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US Capitol and South America. Nicolas Maduro’s capture is not the end of an era. It marks the opening act of a turbulent transition
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Nicolas Maduro’s Capture: Sovereignty Only Matters When It’s Convenient
Jan 06, 2026
The U.S. capture of Nicolás Maduro will be remembered as one of the most dramatic American interventions in Latin America in a generation. But the real story isn’t the raid itself. It’s what the raid reveals about the political imagination of the hemisphere—how quickly governments abandon the language of sovereignty when it becomes inconvenient, and how easily Washington slips back into the posture of regional enforcer.
The operation was months in the making, driven by a mix of narcotrafficking allegations, geopolitical anxiety, and the belief that Maduro’s security perimeter had finally cracked. The Justice Department’s $50 million bounty—an extraordinary price tag for a sitting head of state—signaled that the U.S. no longer viewed Maduro as a political problem to be negotiated with, but as a criminal target to be hunted.
That shift tells us that the United States, even under leaders who claim to reject interventionism, still defaults to force when diplomacy becomes slow or inconvenient. And it tells us that Latin America, despite decades of rhetoric about autonomy and non‑intervention, remains structurally vulnerable to the decisions made in Washington.
Predictably, governments across the region expressed shock. Some condemned the raid as a violation of sovereignty. Others issued carefully worded statements about “regional stability.” But the truth is that many of these same governments had privately urged the U.S. to “do something,” as migration pressures, criminal networks, and political instability spilled across borders.
This is the quiet contradiction at the heart of hemispheric politics: countries want the benefits of U.S. power without the responsibility of endorsing it. They want stability without fingerprints. They want intervention without admitting they asked for it.
The operation was not a spontaneous strike. It was the endpoint of a strategic buildup: intelligence escalation, regional pressure, and a belief that Maduro’s inner circle was fracturing. But the U.S. has now inherited something far more complicated than a criminal case.
It has inherited the story.
Washington will now be blamed for whatever comes next—whether Venezuela fractures, whether migration surges, whether foreign powers attempt to fill the vacuum. The U.S. chose to remove a head of state; it cannot now pretend to be a bystander to the consequences.
The country stands at a crossroads with no easy path forward:
- A military split between hardliners and officers seeking legitimacy
- A political class unprepared for sudden transition
- Foreign actors—Russia, Iran, Cuba—calculating their next move
- A population exhausted by crisis but wary of externally imposed solutions
Maduro’s capture may feel like justice to some, but justice without a plan is simply disruption.
The question now is not whether the U.S. was justified. The question is whether the hemisphere is prepared to confront the implications of what it quietly allowed to happen.
If Latin America wants sovereignty, it must build the institutions that make sovereignty real. If the U.S. wants stability, it must resist the temptation to treat military success as political strategy. And if Venezuela wants a future beyond strongmen—whether homegrown or foreign—it must craft a transition that centers legitimacy, not expedience.
Maduro’s capture is not the end of an era. It is the start of a far more complicated chapter.
Nicolas Maduro’s Capture: Sovereignty Only Matters When It’s Convenient was first published on the Latino News Network and was republished with permission.
Hugo Balta is the publisher of the Latino News Network executive editor of The Fulcrum.
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The ACA subsidy deadline reveals how Republican paralysis and loyalty-driven leadership are hollowing out Congress’s ability to govern.
Carol Yepes
Governing by Breakdown: The Cost of Congressional Paralysis
Jan 05, 2026
Picture a bridge with a clearly posted warning: without a routine maintenance fix, it will close. Engineers agree on the repair, but the construction crew in charge refuses to act. The problem is not that the fix is controversial or complex, but that making the repair might be seen as endorsing the bridge itself.
So, traffic keeps moving, the deadline approaches, and those responsible promise to revisit the issue “next year,” even as the risk of failure grows. The danger is that the bridge fails anyway, leaving everyone who depends on it to bear the cost of inaction.
This is precisely how Congress handled the impending expiration of the Affordable Care Act’s enhanced subsidies for millions of Americans in late 2025. The danger was clear, the consequences well understood, and yet GOP leadership allowed the policy cliff to approach simply because they could not—or would not—move their own caucus to act.
Paralysis as a Governing Condition
This paralysis reflects something deeper than ordinary partisan division. It points to a more troubling reality: one of America’s two major parties now struggles to govern at the most basic level.
House Republicans are not engaged in a substantive debate over health-care reform itself. Instead, they allowed a clear deadline to pass that will drive up premiums for millions because party leaders cannot control their caucus or accept even short-term responsibility for an existing law.
