I’m still trying to digest what’s up with Trump and Venezuela. Here’s the latest from the New York Times:
Hours after a U.S. military operation that captured Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, and his wife, President Trump said the United States would “run the country until such time that we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition.” Mr. Maduro and his wife are being taken to New York to stand trial on drug and weapons charges, he said.
Mr. Trump offered few details about how the United States would oversee Venezuela, saying only that “a group” would do so. He added that he was not afraid of “boots on the ground.”
Mr. Trump said Venezuela’s vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, had spoken to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and told him she was “essentially willing to do what we think is necessary.” But hours earlier, Ms. Rodríguez denounced the U.S. operation on state television.
Trump can’t run this country properly, much less another one. I take it Marco Rubio and Pentagon Pete will be in charge of Venezuela. Maybe Pete will line up all the men and order them to shave.
Putting Maduro on trial in New York is an interesting move. Can the DoJ even prove it has jurisdiction? Trump would probably have to prove that Maduro is directly in charge of gangs operating within the U.S., and he may not be able to do that.
In his press conference today, Trump tried to make Maduro sound like a threat to the United States:
Trump addressed reporters shortly after returning to Florida, framing the developments in Venezuela as an urgent national security matter and casting the Maduro government as a direct threat to the United States. The president said the now-deposed Venezuelan leader had deepened ties with foreign adversaries while pursuing advanced weaponry capable of harming Americans.
“Furthermore, under the now deposed dictator Maduro, Venezuela was increasingly hosting foreign adversaries in our region and acquiring menacing, offensive weapons that could threaten U.S. interests and lives,” Trump said. “And they use those weapons. Last night. They used those weapons last night, potentially in league with the cartels operating along our border.”
Bring on the aluminum tubes and the yellowcake. I don’t doubt Venezuelans used some weapons last night, as they were being attacked. Duh. Then Trump mentioned the Monroe Doctrine without giving a hint that he knows what that is. It’s being superseded by the “Donroe Doctrine.” I’m serious; he said that.
Congress wasn’t even notified of this move, of course. It was not only illegal under the Constitution it also violated the UN charter (see Just Security).
Needless to say, this will not turn out well. And maybe it was about the oil after all. CNBC:
President Donald Trump on Saturday said U.S. oil companies will invest billions of dollars in Venezuela’s energy sector after the overthrow of President Nicolas Maduro.
“We’re going to have our very large United States oil companies — the biggest anywhere in the world — go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure,” Trump said in a press conference from his Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Florida.
“Let’s start making money for the country,” Trump said.
Trump can’t order our very large oil companies to do squat in Venezuela. I’m sure they’d do it if there’s a guaranteed profit for them, but that’s not making money “for the country.” That’s making money “for the oil companies.”
I’m sure there will be more details over the next few hours. I just want to note this one reaction from Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz
the ultimate democratic party response: i LOVE the crazy illegal thing you just did, but could you perhaps come to my office to sign form 317b for it?
— Jack Mirkinson (@jackmirkinson.bsky.social) January 3, 2026 at 9:38 AM
Yeah, Dems need to work on the resistance thing. Some of them aren’t very good at it.
I've read Maduro was there illegitimately, he and his VP are hated, and I remember the legitimately elected president – did she win the Nobel Prize? – praised Trump a few months ago. Doesn't give 47 license to do what he pleases, but it's an ambiguous enough situation to try and hide the hideous thing we did.
It's not exactly clear to me what resources Venezuela has that we'd want. I've read their oil isn't great quality. They may have rare earths. I do know that all bullies like to make an example of someone, to threaten others. It's certainly a distraction from Epstein.
Someone commented: "When you're a US president, you can just grab a South American country by the president….. They just let you."
Maduro has been indicted under the Biden administration – I'm not sure of the charges, but I assume that's partly where Trump got his pretense for authorization.
Note that the charges that were brought in the indictment have nothing to do with Trump's outlandish claims of war authorization via chemical warfare (drugs) used against the US, or Venezuela getting new weapons. I do know the Biden administration considered it unlawful to do anything more than engage in diplomatic actions, while Maduro was head of state
I looked up the earlier indictments. It actually was a project of Bill Barr during Trump 1.0. But it wasn't quite done when Biden took over, so the indictments were obtained in March 2020.
Yes, I learned it wasn't (even) as clean-cut as "Biden-indictment," but since I didn't have more facts, it seemed silly to post more.
No, "we" don't own anything. It means that Orange Julius owns us.
NorCal received over 1,100 recommendations to his NYT comment:
All I can add is a robust AMEN.
"Trump would probably have to prove that Maduro is directly in charge of gangs operating within the U.S."
