Happy Monday Everyone! Today’s newsletter: 1,072 words…4 mins
🗞 Today’s Edition: Maduro’s Last Tango: Dictator Dances For His Life, Candace Owens: Macrons Ordered A Hit On Her, Binance Funneled Money To Hamas, White House Welcomes Christmas Tree, MTG Bows Out… & much more!
📜THE HIGHLIGHT
One killer insight to stash in your back pocket
✍ Trump's Ukraine Peace Plan Just Got a Major Edit—But Will Putin Sign Off?
The setup: Trump's original 28-point peace proposal got torched by Kyiv and Brussels for being too Russia-friendly. So last weekend, U.S. and Ukrainian negotiators locked themselves in Geneva and stripped it down to 19 points.
🪓 What got axed:
Forcing Ukraine to legally recognize Russia's occupied territories (Crimea, Donbas, etc.)
The $100B frozen-assets fund with U.S. profit-sharing
Bans on Ukrainian strikes inside Russia
Auto-lifting sanctions after ceasefire
No joint reconstruction board granting Russia veto power
A 20-year neutrality clause with penalties for NATO pursuits
Removal of restrictions on foreign weapons production in Ukraine and limits on intelligence cooperation with Western partners
➡ What survived (with tweaks):
Current front lines as the starting point for territory talks (kicked upstairs to Trump-Putin level)
Ukraine keeps sovereignty over EU/NATO decisions
Ceasefire mechanics: monitoring, buffer zones, prisoner swaps, mine clearance
Some military caps on troops and long-range weapons (softened but still there)
The most radioactive issue—territory—was “bracketed” for presidential-level talks. (Translation: Zelensky and Trump get to argue about it later.)
🗣 What They’re Saying:
🇺🇦 Ukraine: Zelensky described it as a step forward but wants Europe in the room.
🇺🇸 U.S.: Rubio says "tremendous progress." Trump's teasing "something good" on Truth Social. The U.S. plans to present the draft to Trump, who would then discuss it with Putin.
🇷🇺 Russia: Putin's aide, Yuri Ushakov, called parts "acceptable," others need "reworking." Moscow rejected a European counter-proposal outright; labeling it "completely unconstructive"—prefers dealing with D.C. over Brussels.
🇪🇺 Europe: Von der Leyen, Merz, Tusk, Starmer all welcomed this as a "solid basis", but stressed that Europe must be fully involved
💡 Bottom line: This is a pre-negotiation blueprint, not a done deal. The controversial stuff (territory, NATO) is now "bracketed" for Presidential-level talks.
♟️THE CHESSBOARD
Geopolitics Decoded In 3 Moves
Still from the viral video of Maduro dancing
🕺 Maduro’s Last Tango: Dictator Dances For His Life
Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro tried to shimmy his way out of regime-change season this weekend—literally—dancing to a remixed “No a la guerra” (“No to War”) speech at a Caracas youth rally.
The clip went viral across TikTok/X, instantly becoming a meme template for “dictator coping mechanisms.”
Cute vibes… except the U.S. just parked the USS Gerald R. Ford seven miles off Venezuela’s coast, greenlit CIA black ops, and labeled a Maduro-linked cartel a terrorist entity.
💡Bottom line: Trump called it “Maduro’s last tango”. Maduro dances for his life as Washington preps to dance on his regime.
🥷 Candace Owens Claims Macron Ordered Her Hit
Candace Owens just accused French President Emmanuel Macron and First Lady Brigitte Macron of paying to have her assassinated! - a claim she says came from a lone “senior French official,” but with zero independent evidence so far.
Owens alleges a GIGN kill team, an Israeli operative, and spillover threats to French journalists.
Candace claims Macron moved $1.5M for her hit and she has informed the Federal Government and White House.
Context: She’s being sued by the Macrons in Delaware for defamation over her conspiracies about Brigitte’s gender.
💡Bottom line: No French agency has confirmed anything. So either a French President is orchestrating an international assassination, or this is the most unhinged counter-lawsuit strategy ever. Place your bets.
👀 Binance’s CZ Back In The Crosshairs
Binance founder Changpeng Zhao (CZ) and Binance are accused of facilitating $50M+ in transactions to Hamas, Hezbollah, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad since the Oct 7, 2023 attacks—with $300M sent to designated wallets before the attacks.
The timeline:
2023: Binance pled guilty to money laundering violations, paid $4.3B in fines
CZ sentenced: 4 months in prison for inadequate AML controls
Oct 2025: Trump pardons CZ
Nov 2025: New lawsuit from American victims claims "substantial assistance" to terror groups
The kicker: Some implicated accounts allegedly still active on Binance.
💡Why it matters: Manhattan court already ruled Zhao can be held liable for aiding terrorism despite the pardon. This case could redefine crypto’s liability —and neither Binance nor CZ are talking.
🗽THE EMPIRE FILES
Political Drama From DC To NYC
🎄Melania’s Gold-Standard Christmas Comeback
First Lady Melania Trump kicked off DC’s holiday season with the arrival of the 2025 White House Christmas Tree — a towering concolor fir from Michigan, the state’s first Grand Champion winner since 1985.
Melania, back in decorating mode after a five-year hiatus, promised “stunning” décor with a classic gold theme.
⚡President Trump skipped the ceremony for China talks, but the Trumps will reunite at Mar-a-Lago for Thanksgiving after the annual turkey pardon.
⏬ MTG Bows Out in Flames
Marjorie Taylor Greene—or “Marjorie Traitor Brown,” (green turns brown when it rots) per Trump—announced she’s resigning from Congress on Jan. 5, 2026, ending one of the most chaotic MAGA-era runs on record.
The break came after she blasted Trump over the Epstein investigation, drifted into anti-Israel territory, and capped it with a wild appearance on The View.
Trump pulled his endorsement and called her a “ranting lunatic” just a week prior.
⚡The resignation triggers a special election in Georgia's 14th District in March 2026.
🤖 CODES & POWER
Tech Wars, Crypto Chaos, and AI’s Black Mirror Moments
💰 Amazon Drops a $50B Flex on GovAI
Amazon is pouring up to $50B into AI infrastructure for U.S. agencies — basically giving the federal government a backstage pass to AWS superpowers.
The 2026 build-out adds 1.3 GW of fresh data-center muscle and unlocks Claude, Nvidia chips, and Amazon’s own Trainium.
⚡The goal: Help 11,000+ agencies crank out custom AI, boost productivity, and keep America competitive in the AI arms race.
🤖 Anthropic Rolls Out Claude Opus 4.5 After $350B Valuation
Anthropic just dropped Claude Opus 4.5, its third major model in two months, aimed at developers, analysts, and enterprise pros.
The AI crushes coding benchmarks, tackles spreadsheets and slides, and shines in agentic workflows commanding smaller models.
Chrome and Excel integrations expand access, while Opus 4.5 edges out GPT-5.1 and Gemini 3 Pro on SWE-Bench.
⚡Microsoft and Nvidia’s backing last week pushed Anthropic to a $350B valuation, cementing its frontier AI status.
📺 FUN FACTS & TRIVIA
Longest Sentences
Victor Hugo's 823-word Waterloo ramble in Les Misérables is a beast, but it bows to William Faulkner's 1,287-word sentence in Absalom, Absalom!—unless you count gimmicks like Dave Cowart's 111,111-word "sentence" book or László Krasznahorkai's entire 400-page novel as one endless breath.
(Punctuation? Overrated!)