Absolutely not. I did a media blackout between Xmas and New Years. I read very little news. Watched movies. Didn't even know about Maduro until my sister called me yesterday morning, now I haven't been offline. I had also caught up on some of Tina's videos...like her last one with Christianne Amnapour. Tina gives me comfort.
Even this article isn’t quite up to date. Turns out the Maduro’s vice president Delcy Rodriguez has been sworn in as president and is saying things like “We will resist.”
In other words the old regime is still very much in power.
No word from Trump about how he proposes to “run the country” under these conditions.
Maybe he can threaten them into letting him at the oil. Who knows?
There is not one adult or person of character and intelligence advising him. He doesn't even have a "concept of a plan" about what will happen after this. He only cares about his "ratings" and saber rattling and calling into Fox News bragging about watching it and "the violence" like on TV. This is like " A Clockwork Orange" and his cabinet of worthless criminals, his "droogs". He is clearly failing mentally. I'm not being facetious. He is diminished. He can't stop talking about Biden. He is obsessed with Obama and his Nobel Prize. He is having delusions of grandeur ("I just solved 8 1/4 wars"). He is extremely dangerous now because he is emboldened. I just read Paul Krugman. He said even the oil companies are not thrilled with this and haven't said a word. It will cost them billions to fix the old infrastructure and they are nervous the country will be unstable and unsafe (as they should be). Maybe they weren't counting on getting the oil this way, but they had no problem giving him $500 million to do this. I forget which talking head on MSNOW I watched, but they said if everyone who is part of Maduro's regime is not removed, nothing will change. It's like us. Even if Dozy Donnie is gone, it does no good if JD and the others are left in power. I feel sick for Ukraine and Taiwan. He destabilized the entire world. No wonder he doesn't sleep at night. Dictators never do. They are too worried that what they have done to others, will happen to them.
I wouldn't be surprised if he sent all the Venezuelan immigrants here dancing in the street about Maduro, and thought they "misheard" what he said about Machado, right back there to work in those oil fields no matter how dangerous. He doesn't see them as human.
I completetly agree - however now Machado is offering to surrender her Nobel prize to the orange turd in hopes he will help her retain her rightful position as leader - I don't know if she can really transfer her prize and if this regime will unseat the newly sworn President Rodriguez who is not giving up control without a "fight". I'm sure this regime is staying on high alert. And....there's no concept of a plan at this point anyway. Keystone cops.
We cannot get distracted by this circus - the full Epstein files need to be released and give credence to Jack Smith's 8 hour testimony We need to stay focused.
I saw that this morning and I was shocked. He'll take the prize, no doubt have the award re-written with his name on it, and still screw her over. I hope the NP says "sorry, we don't do.that for anyone". I wouldn't believe him if I asked him for the correct time he's such a liar. Machado! Don't do it! Watch Stephen Miller's insane video with Jake Tapper on youtube about Venezuela. Supposedly he is supposed to get a big job running it...into the ground. And per Demented Donnie, we will wind up paying billions to the oil companies as " re-imbursement".
SM was ranting so about something, that Jake Tapper looked at him and said "I have no idea what you are talking about" as he was yelling and talking a mile a minute. Guy needs thorazine. I wonder if he was ever a debater because he doesn't stop hammering and hammering away. He is exhausting. I was hoping anyone who read "concept of a plan" would know I meant it sarcastically, because he never has a plan. It's .like him.saying "I'll have an answer for you very shortly. In about two weeks". 😳 TACO 🌮
I'm not distracted. Everyday I go find more things I've missed about Epstein and Jack Smith. I have the entire 8 hour video. I watch in batches or I saw a video with Allison Gill of The Breakdown who broke it into maybe the 30 most important things she heard. He would be sitting in a jail cell if Jack was able to prosecute him in Washington and MAL. DOJ wrote him an hour before his testifying telling him he is not allowed to talk about MAL. That must be where the real killer stuff is too. Jack Smith is a hero. Cool as a cucumber. Smart as a whip. They thought releasing everything on NYE would distract everyone. Not me! 🎉
Thanks Robin - my question and maybe it's rhetorical, could Machado actually legally turn it over to him? or is she yanking his chain to see what he'll do. He's a kindergarten bully who rants and raves with the brain of a demented old man. He absolutely has no plan for Venezuela - he's flying by the seat of his pants - every day is a whim and this was the biggest distraction exhibited in the past year. Tired of the drama queen antics.
