Maduro & His Wife Plead Not Guilty In NY Federal Court As Rival Protests Rage Outside

And the arraignment circus begins. With world media cameras gathered outside the federal courthouse in Lower Manhattan and the court "perp walk" of Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores set to take place at around noon (eastern), a gaggle of rival protest groups have gathered.

MADURO SAYS HE IS NOT GUILTY OF US NARCO-TERRORISM CHARGES

MADURO SAYS HE IS AN INNOCENT, DECENT MAN

CILIA FLORES ALSO PLEADS NOT GUILTY TO US CHARGES

CILIA FLORES SAYS SHE IS `COMPLETELY INNOCENT'

JUDGE SETS NEXT MADURO HEARING FOR MARCH 17

Maduro: "I'm innocent. I'm a decent man. I'm the president of Venezuela. I consider myself a prisoner of war."

Some conservative pundits are claiming that among the most vocal protesters include Venezuelan-government linked agitators, or else diehard socialists.

But amid a thick information war kicking into full gear, there's reason to question all simplistic claims and counter-claims at this point:

However, plenty of Libertarians, anti-war Conservatives, and even those among Trump's MAGA base are standing against the brazen US military invasion of Venezuela, which Trump has long admitted is to essentially 'get back' control of the country's significant proven oil reserves.

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/maduros-vp-bends-knee-maduro-arraignment-ny-court-imminent

Walz Drops Out Of Governor's Race Amid Somali Fraud Scandal

Update (0950ET):

The Wall Street Journal has confirmed our earlier report that left-wing Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, embattled by alleged Somali-linked welfare fraud in his state, has ended his bid for a third term.

"As I reflected on this moment with my family and my team over the holidays, I came to the conclusion that I can't give a political campaign my all."

"Every minute I spend defending my own political interests would be a minute I can't spend defending the people of Minnesota against the criminals who prey on our generosity and the cynics who prey on our differences."

"So I've decided to step out of the race and let others worry about the election while I focus on the work."

https://x.com/GovTimWalz/status/2008184142958334441

Iran Protest Deaths Rise As Trump Warns Tehran It Could "Get Hit Very Hard" By US

Lindsey Graham salivates..

.Over the weekend as the world watched Trump's Venezuela intervention unfold, the Iran protests reached a full week. While AFP and others have reported in some locales clashes between demonstrators and police, which have after entering day nine have left 12 people dead, including members of security forces, it is clear that this wave of largely economic-driven protests have yet to reach the size of the 2022 'anti-hijab' protests.

Protests have hit 26 of Iran's 31 provinces, leading to around 1,000 arrests - and there have been some signs of the usual mayhem: in some instances cars or buildings burned, governors' offices broken into, and sporadic reports of live fire. Still mainstream Western press has admitted the following in reference to the prior 2022 'anti-hijab' protests: "While smaller in scale, the latest protests pose a fresh challenge to the 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, following a brief war with Israel in June that damaged nuclear facilities."

Deutsche Welle cites Norway-based rights groups Hengaw and Iran Human Rights who newly report that four Kurdish protesters were killed on Saturday in Malekshahi county (in Ilam province), with dozens more injured.

Iranian media has been focused on the killing of at least one member of the security forces by "rioters" - and details surrounding the deaths and injuries of other protesters remain murky. While there have clearly been some isolated instances of violence, it must be remembered that the Islamic Republic is geographically large for the region and has 90+ million people.

The lingering big question of whether the protests will be sustained or spread, amid a collapsing currency and soaring prices, has not stopped President Trump from reiterating tough threats directed at Tehran leaders. He told reporters aboard Air Force One that Iran will get "hit very hard" by the United States if further protesters were killed.

"We’re watching it very closely. If they start killing people like they have in the past, I think they're going to get hit very hard by the United States," he said without providing further details.

This time, the warning hinted more strongly in the direction of a military response, after last week he said something similar but somewhat vague - that he would come to the protesters "rescue" if they start being killed. Big on everyone's mind following Venezuelan President Maduro's capture is: will Iran be next?

There's little question that Israel's Netanyahu hopes so, after reports that in last month's Mar-a-Lago meeting, the Israeli prime minister lobbied Trump to go after Iran's ballistic missile program. For this reason and others, Tehran authorities continue to allege a foreign hidden hand which seeks to exploit the current crisis.

Iran's head of the judiciary has released a fresh statement warning of no leniency to "rioters" while saying that peaceful individuals have a right to air their grievances in public.

