil since the U.S. began strikes in September.

Trump for months had threatened that he could soon order strikes on targets on Venezuelan land following months of attacks on boats accused of carrying drugs. Maduro has decried the U.S. military operations as a thinly veiled effort to oust him from power.

Some streets in Caracas fill up

Armed individuals and uniformed members of a civilian militia took to the streets of a Caracas neighborhood long considered a stronghold of the ruling party. But in other areas of the city, the streets remained empty hours after the attack. Parts of the city remained without power, but vehicles moved freely.

Video obtained from Caracas and an unidentified coastal city showed tracers and smoke clouding the landscape sky as repeated muted explosions illuminated the night sky. Other footage showed an urban landscape with cars passing on a highway as blasts illuminated the hills behind them. Unintelligible conversation could be heard in the background. The videos were verified by The Associated Press.

Smoke could be seen rising from the hangar of a military base in Caracas, while another military installation in the capital was without power.

“The whole ground shook. This is horrible. We heard explosions and planes,” said Carmen Hidalgo, a 21-year-old office worker, her voice trembling. She was walking briskly with two relatives, returning from a birthday party. “We felt like the air was hitting us.”

Trump is at his private club in Palm Beach, Florida, where he has spent the past two weeks for the holiday season. His public schedule showed he was set to receive an intelligence briefing on Friday evening, hours before the reported strikes. He offered no immediate comment on social media.

Venezuela’s government responded to the attack with a call to action. “People to the streets!” it said in a statement. “The Bolivarian Government calls on all social and political forces in the country to activate mobilization plans and repudiate this imperialist attack.”

The statement added that Maduro had “ordered all national defense plans to be implemented” and declared “a state of external disturbance.” That state of emergency gives him the power to suspend people’s rights and expand the role of the armed forces.

The website of the U.S. Embassy in Venezuela, a post that has been closed since 2019, issued a warning to American citizens in the country, saying it was “aware of reports of explosions in and around Caracas.”

“U.S. citizens in Venezuela should shelter in place,” the warning said.

Inquiries to the Pentagon and U.S. Southern Command since Trump’s social media post went unanswered. The FAA warned all commercial and private U.S. pilots that the airspace over Venezuela and the small island nation of Curacao, just off the coast of the country to the north, was off limits “due to safety-of-flight risks associated with ongoing military activity.”

U.S. Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, posted his potential concerns, reflecting a view from the right flank in the Congress. “I look forward to learning what, if anything, might constitutionally justify this action in the absence of a declaration of war or authorization for the use of military force,” Lee said on X.

More in the article.

EXCLUSIVE: The new CBS News editor-in-chief has chartered private flights for her armed security detail, made last-minute logistical changes and fired off ‘Bari Pitches.’ Weiss is once again accused of creating behind-the-scenes turmoil with her decision-making ahead of CBS Evening News’ latest reboot

Mayor's first day in office was more interesting than you’ve been told

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7215744

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/16658

Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani was sworn in as New York City's mayor early Thursday inside an abandoned subway station, capping off the meteoric rise to power of a former state assembly member whose laser focus on affordability, willingness to challenge establishment corruption, and adept use of social media inspired the electorate—including many previous nonvoters.

Mamdani's choice of location for the swearing-in ceremony, led by New York Attorney General Letitia James, symbolized his commitment to restoring a city "that dared to be both beautiful and build great things that would transform working people’s lives," the mayor said in a statement.

During his campaign, Mamdani pledged to pursue a number of ambitious changes that he and his team will now begin the work of trying to implement, from fast and free buses to a $30 minimum wage to universal childcare—an agenda that would be funded by higher taxes on large corporations and the wealthiest 1% of New Yorkers.

“Happy New Year to New Yorkers both inside this tunnel and above,” Mamdani said in brief remarks at the ceremony. “This is truly the honor and privilege of a lifetime.”

This is now the official account of Mayor Zohran Mamdani. Welcome to a new era for NYC. pic.twitter.com/sDyiGWUVeb
— Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@NYCMayor) January 1, 2026

Much of Mamdani's agenda would require action from the city legislature. But in the weeks leading up to his swearing-in, members of Mamdani's team scoured city statutes looking for ways Mamdani could use his mayoral authority to lower prices quickly.

In an interview with Vox earlier this week, Mamdani said that enacting his agenda is "not just critically important because you’re fulfilling what animated so many to engage with the campaign, to support the campaign, but also because of the impact it can have on New Yorkers’ lives."

"There’s a lot of politics where it feels like it’s a contest around narrative, that when you win something, it’s just for the story that you can tell of what you won, but so many working people can’t feel that victory in their lives," he said. "The point of a rent freeze is you feel it every first of the month. The point of a fast and free bus is you feel it every day when you’re waiting for a bus that sometimes never comes. The point of universal child care is so that you don’t have to pay $22,500 a year for a single toddler."

Prior to Thursday's ceremony, former Democratic Mayor Eric Adams spent his final hours on a veto spree, blocking 19 bills including worker-protection legislation.

City & State reported that "among the 19 pieces of legislation that received a last-minute veto was a bill that would expand a cap on street vending licenses, a bill that aims to protect ride-hailing drivers from unjust deactivations from their apps, a bill that would prohibit federal immigration authorities from keeping an office at Rikers Island, and a bill that would grant the Civilian Complaint Review Board direct access to police body-cam footage."