Yes, I heard about the Miller interview and I will watch it, my boyfriend watched it and commented on how incredulous it all was, Miller ranting and raving like a GD lunatic - I just can't stand Tapper.
thanks for the tip on Jack Smith - I've been watching snippets here and there. I'll download the entire 8 hours as I understand the first hour is the most impactful.
I don't actually know if she could do it, but it's a good question. I would hope not. It would set a terrible precedent.
I too am absolutely exhausted. For 10 years. I hate him! And his voice! I'm from NYC and we have hated him here forever. He's a Neanderthal. What's scary is, even if we hate him, when you look at old videos from him in the 80s, 90s (I am happy to say I have never once seen his show "The Apprentice") It is so obvious how diminished he is now. His vocabulary, his thoughts...gone. There were a few sites on YT that had the whole 8 hours of Jack.. Meidas Touch had it. Legal AF had it, and I think it was also official from the govt. (They probably thought we were all out partying with our fantastic economy or on trips and would never see it). Wrong as usual. Yes, the first hour is mostly him giving his own statement in his own words and there was no doubt that he would have proved his case beyond a reasonable doubt. I only learned this from watching Legal AF a couple of years ago, but not only do you have to prove beyond a reasonable.doubt, but it must be able to stand up against appeals. He spoke like a highly confident, career prosecutor. Now if we can only get him for the Nuremburg 2.0 trials that are in all of their futures. Especially Stephen Miller!.🙏
Been 100 percent no news since Jan 19, 2025. I scan the NYTimes headlines as I head straight to The Athletic. Fresh Hell is one small toe dip. I’ve replaced NPR with local sports radio and I’ve never been happier.
If Trump were serious about combatting “narcoterrorism”, he would not have pardoned the former president of Honduras who flooded the US with cocaine. Of course it’s all about the oil. And then there is the “Wag the Dog” angle. Suddenly no one is talking about affordability, Epstein, or Trump’s health.
The United States is really good at sending in soldiers and helicopters and surgically extracting evil from comparatively hapless countries. It's spicy entertainment IRT, and then provides raw material for movie makers, et a,l for years to come. A cottage industry for the totalitarian state, if you will. The techno operations have always been easy for American exceptionalism, but the artistry of diplomacy escapes narcissism, and this time won't be any different. Maybe worse.
I can assure you the big oil companies do not want any part of this. It’s just an invitation to lose more and more money. And also lose whatever shred of public respect they still retain.
Marduro is a crooked con man who dared the free world to face him. Trump was impulsive and the plan as to what to do in/with Venezuela is no doubt, in formation. However, if we can get around the chest beating rhetoric coming out of the administration, there could be good things in store. Yes, this is risky stuff setting precedent by kidnapping a sitting president and putting him on trial. But…there was no invasion and except for a bodyguard no reported loss of life. I think the reset button has been hit with our foreign policy and it’s pretty dramatic. I’d like to keep partisan politics out of this for now and see where we’re headed. Just saying…
Don-Roe Doctrine? Naaaa try the Don-‘ho doctrine, straight outta Eddie Murphy’s Velvet Jones classic, I Wanna be a ‘Ho. The Republican Party rallying cry for decades has been, “We need to run government more like a business.” They got their wish in the form of a gullible fifth rate NYC real estate developer performing the latest version of a textbook hostile corporate takeover.
1. Make your offer to the outfit you wish to fleece, in this case the country of Venezuela.
2. After negotiations break down you make your move; sending in the M&A boys, normally Mergers and Acquisitions, now the Marines and Army.
