THE AMERICAN POSEIDON ADVENTURE

I am not opposed to the use of force when it is genuinely necessary to protect people. But Trump’s press conference on the Venezuelan action was a tour de money. If you listened carefully, references to wealth and resources “out of the ground” were central to his rationale. Nearly everything was framed in transactional terms; what NATO, the U.S., or others are paying, or how the United States is supposedly being “screwed.”

Yes, he spoke about people being killed and claimed he wants to stop the suffering, even invoking the tragedy of Ukraine. (Of course, he falsely insists the Ukraine war is Biden’s fault, ignoring the fact that it began in 2014 and continued throughout Trump’s first term.) But when it comes to actually helping people, action only materializes when money, especially oil, is part of the equation.

By contrast, Trump’s real record shows a consistent disdain for humanitarian outcomes. His reduction of foreign aid and the destruction of American soft power through the evisceration of USAID have already caused the unnecessary deaths of more than 200,000 children and their families. Add to that the projected early deaths that will result from reduced support for Obamacare, and the character of his ICE enforcement. The pattern is unmistakable.

The Maduro action is simply a play for oil and for the profits U.S. oil companies stand to make. The motives are glaringly obvious. Just look at the web of Trump’s businesses and financial relationships detailed in the New York Times article of December 31 (see attached chart), or read the January 1 Wall Street Journal editorial, “Another Trump Tariff Retreat.” The Times lays out a dense network of financial transactions connecting Trump to wealthy investors and foreign leaders, many of them autocrats. Some of these “deals” involve leveraging the presidency itself for regulatory advantage and personal profit. Others are trade and security arrangements with countries like Saudi Arabia, where America’s technology and military power are bartered in deals from which Trump personally benefits.

If one can stretch their imagination enough to believe the Maduro action is truly about protecting Americans from drugs or gangs, especially when Trump pardoned Hernández, the former Honduran president convicted by a jury of U.S. citizens for shipping tons of drugs into the United States and sentenced to 45 years in prison, then I have some Venezuelan swampland to sell you. This is just another shiny distraction.

Follow the money if you want to understand what is really happening. It is not about us.

Trump said it plainly in that press conference: ‘Life is just a deal.’ That is his worldview. It is not about principle, it is about power. Not about leadership but about might. Not about integrity, but about deception. All in service of money and self-aggrandizement.

My advice to Maduro is make a big donation to the campaign. It may be too late, but I worked for Hernandez.

A sucker is born every minute.

RESIST!!! & EDUCATE!!!