[I have known Ambrose since the early i990s, when he was the London Telegraph’s US correspondent based in DC. Now he is the Telegraph’s World Economy Editor. Ambrose is at the top of his game in this analysis. –JW]

Vladimir Putin’s predicament is deteriorating fast across every front of the global energy war.  Western sanctions are at last going for the jugular, and Donald Trump has finally thrown American power behind the blockade.

The Saudis are flooding the world oil market in a ruthless drive to regain lost share. A glut of historic proportions is building and is likely to last deep into 2027. Goldman Sachs has told clients that Brent crude prices could drop to the low $40s.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) has drastically revised its global supply and demand forecasts. China has filled its strategic petroleum reserve to near bursting point and can no longer keep mopping up the surplus. Excess crude is now being stored on water in a giant global armada of floating tankers.

The math is brutal. The IEA expects a jumbo global surplus of four million b/d in 2026. “It is increasingly clear that something has to give,” said Toril Bosoni, head of the agency’s oil and markets division.

That something is the Russian war economy.

Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley revealed Wednesday (10/29) that former President Joe Biden’s corrupt Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) compiled what’s being described as an “enemies list” of Republicans to target, including through wiretapping the phones of several high-ranking Republicans as part of their “get-Trump” lawfare.

Grassley revealed more than 1,700 pages of documents provided by whistleblowers, shining further light on the “Arctic-Frost” inquiry. Arctic Frost was an investigation led by the Biden administration to, as The Federalist’s Margot Cleveland explained, “target Republicans in key battleground states.”

Then FBI Director Christopher Wray sent a memorandum to then-Attorney General Merrick Garland claiming that “fraudulent certificates of electors’ votes were submitted to the Archivist of the United States” for Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, and Wisconsin. Wray also asserted that these votes were part of a grand conspiracy to obstruct the certification of the 2020 election.

Jack Smith relied on this investigation as the basis for his anti-Trump lawfare, through which he attempted to both put the then-former president in jail and spy on the entire Republican political apparatus. Grassley made public the 197 subpoenas sought by Smith.

USS Gerald R Ford on its way to Venezuela

Donald Trump is preparing for a military intervention in Venezuela. You don’t send a dozen warships, including a nuclear submarine and an aircraft carrier, to interdict a few drug traffickers. You don’t deploy 10,000 troops to deter smugglers.

Many, especially in the Global South, will fall hungrily on the parallel with Russia. So much, they will say, for the pretense that Western countries uphold the international order. The US, they will aver, is no different from Russia, acting from self-interest, and then coating its Machtpolitik in cant about freedom and democracy.

The comparison is false, the opposite of the truth.

Trump has no interest in annexing Venezuelan territory. Whatever happens next, whether we end up with shots fired in anger or whether Maduro’s rotten regime agrees to free elections, no one can credibly claim that the US is commandeering Venezuelan resources.

Putin’s objective in Ukraine was to remove a freely elected government and replace it with a Russian client regime. Trump’s objective in Venezuela is to remove a Russian client regime and replace it with a freely elected government. That difference is categorical.

The new White House Ballroom with new First Lady’s East Wing in foreground

Donald Trump has demolished an old office wing attached to the White House and begun building a large new ballroom, big enough to accommodate state dinners and other major events. Currently, those have to be held outdoors, under a temporary tent, because the White House lacks a large, permanent space.

Democrats are outraged by Trump’s move. They have filled social media with pictures of the demolition. Oh, the humanity. Tearing down any part of the White House is a travesty, they say, and an assault on one of our cherished national landmarks. They are so enraged that at least one Democrat lawmaker has made tearing down the new ballroom – after it is built and paid for – a litmus test for his party’s 2028 presidential candidates.

Call it  BDS – Ballroom Derangement Syndrome.  To explain it, we’re going to take a look at Rodney Dangerfield in Caddyshack.

When a man seeks to lead the largest city in America, his citizenship should be beyond question. Yet the candidacy of Zohran Mamdani, an avowed Radical Muslim Communist Democrat and recently naturalized U.S. citizen, has raised a troubling question: Did he obtain his citizenship under false pretenses?

That question became official on June 26, when Congressman Andy Ogles, Republican of Tennessee, formally asked the Department of Justice to investigate whether Mamdani’s 2018 naturalization should be revoked under 8 U.S.C. §1451(a) for “willful misrepresentation or concealment of material support for terrorism.”

The request, addressed to Attorney General Pam Bondi, was not a partisan stunt. It was a carefully structured one-page letter that laid out specific evidence, cited public sources, and explained why Mamdani’s own words may point to something more serious than youthful rebellion or artistic expression.

By early autumn, the issue had escalated far beyond a single letter. On October 8, Florida Congressman Randy Fine, a Republican, reignited national debate by denouncing Mamdani as “little more than a Muslim terrorist” and demanding his deportation to Uganda. Fine’s comments reflected genuine anger among voters who believe the system too often protects destroyers rather than creators.