Bhairavi Desai, executive director of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, said in a statement that "Mayor Adams' last stand to steal protections from workers can’t dampen our hope for a better New York City under the leadership of Zohran Mamdani... and his pro-worker appointees, including Julie Su."

From Common Dreams via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7224445

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/16836

The massive energy needs of artificial intelligence data centers became a major political controversy in 2025, and new reporting suggests that it will grow even further in 2026.

CNBC reported on Thursday that data center projects have become political lightning rods among politicians ranging from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on the left to Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on the right.

However, objections to data centers aren't just coming from politicians but from ordinary citizens who are worried about the impact such projects will have on their local environment and their utility bills.

CNBC noted that data centers' energy needs are so great that PJM Interconnection, the largest US grid operator that serves over 65 million people across 13 states, projects that it will be a full six gigawatts short of its reliability requirements in 2027.

Joe Bowring, president of independent market monitor Monitoring Analytics, told CNBC that he's never seen the grid under such projected strain.

"It’s at a crisis stage right now," Bowring said. "PJM has never been this short."

Rob Gramlich, president of power consulting firm Grid Strategies, told CNBC that he expects the debate over data centers to become even more intense this year once Americans start getting socked with even higher utility bills.

"I don't think we’ve seen the end of the political repercussions,” Gramlich said. “And with a lot more elections in 2026 than 2025, we’ll see a lot of implications. Every politician is going to be saying that they have the answer to affordability and their opponents’ policies would raise rates."

Concerns about data centers' impact on electric grids are rising in both red and blue states.

The Austin American-Statesman reported on Thursday that a new analysis written by the office of Austin City Manager TC Broadnax found that data centers have the potential to overwhelm the city's system given they are projected to need more power than can possibly be delivered with current infrastructure.

"The speed in which AI is trying to be deployed creates tremendous strain on the already tight resources in both design and construction," says the analysis, which noted that some proposed data centers are seeking more than five gigawatts, which is more than the peak load for the entire city.

In New York, local station News 10 reported last year that the New York Independent System Operator is estimating that the state's grid could be 1.6 gigawatts short of reliability requirements by 2030 thanks in large part to data centers.

Anger over proposed data centers has even spread to President Donald Trump's primary residential home of Palm Beach County, Florida, where local residents successfully postponed the construction of a proposed 200-acre data center complex.

According to public news station WLRN, locals opposed to the project cited "expected noise from cooling towers, servers, and diesel generators, along with heavy water use, pollution concerns, and higher utility costs" when petitioning Palm Beach County commissioners to scrap the proposal.

Corey Kanterman, a local opponent of the proposed data center, told WLRN that his goal is to shut the project down entirely.

"No good comes of having an AI data center near you," Kanterman said. "Put them in the location of least impact to the environment and people. This location is not it."

From Common Dreams via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7224494

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/16806

The Trump administration this week made abrupt cuts to the top federal disaster response agency, even as US communities face increased threats from natural disasters caused by the global climate crisis.

Independent journalist Marisa Kabas reported on Wednesday that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) "has begun issuing termination notices" to staff at the agency's Cadre of On-Call Response and Recovery (CORE) that are effective as of January 2.

A FEMA staffer who spoke with Kabas described the terminations as "The New Year's Eve Massacre," and explained that "the driving force behind all CORE employees is supporting and enacting the mission of preparing for, responding to, and recovering from disasters."

A Thursday report from CNN added some additional details to Kabas' reporting, including that the decision to issue the layoffs was made by Acting Administrator Karen Evans, who was appointed to the role after former Acting Administrator David Richardson resigned in November.

One former FEMA official bluntly told CNN that the agency "can't do disaster response and recovery without CORE employees" that are being laid off by the administration.

The former FEMA official added that regional agency offices throughout the US "are almost entirely CORE staff, so the first FEMA people who are usually onsite won’t be there," which will mean that "states are on their own" when it comes to disaster response.

CNN also reported that there is anxiety among remaining FEMA staffers that these cuts could just be the start "of a larger effort" by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem "to shrink FEMA, potentially axing thousands of workers in the coming months who deploy during hurricanes, wildfires and other national emergencies."

President Donald Trump has been targeting FEMA for potential termination for nearly a year now, and he said shortly after being inaugurated last January that a goal in his second term would be "fundamentally reforming and overhauling FEMA or maybe getting rid of FEMA," while emphasizing that individual states should bear the cost of responding to natural disasters.

“I think, frankly, FEMA’s not good,” the president said. “I think when you have a problem like this, I think you want to go, and whether it’s a Democrat or Republican governor, you want to use your state to fix it and not waste time calling FEMA.”

The Trump administration's deep cuts to FEMA come as the intensity of natural disasters is only projected to increase thanks to climate change.

According to a report published on Tuesday by the Yale School of the Environment, 2025 was the second hottest on record and was only surpassed by the previous year.

"The last three years have been, by a wide margin, the hottest ever recorded," stressed the report. "Each of the last three years has measured more than 1.5°C warmer than preindustrial times, putting the world at least temporarily in breach of an international goal to limit warming below that level."

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