"I instruct the attorney general and prosecutors across the country to act in accordance with the law and with resolve against the rioters and those who support them… and to show no leniency or indulgence," Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei was cited in the judiciary's Mizan news agency as saying.

At the same time authorities have cast a cloud of suspicion over the protests, linking them to the US and Israel:

Spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said statements by some American and Israeli officials amounted to interference in Iran’s internal affairs and incitement to violence under international norms and rejected what he described as foreign efforts to present themselves as supportive of the Iranian public.

"Actions or statements by figures such as the Israeli prime minister or certain radical and hardline US officials regarding Iran’s internal affairs amount, under international norms, to nothing more than incitement to violence, terrorism, and killing."

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/iran-protest-deaths-rise-trump-warns-tehran-it-could-get-hit-very-hard-us

Man Arrested For Breaking Windows At Vance's Home: Secret Service

A man was arrested on Jan. 5 after causing damage to Vice President JD Vance’s property, according to the Secret Service.

The Secret Service confirmed their detention of the individual, who is now in the custody of Cincinnati Police, ABC News reported.

Vance and his family were not home at the time.

William DeFoor, 26, faces charges of criminal damaging/endangering, obstructing official business, criminal trespass, and vandalism, according to local outlet WLWT.

The Cincinnati Police Department took custody of the man later in the day.

The house was not occupied when the damage occurred, the spokesman said.

Vance and his family were in Washington when the incident occurred.

The VP has weighed in with a statement on X:

I appreciate everyone's well wishes about the attack at our home. As far as I can tell, a crazy person tried to break in by hammering the windows.

I'm grateful to the secret service and the Cincinnati police for responding quickly.

We weren't even home as we had returned already to DC.

One request to the media: we try to protect our kids as much as possible from the realities of this life of public service.

In that light, I am skeptical of the news value of plastering images of our home with holes in the windows.

The Secret Service is coordinating with Cincinnati officials and federal prosecutors on the charges to be brought against the man, who has not been publicly identified.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/man-arrested-breaking-windows-vances-home-secret-service

Huge Industrial Explosion In Iran Sparks Panic, Protest-Related Speculation

A large explosion initially under mysterious circumstances has rocked Iran. Regional media has identified the location of the blast, which released a small mushroom cloud high into the air, in Amol, northern Iran. The timing couldn't be worse, as it unleashed some degree of panic in the country when it happened Monday afternoon.

It reportedly occurred at Kalleh dairy factory, which is one of the largest dairy producers in Iran, with the mayor of Amol telling Mazandaran Broadcasting Agency that the fire and explosion was sparked by accident due to repairs and a welding fire.

As for these persistent protests, so far at least 12 people have died, including at least one member of the security forces.

Al Jazeera reviews of the spiraling situation:

Thousands of people have mobilized across the country with security forces responding forcefully in some places.

On Thursday, Iran’s semiofficial Fars news agency reported that three people had died in confrontations between security forces and protesters in Lordegan in southwestern Iran. A further three deaths were reported in Azna and another in Kouhdasht, both in central Iran.

“Some protesters began throwing stones at the city’s administrative buildings, including the provincial governor’s office, the mosque, the Martyrs Foundation, the town hall and banks,” Fars reported of protests in Lordegan, adding that police had responded with tear gas.

https://twitter.com/i/status/2008182648284279187

Moscow reacts after Zelensky appoints granddaughter of Nazi collaborator as adviser

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has slammed Kiev as “a haven for neo-Nazis”

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has branded Kiev “a haven for neo-Nazis” after Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky appointed Chrystia Freeland, a Canadian-born descendant of a documented Nazi collaborator, as his economic development adviser.

Freeland, a leading figure in Canadian politics for over a decade and a virulent Russia critic, has served as Canada’s special envoy for Ukraine’s reconstruction since September. On Monday, Zelensky announced her appointment on Telegram hailing her as an “expert” in economy and finance.

Freeland, however, has a controversial family history. Archival evidence and research show her maternal grandfather, Michael Chomiak, was editor-in-chief of Krakivski Visti, a Ukrainian-language newspaper in occupied Poland and Austria that published Nazi propaganda and anti-Semitic material during World War II. Freeland has long rejected knowledge of these facts.

“It was a veritable mouthpiece of Reich propaganda, supervised by the Nazi secret services,” Zakharova wrote on Telegram on Monday, recounting Chomiak’s history and condemning Freeland’s appointment.

