American democracy suffers when we place the responsibility for defense on an increasingly narrow segment of the population. We need a more republican country, and a more democratic military.

The dangerous saboteurs that comrade Stalin warned us about are keeping baby formula off of Venezuela’s shelves. President Nicolas Maduro is here to stop them. In the mean time, add milk and sugar to the list of chronic shortages in the country with the world’s biggest oil reserves.

A group of former generals and senior defense officials is warning against the seductive myth of American energy independence. Fracking and horizontal well drilling are giving the United States a lot more oil and gas, but they aren’t making us independent from foreign suppliers. In fact, because oil is a globally traded commodity, even if we produced as much oil as we consumed (an unlikely proposition), supply disruptions abroad would still affect the price of oil here. Barring an isolationist energy policy—a logistically fraught idea that would really upset our allies—America won’t be energy independent as long as it consumes oil. The Commission on Energy and Geopolitics expanded on these concerns in its inaugural report on U.S. energy security.

A number of Puerto Rico’s bondholders are meeting in New York this week to discuss the increasingly real possibility that they may not be paid back. Like Detroit before it, Puerto Rico has been spiraling toward default for years now, but unlike Detroit, Puerto Rico’s status as a territory will make it legally impossible for the island to enter bankruptcy. Instead, it’s beginning to look likely that that the island could issue a moratorium on its debt repayments until it figures its situation out. Unfortunately, Puerto Rico’s debt crisis is so bad, that it’s not clear what more the government can actually do to fix it, and the Supreme Court’s hesitation to allow pension reform isn’t helping.

The ACA may make everyday healthcare expenditures affordable for the previously uninsured, but many plans offered on the federal exchange still wouldn’t offer enough financial protection to families getting a bigger bill or more serious treatment. Studies since the law was passed in 2010 have confirmed that federal health care programs are really only good for one thing: not making people healthier or bending the cost curve, but making individuals more financially secure. If it turns out that despite the ACA, many families will still be one unexpected medical bill away from bankruptcy, the law will not even have solved the one problem it was capable of addressing.

Today brings the world more nut job balderdash from supposedly responsible green leaders, as the UN’s climate head warned the world’s investors to divest from fossil fuel funds and put that money towards green energy. United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres supported this extraordinary demand with an old green standby: pain of climate doom and gloom.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan has focused his national revival agenda on two main things: defense and the economy. There can be little doubt that he is moving the country away from its pacifist past, with a better organized defense leadership and a stronger military. The impact of “Abenomics,” his economic strategy, is less clear: many analysts and investors have been disappointed; others have celebrated renewed growth or suggested the reforms will make a big impact in the future. Government data released today suggest at least some of Abe’s economic reforms are having a positive effect.

Utah Senator Mike Lee has proposed a new bill which would attempt to break the federal monopoly on higher-ed accreditation. Current federal law forbids accreditation agencies from accrediting schools that do not grant formal degrees and forbids students at non-accredited schools from receiving federal aid, pushing students toward a four-year residential model that may not suit them. Lee’s bill would give more power to the states to accredit whatever courses they want, hopefully lowering costs in the process.

The Italian energy firm Eni is now the fourth of five early movers on Poland’s shale reserves to call it quits, and it’s hard to call this anything but a disaster for Polish shale ambitions. That’s a shame, because for a little while there it looked like Poland might have been the first country in Europe to follow in America’s footsteps.

Something unusual is starting to happen in Vietnam. For the first time, Vietnamese authorities are encouraging public discussion and even celebration of a historic battle with China over disputed islands in the South China Sea. In state-run media, in public demonstrations, and in the daily activities of fishermen, Hanoi is encouraging Vietnamese citizens to confront China in a more aggressive and more prominent way than anything in recent memory.