A Leadership Failure in Plain Sight
That failure marks a clear breakdown of leadership, where inaction flows directly from decisions made at the top. Speaker Mike Johnson refused to bring a clean extension of the ACA subsidies to the floor, despite a looming expiration date and consequences that were widely understood inside and outside Congress.
Instead of governing through regular order, Johnson attempted to block a vote entirely. The result was a procedural embarrassment: four moderate Republicans joined Democrats to force action through a discharge petition. It was an extraordinary step that signaled not bipartisan cooperation, but the collapse of party leadership and legislative control.
This was not a minor misstep or a tactical gamble. Leadership is the Speaker’s primary responsibility, and Johnson was elected by his party to exercise it. That role requires deciding when a vote must happen, managing internal dissent, and assembling a working majority even when the outcome is uncomfortable.
On the ACA subsidies, Johnson failed each of these tasks. With a clear deadline and well-documented consequences, he could neither marshal enough Republican votes to govern nor contain defections within his caucus. The result was not negotiation or strategy-driven delay, but a leadership vacuum at a moment when governing mattered most.
Power Without Responsibility
None of this should come as a surprise. Johnson emerged as Speaker only after weeks of chaos, when loyalty became more important than demonstrated governing skill. His elevation came only after Donald Trump publicly signaled his approval.
In today’s Republican Party, real power does not flow from the Speaker’s gavel so much as from Trump’s favor. Johnson was chosen not because he could manage a fractured conference, but because he proved himself reliably compliant with Trump’s priorities and instincts. That compliance carries a cost.
A Speaker selected for loyalty rather than leverage is ill-equipped to confront his own caucus, especially when governing requires choices that cut against the party’s dominant political narrative. The ACA subsidy fight exposes the predictable result: a House leader constrained by deference to Trump, unable to lead independently, and presiding over a party that can obstruct almost anything but struggles to govern when the stakes are clear.
What This Means for Democracy
This episode illustrates a broader democratic risk. When Congress cannot pass even time-sensitive, widely understood legislation, it teaches voters a corrosive lesson: representation does not guarantee results.
Over time, this failure pushes power away from the legislature and toward executive action, judicial intervention, and procedural brinkmanship. Policy increasingly happens through emergencies and workarounds rather than deliberation and lawmaking. The ACA subsidies are not an isolated case; they are a warning sign of what governance looks like when paralysis becomes routine.
What Comes Next
What would it take to change this trajectory? Without corrective action, Congress risks locking in a model of non-governance in which foreseeable harm is accepted as routine and legislative authority steadily erodes.
The solutions are straightforward, even if the politics are not. House leadership must reassert the basic norms of governing, beginning with allowing votes on must-pass, time-sensitive legislation even when outcomes are politically inconvenient. Members of Congress, especially those in the majority, must treat preventing predictable harm as a governing obligation, not a concession. Lawmakers in both parties should resist the steady drift toward procedural shortcuts that mask leadership failure rather than resolve it.
More fundamentally, the Republican Party faces a choice it has deferred since the rise of Donald Trump a decade ago: whether it intends to function as a governing party or merely as an oppositional movement organized around one dominant figure. As long as loyalty to Donald Trump outweighs responsibility to the institution, paralysis will remain the norm.
The bridge will keep deteriorating, and Americans will keep paying the price for a Congress that sees the danger coming but cannot bring itself to act.
Robert Cropf is a Professor of Political Science at Saint Louis University.
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250 Years of Presidential Scandals: From Harding’s Oil Bribes to Trump’s Criminal Conviction
Jan 05, 2026
During the 250 years of America’s existence, whenever a scandal involving the U.S. President occurred, the public was shocked and dismayed. When presidential scandals erupt, faith and trust in America – by its citizens as well as allies throughout the world – is lost and takes decades to redeem.
Below are several of the more prominent presidential scandals, followed by a suggestion as to how "We the People" can make America truly America again like our founding fathers so eloquently established in the constitution.
Warren G. Harding’s oil scandal
In 1922, President Warren G. Harding (Republican) had a mess on his hands when Albert Fall, in charge of the Department of the Interior, took bribes, gifts, and no-interest loans for oil reserve rights located on federal land in Wyoming. The Teapot Dome oil fields scandal, as well as an extramarital affair that Mr. Harding had with Nan Britton, caused many to rate his presidency as one of the worst.
Richard Nixon’s Watergate scandal
Just before Richard Nixon (Republican) was re-elected president in 1972, a break-in by five of his campaign workers occurred at the Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C., where the Democratic National Committee headquarters was located. Due to the ensuing cover-up, Mr. Nixon’s most loyal Republican leaders urged him to resign or face certain impeachment and conviction by Congress. Nixon resigned from office on Aug. 8, 1974.
