Happy Monday Everyone! Today’s newsletter: 1,147 words…4.3 mins
🗞 Today’s Edition: Operation Absolute Resolve, Maduro Pleads ‘Not Guilty’, US to Temporarily Run Venezuela, Khameini’s Exit Plan, Zohran Gets Owned, Schumer To Rein In Trump, Elon Offers Starlink To Venezuela … & much more!
📜THE HIGHLIGHT
One killer insight to stash in your back pocket
In sequence, clockwise from left-right: Maduro aboard the USS Iwo Jima as posted by President Trump on Truth Social; Maduro lands at the Stewart National Guard Air base in NY state; Poses with federal agents at the air base, Maduro’s iconic chopper ride flying past the Statue of Liberty; Maduro’s perp-walk at the DEA’s office in Manhattan.
🇺🇸 🇻🇪 How the U.S. Captured A Dictator (and Made It Look Easy)
No nation in the world could achieve what America achieved yesterday.
The setup: For months, a CIA operative posed as Maduro's ally—mapping schedules, exits, guard rotations at his Caracas fortress. Special Forces trained on a full-scale replica of his compound in the Nevada desert. Code name: Operation Absolute Resolve.
💥The raid (January 3, 12:01 AM): 150 aircraft launched from 20 bases across the hemisphere—Florida, Puerto Rico, Colombia, plus naval carriers.
First wave of precision strikes knocked out radar, airfields, and command nodes.
Subsequent airstrikes flattened military bases. Casualties: 20-80 Venezuelan troops.
🪖The snatch: Navy SEALs and Delta Force breached steel doors at Maduro's residence. There was a brief firefight where American personnel neutralized the dictator’s security detail. Then Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores were arrested, read their rights and extracted via helicopter to the USS Iwo Jima offshore.
One of the most remarkable, effective, and powerful demonstrations of American military strength... not a single American service member was killed, and no American equipment was lost.
📸The iconic visuals of Maduro’s trip to the United States:
Trump posted a photo of Maduro aboard the ship on Truth Social, captioning it "Nicolas Maduro on board the USS Iwo Jima."
Remarkable visuals of the socialist dictator flying over the symbol of freedom - the Statue of Liberty in a chopper.
Upon landing on 30th street, Maduro was paraded through Manhattan streets in a van with open doors for public view, then perp-walked into the SDNY's DEA office where he was formally charged.
Final Stop: Brooklyn's Metropolitan Detention Center, that previously held P. Diddy, El Chapo, Ghislaine Maxwell, and Sam Bankman-Fried
⚖️The charges: Narco-terrorism, drug trafficking (2020 indictment). Arraignment: January 5th.
💡Why it matters: For decades, Maduro's socialist death grip turned the world's richest oil nation into a torture state—mass executions, political prisoners, 8 million refugees fleeing starvation. Venezuelans danced in the streets across the world when the news broke. Exiles wept. This wasn't imperialism—it was liberation.
♟️THE CHESSBOARD
Geopolitics Decoded In 3 Moves
Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores in brown jumpsuits being escorted from Brooklyn’s detention center to the Manhattan courthouse via helicopter.
⚖ “Still President,” Says the Defendant
In Manhattan federal court, Nicolás Maduro pleaded ‘Not Guilty’—then declared himself ‘still president’ and a ‘prisoner of war.’
Dressed in a brown jumpsuit and speaking through an interpreter, Maduro called his capture a ‘kidnapping.’
His wife, Cilia Flores, entered a matching plea on narco-terror and drug charges.
His lawyer: Barry Pollack, the veteran who helped free Julian Assange.
The Judge: 92 year old U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein, appointed by President Clinton in 1998, brings decades of experience and has presided over major terrorism and national security cases.
💡Bottom line: Maduro faces four counts—narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, and possession/conspiracy of machine guns and destructive devices—carrying a maximum of life imprisonment if convicted.
🇮🇷 Khamenei’s Moscow Exit Ramp
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei reportedly has a “Plan B” ready: flee to Moscow with ~20 family members and aides if protests crack the regime.
The British intel-linked report says the playbook mirrors Assad’s 2024 dash to Russia—assets secured, cash moved, exit routes mapped.
Context matters. Iran’s economy is imploding, protests are spreading, and Khamenei (86) has ordered a hard crackdown.
Iranian intelligence reveals they expect the U.S. or Israel to strike if protests get more deadly.
💡Bottom line: When you're 86, running a theocracy, and packing go-bags for Moscow, your regime's expiration date is showing.
🇺🇸 🇻🇪 “We’ll Run Venezuela” (Wait, What?)
After Maduro’s capture, Trump stunned allies by saying the U.S. would temporarily “run” Venezuela—until a “safe, proper transition” is in place. Marco Rubio clarified, framing U.S. control as indirect leverage—military pressure, oil “quarantine,” and deal-making with an interim government.
Meanwhile, the succession fight is messy:
Edmundo González, the guy who actually won the 2024 Presidential election (per independent tallies), waits in exile.
María Corina Machado, Nobel laureate, has street credibility—but Trump says no elite buy-in.
Maduro's former VP Delcy Rodríguez, who was sworn in as the interim leader, has been in communication with U.S. officials. She has called the capture an “illegal kidnapping.”
💡Bottom line: Washington just toppled a regime. Now comes the harder part—owning the aftermath.
🗽THE EMPIRE FILES
Political Drama From DC To NYC
Mayor Zohran Mamdani doing a presser to voice his disapproval of the operation in Venezuela
🕵️♂️ Zohran Got Owned
Hours after Maduro’s capture, newly elected NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani held a press conference, saying he’d been “briefed” on the operation and that he even called the President to “register my opposition.”
But the follow-up was messy: Pressed on federal security clearance, Mamdani admitted he had none—his intel came from his “team”; not Washington.
Translation: He was “briefed” on X like the rest of us.
Social media users wasted no time reminding him of his role - one which grants him authority over garbage collection and local parks - not intel on national security.
⚡ The irony: While Venezuelans across the world celebrated Maduro’s fall, the city’s socialist mayor came to the defense of a socialist dictator…and got owned.
📜 Schumer Tries to Rein In Trump
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer will force a vote on a War Powers Resolution, calling the Maduro raid “illegal” without congressional approval.
Backed by Tim Kaine (D) and Rand Paul (I), the measure would block future strikes absent a green light from Capitol Hill.
Republicans mostly praise the op, making passage dicey.
⚡The raid revived Washington’s oldest fight—who actually gets to pull the trigger.
🤖 CODES & POWER
Tech Wars, Crypto Chaos, and AI’s Black Mirror Moments
📡 Starlink Switches Venezuela Back On
As airstrikes knocked out power and internet across Caracas, Elon Musk flipped the Wi-Fi switch.
Starlink is offering free broadband in Venezuela through Feb. 3, applying credits to active—and even inactive—accounts after the Maduro raid.
⚡Officially, the country is still listed as “coming soon,” but terminals are already lighting up.
🔌Berlin’s Blackout, Powered by Ideology
A suspected arson attack knocked out power to ~45,000 Berlin households and 2,200 businesses as temperatures dipped below freezing.
Officials blame Vulkangruppe, a left-wing extremist group targeting fossil fuels and AI infrastructure—they previously hit Tesla’s Gigafactory in 2024.
Grid repairs may take days.
⚡Europe’s energy transition just met a darker edge of AI-era extremism—and civilians paid the price.
📺 FUN FACTS & TRIVIA
On This Day In History
The Construction San Francisco's iconic Golden Gate Bridge’s began on January 5, 1933.