“We do need Greenland, absolutely.”
Trump warned Venezuela’s acting president that “if she doesn’t do what’s right, she is going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro.”
In other news, the death count from the Maduro raid is up to 80, and the regime is still solidly in power.
We don't experience the making of history realtime, it's very difficult to predict the future that unfolds from this.
But, it isn't hard to imagine this is the event that starts WW3, like Franz Ferdinand or the invasion of Poland.
China invading Taiwan would be the next logical step.
That said, I won't shed a tear for Maduro, fuck him.
There is such marvelous track record of success with the U.S. forcing regime change and taking over. Just splendid. I'm sure this will be totally different.
Hell...they wanted Maduro arrested when Biden was in charge ($25M bounty on his head), so they even support regime change abroad, and specifically supported arresting Maduro when they were in power.
On a personal note: I don't think you can give people freedom or democracy. They have to want it badly enough to fight for it. We haven't seen much evidence of that from Venezuelans. So, if that is what this is about, it will likely fail miserably. I can only hope this is about something different, such as controlling oil supplied to China...and letting China know we are willing to do that before China decides to commit to invading Taiwan.
(no message)
(no message)
Middle finger.
Is there any doubt that Trump will take a personal cut of any new oil revenue?
Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/04/opinion/trump-venezuela-congress-war.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share
From a South American journalist - I don’t know the guy, but I bet this is about right:
“ Delcy Rodríguez and the core of the regime’s leadership are negotiating with the United States as we speak. This is not a sudden pivot. It is the result of a conclusion reached in Washington over months: the U.S. does not believe that María Corina Machado and the opposition have the operational capacity to seize power in Venezuela because they do not control, or meaningfully fracture, the military. If they did, power would have shifted immediately after the 2024 presidential election. It did not.
For a long period, U.S. officials, including Marco Rubio, were in constant communication with Machado and her team. They were asked repeatedly for proof of a concrete plan, not just to win power symbolically, but to retain it in practice: chain of command, military alignment, institutional control, day-after governance. The answers were consistently evasive, justified by security concerns, but never substantiated. At that point, from the U.S. government’s perspective, the opposition ceased to look like a viable transition mechanism and began to look like a political wager with no enforcement arm.
The plan now on the table is for Delcy Rodríguez to stabilize the country with U.S. backing and then call for general elections. This is not framed as an endorsement of the regime, but as a containment and transition strategy. Washington is explicit about one thing: this is not a partnership of equals. The United States is running the process, the lines are being managed through Rubio, and the leverage is entirely asymmetric. Delcy is the instrument, not the center of gravity.
U.S. officials also assess that Delcy’s harsh public rhetoric today was aimed inward, at the chavista base, not outward. That messaging is understood as domestic signaling. Nevertheless, as of now, negotiations with the United States are ongoing as we speak.”
The pathetic regime was evil to its people. But no threat to us.
Trump said the word “oil” 20 times in the presser yesterday.
Venezuela has no means of paying back in currency for the loans or the oil infrastructure China has built or promised to build already to the tune of $60B so, China structured repayment to be in barrels of oil essentially lasting forever. You'll notice DJT has stated that China can buy oil which in my opinion means China will still have access to oil on the market, but money previously provided to Venezuela is now a gift.
So, two birds with one stone; a dictator taken down and a major push for influence by Red China in this hemisphere reined in.
Consent Management