Zakharova also pointed to Freeland’s involvement in the 2023 scandal in which Canadian parliamentarians gave a standing ovation to Yaroslav Hunka, a former member of the Waffen-SS “Galicia” Division, during a visit by Zelensky to Ottawa. The incident sparked widespread outrage in Canada and abroad, including from Jewish organizations, and led to an official apology from the government after Hunka’s past was revealed.

“[Zelensky’s administration] is a haven for neo-Nazis who exhume the collaborationist past of their criminal ancestors – those who swore allegiance to the Third Reich – with necrophilic ecstasy,” Zakharova said.

Ukraine has a history of honoring World War II-era nationalist figures linked to Nazi Germany, with streets, monuments, and annual torchlight marches celebrating criminals like Stepan Bandera, leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), which participated in mass killings of Poles, Jews, Russians, and Soviet-aligned Ukrainians.

https://www.rt.com/russia/630609-zakharova-zelensky-nazi-appointment/

Propaganda Shill and Tech Millionaire Neville Roy Singham Reportedly Funded Marxist Group that Organized Anti-US Protests After Tyrant Maduro Was Arrested on Saturday

In August 2023, The New York Times published a rare informative and honest piece of journalism. The New York Times exposed the so-called anti-war group Code Pink as a Communist China shill or front group.

Kristinn Taylor reported at the time.

Code Pink co-founder Jodie Evans, 68, has deep roots in the Democratic Party, having served as the campaign manager for the 1992 presidential campaign of former California Governor Jerry Brown. In the 2008 presidential campaign, Evans served as a host for Obama fundraisers in Hollywood with her then husband Max Palevsky (who passed away in 2010 at age 85) and as a campaign bundler.

Evans married Singham, 69, in 2017.

Trump was the only U.S. president to not start any new wars in his first term, yet the so-called antiwar group Code Pink stood against him in his first term – and now in his second term.

It is clear Code Pink is not an “anti-war” group. Instead, Code Pink is a shill for the communists.

The protests were anything but organic as is typically the case with the anti-American left.

Asra Nomani wrote on X:

So when we learned that there was an air strike on Caracas, I watched the clock — and waited for the signals.

⏱️ 1:35 AM — As U.S. special operations reportedly land in Venezuela, @BTNews , a socialist propaganda arm of the ANSWER Coalition, posts early video and frames the mission as an “illegal bombing of Caracas.” The narrative is set.

⏱️ 1:45 AM — Manolo De Los Santos @manolo_realengo of @PeoplesForumNYC echoes the “illegal bombing” line. Message discipline is established. The People’s Forum had been funded by a tech tycoon named Neville Roy Singham, who lived in Shanghai and funded a global network of socialist causes.

⏱️ 2:29 AM — The ANSWER Coalition drops a red-siren graphic on X calling for protests in Times Square: “NO WAR ON VENEZUELA.” The shift from commentary to mobilization begins.

⏱️ 2:34–2:43 AM — The People’s Forum and the Party for Socialism and Liberation amplify the call. Same poster. Same language. Same timing.

⏱️ 3:21 AM — @VijayPrashad , director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, a research institute funded by Singham that examines issues through the lens of “national liberation Marxism,” weighs in with a tweet: “Down with U.S. imperialism.” The ideological framing goes global.

⏱️ 6:09 AM — @CodePink condemns the U.S. as “terrorist.” The group was cofounded by Singham’s wife, Jodie Evans, a fixture in anti-American protests, along with cofounder @medeabenjamin . Professional CodePink protestor @OliviaDinucci frequently yells at Trump administration officials around town. The nonprofit ecosystem is now fully engaged.

⏱️ 7:49 AM — The International People’s Assembly @peoplesassembly , a global umbrella group for socialist and communist organizations that partners with Singham’s Tricontinental institute, circulates an “EMERGENCY DAY OF ACTION,” urging resistance to U.S. “hegemony.” The command-and-control layer activates.

This wasn’t outrage catching fire.

This was a socialist, communist, Marxist transnational network executing information warfare with military precision.

By daylight, the narrative was locked.

By midday, the protests were live.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2026/01/moaist-propaganda-shill-tech-millionaire-neville-roy-singham/

Donald Trump imposed a naval blockade on Venezuela and admitted that he wants to take the country's oil and give it to US corporations:

"They took our oil rights. We had a lot of oil there. They threw our companies out, and we want it back".

https://twitter.com/i/status/2001643807272734816

https://www.antiwar.com/

Occasionally they spell it out.

Here's the US at the UN security council this afternoon

https://twitter.com/i/status/2008223840485208101