3. You remove the current CEO and board, Maduro and his wife
4. You install your own CEO; yourself, aka Chrome Dome Crybaby in Chief
5. Eliminate as many nonperforming assets as you can; civil servants and army
6. Peel away many existing assets; state pensions, etc.
7. Spruce up the performing assets; massive oil reserves
8. Handicap the country with horrendous debt; The amount you are going to overcharge for #7
9. Skim 10 percent of the total buyout cash into your family’s pockets.
Congratulations you just graduated from Trump University’s School of the Art of the Deal in hostile corporate takeovers. Time to send the M&A boys home. As with all hostile corporate takeovers this one was done with borrowed money. Money borrowed from a bank. A bank commonly known as the U.S. Taxpayer.
This is what we just did to Venezuela. Still want to call it a war or criminal arrest?
Trump's illegal, alarming and horrifying invasion and occupation of Venezuela forecasts the invasion and occupation of Cuba, Nicaragua, probably Colombia, and possibly Mexico. He has publicly warned all these countries. This is a monstrous throwback -- a revival indeed -- of the decades after the Spanish-American War when the US installed military governors in Cuba and Puerto Rico. Today, a takeover by Trump of Cuba seems likely. He's given us plenty of advance notice that he intends his Donroe Doctrine to rule in the entire hemisphere.
Brilliant column as usual. But starting first thing tomorrow, domestic concerns will yank POTUS sharply away from Venezuela: Those irritating ACA (Obamacare) government subsidies have expired, leaving an estimated tens of millions of Americans with VERY steep bills for medical insurance—or none at all. Congress has dithered and House leader Mike Johnson has done everything possible to avoid a solution. Many of those millions are Trump voters (note that Marjorie Taylor Greene has cited her own children as facing these very same steep price hikes).
I wonder how much Maduro's military extraction cost the U.S. taxpayers?
Agree. But they’ve not come up with anything to replace it, right? And their voters use the ACA. They need to come to terms with that. Plus, doesn’t a part of MAGA want/demand strong social programs from government? I think that’s a thing in MAGA.
What I've learned from this attack and Iran is that the minute Trump offers to talk to you, it's curtains. He offered to parlay with Iran and did so here again with Maduro (hence, the reason Maduro was so surprised by the attack). Obviously, Marco Rubio saw that it was worthwhile pledging eternal fealty to the guy in order to shift him in a more neocon direction. Trump emerged from a crowded Republican field in 2016 in substantial part because his criticism of the war in Iraq broke with Republican orthodoxy, and because he called for a more isolationist foreign policy. In his second term, he's become a flaming neocon (John Bolton must be having wet dreams right now). But he's worse than a neocon, because in addition to these unprovoked attacks, Trump is leveraging US foreign policy to enrich himself, his family and a handful of cronies.
One can only hope that this does lead to a quagmire, as this appears to be the only way to stop this increasingly lawless administration and hopefully lead to his impeachment. If it's too easy, POTUS will go further - Canada and Greenland will be next. As a Canadian, I've learned to not only to take Trump seriously, but also literally. The "51st state" musing all of a sudden don't seem so fantastical any longer. No wonder he and Bibi get along so well.
And meanwhile, "back at the ranch", Stephen Miller is working overtime preparing a PowerPoint presentation about how to take Greenland......
Too cold at present, Cuba is a nice climate at this time of year
Would it be a bad idea to totally isolate from news and current events, except for Fresh Hell? Asking for a friend.
Absolutely not. I did a media blackout between Xmas and New Years. I read very little news. Watched movies. Didn't even know about Maduro until my sister called me yesterday morning, now I haven't been offline. I had also caught up on some of Tina's videos...like her last one with Christianne Amnapour. Tina gives me comfort.
Even this article isn’t quite up to date. Turns out the Maduro’s vice president Delcy Rodriguez has been sworn in as president and is saying things like “We will resist.”
In other words the old regime is still very much in power.
No word from Trump about how he proposes to “run the country” under these conditions.
Maybe he can threaten them into letting him at the oil. Who knows?