Ronald Reagan’s Iran-Contra affair
During Ronald Reagan’s (Republican) reign as America’s 40th president, he made a secret deal to sell weapons to Iran at a time period (1985-1987) when the U.S. had an arms embargo against Iran and seven Americans were held hostage. Reagan claimed the weapons sale had nothing to do with the eventual prisoner exchange.
Bill Clinton’s affair
During Bill Clinton’s (Democrat) presidency, he alleged that he “did not have sexual relations with that woman” (Monica Lewinsky). When the blue dress and cigar evidence became public, Clinton was charged with impeachment. The Senate acquitted Clinton in 1998.
Donald Trump’s first impeachment
In 2019, Donald Trump (Republican) called Ukranian President Volodymr Zelensky and requested that Zelensky investigate Trump’s election rival, President Biden, and his son Hunter Biden. A formal House inquiry found that Trump solicited foreign interference in the 2020 U.S. presidential election, and the first impeachment ensued. The Senate acquitted Trump of the charges.
Donald Trump’s second impeachment
The FBI estimated 2,000-2,500 people trespassed into the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. On Jan. 13, 2021, Congress charged Donald Trump with “incitement of insurrection” for his role in riling up his supporters before the chaos ensued. During a Senate trial, Trump was acquitted, making him the first president to be impeached twice.
Donald Trump’s criminal conviction
On May 29, 2024, Donald Trump became the first president in United States history to be convicted of a crime, where he was found guilty by a jury of his peers on 34 counts of fraud related to hush money given to adult film actress Stormy Daniels.
Jeffrey Epstein cover-up
When Mr. Trump was seeking the office of president in 2024, he promised to release all files related to the sex trafficking of 1,200 alleged victims by Jeffrey Epstein. For the first 10 months of Trump’s 2.0 presidency, he refused to honor his pledge. Democrats and Republicans pressured Mr. Trump to cave in, and he signed the Epstein Files Transparency Act into law on Nov. 19.
The law required the Justice Department to release all files by Dec. 19. However, officials and lawmakers estimated that as little as 10% of what the Department of Justice (DOJ) possessed was released (Fortune, Dec. 20). GOP Rep. Thomas Massie (KY) said DOJ’s partial release “grossly fails to comply with both the spirit and the letter of the law” and vowed legal challenges (USA Today, Dec. 20).
Breaking the law became another scandal with clear footprints of our 47th president; Kash Patel and approximately 1,000 of his FBI personnel, and Pam Bondi and 200 DOJ attorneys reviewed roughly 100,000 pages of Epstein-related records.
Lesson to be learned
Bribes, break-ins, lies, sexual behavior, soliciting foreign interference, incitement of insurrection, and breaking the law are among America’s 250 years of presidential scandals.
"We the People" are long overdue for: 1) an honorable, law-abiding, and trustworthy president, 2) properly vetted and competent cabinet members, and 3) capable congressional delegates who demonstrate 100 percent allegiance to the Constitution and follow the "people before party" mantra in their deliberations.
With scandals and misdeeds popping up virtually every week, our first duty, as Abraham Lincoln advised, is to “disenthrall ourselves” and remodel our politics. "We the People" must rebuild institutions, hold proper and complete investigations, and institute laws that will make it very hard for the next Harding, Nixon, Reagan, Clinton, and Trump-era scandals to flourish in the first place.
The onus is on us to fix this mess.
Steve Corbin is a professor emeritus of marketing at the University of Northern Iowa.
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For the People, By the People — Or By the Wealthy?
Jan 05, 2026
When did America replace “for the people, by the people” with “for the wealthy, by the wealthy”? Wealthy donors are increasingly shaping our policies, institutions, and even the balance of power, while the American people are left as spectators, watching democracy erode before their eyes. The question is not why billionaires need wealth — they already have it. The question is why they insist on owning and controlling government — and the people.
Back in 1968, my Government teacher never spoke of powerful think tanks like the Heritage Foundation, now funded by billionaires determined to avoid paying their fair share of taxes. Yet here in 2025, these forces openly work to control the Presidency, Congress, and the Supreme Court through Project 2025. The corruption is visible everywhere. Quid pro quo and pay for play are not abstractions — they are evident in the gifts showered on Supreme Court justices.
Billionaire Harlan Crow purchased and renovated Clarence Thomas’s mother’s home, allowing her to remain rent-free. Justice Samuel Alito accepted a luxury fishing trip from hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer, whose firm later had cases before the Court. These were not harmless tokens; they were violations of ethics and moral conscience, exposing how billionaire money bends justice to privilege.