I wish one of the potted plants in the WH press corps would have asked diaper don if Maduro would be considered for a pardon like Juan Orlando Hernández: The former president of Honduras and Ross Ulbricht: The creator of the darknet marketplace "Silk Road"! I saw a couple democratic congress critters on msnbc voicing their displeasure but both of them foolishly praised the military (Whiskey Pete). Why so-called liberals feel the need to kiss the ass of the military is beyond me. They carried out the mission that they were given, that is what is supposed to happen, heaping praise on them only validates diaper don, whiskey pete, little foam boy marco and the whole god damn illegal operation. I noticed that stephen (Goebbels) miller was at the pressor but no sign of JD, trouble in paradise?
"And maybe it was about the oil after all"
Well I just the scanned CNN, AP and Reuters and there aint any mention of the Epstein files, so there's that!
On reddit / vegaslocals someone is hosting a "Venezuela Libre" party tonight to celebrate Maduro's capture. Maduro apparently was hated there.
As one commenter put it, "When your house is on fire, anyone with a hose looks like a hero. Even when the hose sprays gasoline"
One has to admire Trump. He has said that the USA has staged a coup d'état, is seizing control of a country, and is planning to loot it.
Not a bad day's work.
Maduro is not a nice person. He's not Mamdoni. I didn't like Sadam, either. That time, I fell for it, thinking that displacing an evil dictator would work itself out to the eventual benefit of the people of Iraq. Maduro might not have been popular with his citizens, but I wonder if the people of Venezuela are eager for American capitalism. (US corporations get the gold mine – Venezuela gets the shaft.)
When the Sunis and Shias were going at it, following Saddam's hanging, the only thing that would unite them was the chance to kill an American. Cuba is still firmly communist, down to the rank and file. If Venezuelans see honest communism as their best shot at a slice of the oil wealth, we're in for a long, bloody occupation.
At this point, I have lots of questions and no answers. How is this going over with MAGA? When it comes to recorded votes in Congress, how popular is this war? In a year, Republicans will have to own this mess in the midterms. What about invading Canada, GOP? Mexico? What about Greenland? Where do you draw the line? Is there a line?
Trump's right in there with a promise to rebuild the infrastructure of the oil fields for US oil corporations. We're 'running' the country for now. What about feeding the people as their economy collapses in a wartime occupation? Don't we 'own' that, too?
A lot of countries believe in their independence. Like Ukraine. Like every country in NATO, worried about Putin's unlimited ambitions. There's the European Union and the United Nations. They're being told that three superpowers are going to run the globe: the US, Russia, and China. Everybody else will have to pay a toll to their superpower for a degree of autonomy. The lesson of WWII was that Germany could beat anybody, but they couldn't beat everybody. Sanctions and tariffs could bring the US to its knees. Japan, Taiwan, S. Korea, and Vietnam will be absorbed by China in the new order. Much of Europe might be under Moscow's control. Canada and all of Central and South America would be managed by US fascists. Am I exaggerating?
Let's say I'm not. To bust this deal to slice up the earth, smaller, less populated, poorer countries might recognize the strength they have operating in coordination. If the US is forced to abandon its flirtation with fascism, it could renew its position as a partner for democracy. Sign on to our commitment to NATO and throw Russia out of Ukraine. All of this could reverse the current trajectory. Trump is NOT popular – this war may be VERY unpopular, even with MAGA.
Regarding the speculation that Trump wants the Epstein inquiries to go away, I agree. Do we need to keep the heat on there? Hell, yes. But this war is not a winner for Trump, either. We can shove this down Trump's throat or up some other orifice. Don't trivialize the impact or importance.
[Re-posting this cuz I posted late on the previous topic…] […and because I'm an egomaniac who thinks folks care about what I post!! (1/2 snark):
A week or two ago, I heard a clip of Drum saying that the US needed to get back the oil that Venezuela had stolen from us. That statement was a head-scratcher for me. Then in another thing I saw, a commentator from the US business analysis community mention something about US refineries on the Gulf coast having been set up to refine the particular type of crude that Venezuela produces. I put 2 and 2 together and figured that maybe this whole thing has had something to do with the US's major oil companies… ie. that those corporations got the ear of the drumph and talked him into this Venezuela escapde.
So I poked around a bit and discovered that sometime within the past 10 or twenty years, one or more of the US Oil companies had a contract with Venezuela selling those companies a lot of crude over a period of time; but then Maduro welched on the deal. Law suits were filed including in international commerce court (?) and a settlement or judgement was established whereby Venezuela would compensate the US oil companies for failing to deliver on the contract, a remedy that is somewhat common in the business world. I don't recall whether the financial compensation was fully delivered or whether Madura welched on that too. But the bottom line is that legally, the US companies don't have a claim to "stolen" Venezuelan oil.
I'm sure that there are corporatists in our political ecosystem that might argue that, but regardless, what came home to me, is that when this administration said it was going to get the oil and it would make us rich, the "us" they were talking about was not the people of the US, it was the oil companies.
In short, this is just naked corporatism exercised by the Article II branch. Yuck.
This is just a piece of the whole picture IMO. I think there's a lot more (ie. Sec of State and his lust for revenge on Cuba, and other things.)