There is not one adult or person of character and intelligence advising him. He doesn't even have a "concept of a plan" about what will happen after this. He only cares about his "ratings" and saber rattling and calling into Fox News bragging about watching it and "the violence" like on TV. This is like " A Clockwork Orange" and his cabinet of worthless criminals, his "droogs". He is clearly failing mentally. I'm not being facetious. He is diminished. He can't stop talking about Biden. He is obsessed with Obama and his Nobel Prize. He is having delusions of grandeur ("I just solved 8 1/4 wars"). He is extremely dangerous now because he is emboldened. I just read Paul Krugman. He said even the oil companies are not thrilled with this and haven't said a word. It will cost them billions to fix the old infrastructure and they are nervous the country will be unstable and unsafe (as they should be). Maybe they weren't counting on getting the oil this way, but they had no problem giving him $500 million to do this. I forget which talking head on MSNOW I watched, but they said if everyone who is part of Maduro's regime is not removed, nothing will change. It's like us. Even if Dozy Donnie is gone, it does no good if JD and the others are left in power. I feel sick for Ukraine and Taiwan. He destabilized the entire world. No wonder he doesn't sleep at night. Dictators never do. They are too worried that what they have done to others, will happen to them.
I wouldn't be surprised if he sent all the Venezuelan immigrants here dancing in the street about Maduro, and thought they "misheard" what he said about Machado, right back there to work in those oil fields no matter how dangerous. He doesn't see them as human.
I completetly agree - however now Machado is offering to surrender her Nobel prize to the orange turd in hopes he will help her retain her rightful position as leader - I don't know if she can really transfer her prize and if this regime will unseat the newly sworn President Rodriguez who is not giving up control without a "fight". I'm sure this regime is staying on high alert. And....there's no concept of a plan at this point anyway. Keystone cops.
We cannot get distracted by this circus - the full Epstein files need to be released and give credence to Jack Smith's 8 hour testimony We need to stay focused.
I saw that this morning and I was shocked. He'll take the prize, no doubt have the award re-written with his name on it, and still screw her over. I hope the NP says "sorry, we don't do.that for anyone". I wouldn't believe him if I asked him for the correct time he's such a liar. Machado! Don't do it! Watch Stephen Miller's insane video with Jake Tapper on youtube about Venezuela. Supposedly he is supposed to get a big job running it...into the ground. And per Demented Donnie, we will wind up paying billions to the oil companies as " re-imbursement".
SM was ranting so about something, that Jake Tapper looked at him and said "I have no idea what you are talking about" as he was yelling and talking a mile a minute. Guy needs thorazine. I wonder if he was ever a debater because he doesn't stop hammering and hammering away. He is exhausting. I was hoping anyone who read "concept of a plan" would know I meant it sarcastically, because he never has a plan. It's .like him.saying "I'll have an answer for you very shortly. In about two weeks". 😳 TACO 🌮
I'm not distracted. Everyday I go find more things I've missed about Epstein and Jack Smith. I have the entire 8 hour video. I watch in batches or I saw a video with Allison Gill of The Breakdown who broke it into maybe the 30 most important things she heard. He would be sitting in a jail cell if Jack was able to prosecute him in Washington and MAL. DOJ wrote him an hour before his testifying telling him he is not allowed to talk about MAL. That must be where the real killer stuff is too. Jack Smith is a hero. Cool as a cucumber. Smart as a whip. They thought releasing everything on NYE would distract everyone. Not me! 🎉
Thanks Robin - my question and maybe it's rhetorical, could Machado actually legally turn it over to him? or is she yanking his chain to see what he'll do. He's a kindergarten bully who rants and raves with the brain of a demented old man. He absolutely has no plan for Venezuela - he's flying by the seat of his pants - every day is a whim and this was the biggest distraction exhibited in the past year. Tired of the drama queen antics.
Yes, I heard about the Miller interview and I will watch it, my boyfriend watched it and commented on how incredulous it all was, Miller ranting and raving like a GD lunatic - I just can't stand Tapper.
thanks for the tip on Jack Smith - I've been watching snippets here and there. I'll download the entire 8 hours as I understand the first hour is the most impactful.