Billionaire influence seeps even into prisons, creating a pattern of billionaire privilege. The rule of law collapses when billionaires and their allies receive leniency while ordinary citizens face harsher realities. In prison, the late Jeffrey Epstein secured perks and delays unavailable to ordinary inmates. Ghislaine Maxwell, convicted of aiding his crimes, likewise received privileges that ordinary prisoners could never expect. Money and influence bend the rules of justice for the rich, while ordinary prisoners live under rigid, standardized conditions — yet we are supposed to believe that no one is above the law.
Meanwhile, across Congress, billionaire influence may be silent, but it is bold in the policies and laws they shape — and in the campaign funds that sustain leaders. The billionaire‑driven, Big Beautiful Bill is proof: it slashed Medicaid, SNAP, and student aid while delivering billions in tax breaks to the wealthy. Families in every state pay their fair share while billionaires avoid theirs.
In this current system, the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer — Republican, Democrat, or Independent, in red, blue, and purple states. The damage done by billionaires affects the well‑being of all Americans, regardless of party. Politicians in Congress do not appear to empathize with their own constituents crying out for food, housing, and healthcare relief — begging for a piece of the American dream, hanging on the promises made in the Constitution’s principles. Instead of listening, too many leaders bend to donors, leaving families desperate while billionaire interests thrive.
Trump claims to serve the forgotten men and women of America, yet he openly embraces quid pro quo. His presidency itself left a money trail — donations in, favors out — and Americans watched as it happened. He refused to divest from his businesses, allowing foreign governments and lobbyists to funnel money through his hotels. He staffed his properties with immigrant workers on temporary visas, even as he railed against immigration. His golf courses abroad carried heavy debts, yet he used taxpayer-funded trips to promote them. And now, he seeks to reacquire his former Washington, D.C. hotel, once a hub for foreign dignitaries and lobbyists, to again profit from public office. Transparency is undermined, and hypocrisy is glaring, as citizens cannot see where public duty ends and private profit begins.
At the same time, Elon Musk illustrates another dimension of billionaire privilege. The trail of money to Elon Musk is visible and cannot be overlooked. His billions are fueled not only by private ventures but also by taxpayer-funded government contracts. Musk’s billions also influenced the 2024 election, as his platforms and contracts amplified billionaire voices while ordinary citizens were drowned out. His wealth was not just private fortune — it became political leverage. In the billionaires’ world, ordinary citizens have no place. Families struggle to keep health care, while billionaires use their power to strip protections away. Equality is shattered, as billionaire money bends institutions while ordinary citizens are excluded.
By contrast, Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden demonstrated what it means to work for the people, by the people. Obama expanded health care through the Affordable Care Act, created jobs with the Recovery Act, and protected families with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Biden lowered prescription drug prices through the Inflation Reduction Act, capped insulin costs, and defended voting rights. These policies lifted ordinary Americans. Yet Project 2025 proved to be a blueprint for wealthy conservatives to control government — expanding tax cuts for billionaires, dismantling social programs, and silencing diversity.
The people elect leaders to serve us, yet too many ignore their oaths and work instead for billionaires. The Constitution they swore to uphold becomes secondary to donor checks, luxury gifts, and promises of power. Their allegiance is not to the citizens who trusted them, but to the wealthy interests that fund their campaigns and shape their votes. This betrayal is the money trail in action — democracy bent to serve the powerful, not the people. Thus, the principles of democracy — popular sovereignty, equality, justice, accountability, transparency, representation, and rule of law — are compromised when billionaire money dominates.
The money trail runs long and spreads wide. In silence, billionaire money and influence in our country are taking over our Republic. Yet silence is complicity, and when the people stay silent, they surrender to billionaire power.
To refocus on the people, to reclaim government for the people, by the people, citizens must demand campaign finance reform; insist on transparency in Congress and the Supreme Court; hold leaders accountable to their oaths; and press for binding ethics laws that prohibit donor‑driven policymaking and protect social programs from cuts designed to enrich the wealthy.
The Supreme Court must adopt enforceable ethics codes; end acceptance of gifts; strengthen recusal rules; and reaffirm equal justice under law. Citizens must also demand transparency laws requiring full disclosure of donations, lobbying contracts, and government perks; dismantle dark money networks; end gerrymandering through independent redistricting commissions; and protect election integrity with stronger safeguards.
Above all, I demand that Congress and the Supreme Court honor their oaths, hold themselves accountable, and have the courage to act ethically, make moral decisions, exercise the checks and balances, and the separation of powers. I demand that our country return to a sense of normalcy.
The money trail must be broken — and democracy restored.
Carolyn Goode is a retired educational leader and advocate for ethical leadership and healthcare justice.
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