This weekend, the U.S. extraction of Nicolás Maduro has plunged Venezuela into a power vacuum as Delcy Rodríguez, Hugo Chávez’s vice president, has been sworn in as the interim president. In the latest episode of Independent Conversations, President Graham Walker sits down with Ivan Eland, Gabriel Gasave and Leo Brito to discuss whether or not Trump’s raid in Caracas was legal and what’s next for Venezuela.

Ivan Eland writes about Washington’s murky intentions toward the country and the legal, political, and strategic chaos now unfolding on both sides of the Caribbean.

Also this week, Craig Eyermann recounts the story of daycare fraud in Minnesota, revealing industrial‑scale abuse of federal funds enabled by officials who failed to verify where billions of taxpayer dollars were going.

Raymond J. March questions whether the FDA’s new fast-track approval reforms are truly a form of deregulation or simply inviting a new wave of regulatory capture—as the FDA faces its first real test with a life‑saving, rare‑disease drug.

Finally, Jane Shaw Stroup explains how Uber shattered the taxi cartel’s decades‑old protection racket … only to trigger a new wave of regulation as governments scramble to reassert control.

Enjoy.

Jonathan Hofer
Managing Editor