I don't actually know if she could do it, but it's a good question. I would hope not. It would set a terrible precedent.
I too am absolutely exhausted. For 10 years. I hate him! And his voice! I'm from NYC and we have hated him here forever. He's a Neanderthal. What's scary is, even if we hate him, when you look at old videos from him in the 80s, 90s (I am happy to say I have never once seen his show "The Apprentice") It is so obvious how diminished he is now. His vocabulary, his thoughts...gone. There were a few sites on YT that had the whole 8 hours of Jack.. Meidas Touch had it. Legal AF had it, and I think it was also official from the govt. (They probably thought we were all out partying with our fantastic economy or on trips and would never see it). Wrong as usual. Yes, the first hour is mostly him giving his own statement in his own words and there was no doubt that he would have proved his case beyond a reasonable doubt. I only learned this from watching Legal AF a couple of years ago, but not only do you have to prove beyond a reasonable.doubt, but it must be able to stand up against appeals. He spoke like a highly confident, career prosecutor. Now if we can only get him for the Nuremburg 2.0 trials that are in all of their futures. Especially Stephen Miller!.🙏
💯
Been 100 percent no news since Jan 19, 2025. I scan the NYTimes headlines as I head straight to The Athletic. Fresh Hell is one small toe dip. I’ve replaced NPR with local sports radio and I’ve never been happier.
If Trump were serious about combatting “narcoterrorism”, he would not have pardoned the former president of Honduras who flooded the US with cocaine. Of course it’s all about the oil. And then there is the “Wag the Dog” angle. Suddenly no one is talking about affordability, Epstein, or Trump’s health.
The “narco terrorism” angle is just an excuse.
And look! Says China. Maybe we can do the same in Taiwan!
The United States is really good at sending in soldiers and helicopters and surgically extracting evil from comparatively hapless countries. It's spicy entertainment IRT, and then provides raw material for movie makers, et a,l for years to come. A cottage industry for the totalitarian state, if you will. The techno operations have always been easy for American exceptionalism, but the artistry of diplomacy escapes narcissism, and this time won't be any different. Maybe worse.
So Canada was too prickly to become the 51st state…
I don’t think he’s given up on us yet. He was talking about Canada the other day.
And Greenland looks like it might next. It’s “his” hemisphere.
And where oh where is Congress?
I can assure you the big oil companies do not want any part of this. It’s just an invitation to lose more and more money. And also lose whatever shred of public respect they still retain.
Chevron is already there. Trump is pushing other companies to commit.
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/01/03/trump-venezuela-oil-us-companies-return-00709782
Marduro is a crooked con man who dared the free world to face him. Trump was impulsive and the plan as to what to do in/with Venezuela is no doubt, in formation. However, if we can get around the chest beating rhetoric coming out of the administration, there could be good things in store. Yes, this is risky stuff setting precedent by kidnapping a sitting president and putting him on trial. But…there was no invasion and except for a bodyguard no reported loss of life. I think the reset button has been hit with our foreign policy and it’s pretty dramatic. I’d like to keep partisan politics out of this for now and see where we’re headed. Just saying…
NYTIMES says 40 military and civilians died.
The New York Times reported that at least 40 civilians and military personnel were killed in the attack, which hit a three-story apartment building.
That's at least 40 too many.
Today’s NYT reports more
than 80 were killed.
The old regime is still in power. Maduro’s vice president Delcy Rodriguez was sworn in today.
Thank you Ms. Brown, I now have 3 events in the month of January during the Don's combined administrations that will live in infamy
Don-Roe Doctrine? Naaaa try the Don-‘ho doctrine, straight outta Eddie Murphy’s Velvet Jones classic, I Wanna be a ‘Ho. The Republican Party rallying cry for decades has been, “We need to run government more like a business.” They got their wish in the form of a gullible fifth rate NYC real estate developer performing the latest version of a textbook hostile corporate takeover.
1. Make your offer to the outfit you wish to fleece, in this case the country of Venezuela.
2. After negotiations break down you make your move; sending in the M&A boys, normally Mergers and Acquisitions, now the Marines and Army.
3. You remove the current CEO and board, Maduro and his wife
4. You install your own CEO; yourself, aka Chrome Dome Crybaby in Chief
5. Eliminate as many nonperforming assets as you can; civil servants and army
6. Peel away many existing assets; state pensions, etc.
7. Spruce up the performing assets; massive oil reserves
8. Handicap the country with horrendous debt; The amount you are going to overcharge for #7
9. Skim 10 percent of the total buyout cash into your family’s pockets.
Congratulations you just graduated from Trump University’s School of the Art of the Deal in hostile corporate takeovers. Time to send the M&A boys home. As with all hostile corporate takeovers this one was done with borrowed money. Money borrowed from a bank. A bank commonly known as the U.S. Taxpayer.
This is what we just did to Venezuela. Still want to call it a war or criminal arrest?
Maduro’s vice president Delcy Rodriguez was sworn in today.
She’s vowing to resist.
Trump's illegal, alarming and horrifying invasion and occupation of Venezuela forecasts the invasion and occupation of Cuba, Nicaragua, probably Colombia, and possibly Mexico. He has publicly warned all these countries. This is a monstrous throwback -- a revival indeed -- of the decades after the Spanish-American War when the US installed military governors in Cuba and Puerto Rico. Today, a takeover by Trump of Cuba seems likely. He's given us plenty of advance notice that he intends his Donroe Doctrine to rule in the entire hemisphere.
I’m guessing Greenland is next. It’s also in “his” hemisphere.
You're good, Tina. Really good. Sized up the goings-on beautifully.
Ye gods, these epigones are a metastasizing pox on our world
Brilliant column as usual. But starting first thing tomorrow, domestic concerns will yank POTUS sharply away from Venezuela: Those irritating ACA (Obamacare) government subsidies have expired, leaving an estimated tens of millions of Americans with VERY steep bills for medical insurance—or none at all. Congress has dithered and House leader Mike Johnson has done everything possible to avoid a solution. Many of those millions are Trump voters (note that Marjorie Taylor Greene has cited her own children as facing these very same steep price hikes).
I wonder how much Maduro's military extraction cost the U.S. taxpayers?
The Republicans don’t care about healthcare. They’ve been trying to get rid of the ACA for years.
Agree. But they’ve not come up with anything to replace it, right? And their voters use the ACA. They need to come to terms with that. Plus, doesn’t a part of MAGA want/demand strong social programs from government? I think that’s a thing in MAGA.
The Republican idea of a “replacement” is a return to the days before the ACA. The WSJ keeps writing editorials about it.
A few MAGA, including Marjorie Taylor Green, are in favour of keeping ACA, along with the Biden subsidies, but they’re a small minority.
Well I was completely wrong about this. No one seems to care... everyone high on Venezuela vibes.
Sigh.
What I've learned from this attack and Iran is that the minute Trump offers to talk to you, it's curtains. He offered to parlay with Iran and did so here again with Maduro (hence, the reason Maduro was so surprised by the attack). Obviously, Marco Rubio saw that it was worthwhile pledging eternal fealty to the guy in order to shift him in a more neocon direction. Trump emerged from a crowded Republican field in 2016 in substantial part because his criticism of the war in Iraq broke with Republican orthodoxy, and because he called for a more isolationist foreign policy. In his second term, he's become a flaming neocon (John Bolton must be having wet dreams right now). But he's worse than a neocon, because in addition to these unprovoked attacks, Trump is leveraging US foreign policy to enrich himself, his family and a handful of cronies.
One can only hope that this does lead to a quagmire, as this appears to be the only way to stop this increasingly lawless administration and hopefully lead to his impeachment. If it's too easy, POTUS will go further - Canada and Greenland will be next. As a Canadian, I've learned to not only to take Trump seriously, but also literally. The "51st state" musing all of a sudden don't seem so fantastical any longer. No wonder he and Bibi get along so well.
As a fellow Canadian I share your concern. 🙁