That there will be accountability.

Congressional Republicans make clear every single dang day that they support Donvict and are willing to go along with whatever he desires. Also the military has now made clear that they will follow any illegal order that he gives.

The majority of people in the US dont believe or support this clown's bullshit and that number is growing everyday.

And he knows it.

I have heard a lot of explanations, and one or more may be correct, but I honestly still don’t get it. My suspicion is the that true and /or complete reason has not been fully fleshed out.

Rec

Russia's agent orange is just following his puppet master daddy.

The oil is of a different grade I understand...we don't have the refineries to process this.....but/ the country has much more to offer and looting is my guess.

... back when we were the biggest importer of oil in the world.

Now we are the biggest exporter of oil in the world (#1 producer - we produce 2/3rds the amount of oil that #2 Saudi and #3 Russia put together) We just do not need Venezuelan oil. We are still the world's largest or second larger user (after China) of oil.

The counter in my mind is that trump isn’t running the country, which means others made that decision.

That you’re talking about.

That’s a very reasonable point, but I have heard this morning that their oil is not easily refined by our system. I’d like to find out more about that.

Has some relevant points.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=post&post&forum=1322&pid=101372

Trump claims their oil is of poor quality, among other tangential issues.

On edit:

Confirmed it is of poor quality.

Search “Venezuelan oil quality.”

read that its actually high-quality oil.

It’s poor quality and costly to refine.

Saudi Arabia has the best.

Brent crude is the best. The next best is west Texas intermediate. Saudi oil is similar to Venezuelan oil.

Never apologize to me. I'm not afraid to be wrong, if I am. However, your remark is vague, so I'd like to pin it down. Are you referring to the Brent crude prior to '21 or the mixture that came afterwards?

If it's the latter, your comment goes into the apples/oranges stack, which needs an intro paragraph saying that you're changing the topic slightly. We're talking about countries. Among the many cues is post 29.

Kinda' like parallels in sentence structure, if you know what I mean.

Thanks for your contribution!

Gotta get trump up to speed. Jeepers frapping crispies.

... this morning and he was blathering, even brought Joe Biden into it. He sounded like he was repeating what he was told when woken up clueless about this travesty.

Is he ever? He'll just start babbling about his perfect health, his ability to name three animals, and his super gigantic crowds!

Of his shit-stained breeches.

He's flying by the seat of OUR pants!

They wanted something in return, give us back "our" oil fields Venezuela "stole" from us.

... when it goes up the US as the largest oil producer gives itself a raise. When it gets too high, we lower our prices to sell more. When it gets too lower, we either drop our production or buy cheap foreign oil.

When was the last time OPEC was in the news? OPEC over played its hand and all of a sudden the US became the largest exporter of oil. OPEC shenanigans gave us fracking. The real money in petroleum is in the refining of it. A tree is worth a lot more as 2x4s than as firewood.

It would currently be impossible for them to make a profit there.

... them so expensive, so full of adulterant, and gives high paying jobs to gun-toting criminal suppliers. It's not the supplies, it's the demand and our head up our ass drug policies.

I am so sorry to hear about your nephew. It is a crying shame. I just cannot imagine the pain and suffering this has caused your family.

The irony is he is now being prescribed some of those same drugs that he was buying on the streets.

It is a crying shame and a curse.

Very little of the illegal drugs originate in Venezuela. A larger amount ARE transported through Venezuela, but they are not the source of the drugs. And very little of the drugs that pass through Venezuela end up in the US. Most end up in europe.

https://www.kcra.com/article/venezuela-drug-trafficking-cocaine-fentanyl/69676930
Get the Facts: Is Venezuela a primary drug trafficker to the United States?
The Trump administration has set its sights on Venezuela in its latest campaign against illegal drugs, but data shows that the country is responsible for just a sliver of drug trafficking directly to the United States.

The Get the Facts Data Team analyzed data on cocaine and fentanyl trafficking. While Venezuela is a player in cocaine manufacturing and trafficking, drug seizure data shows that it's not as prominent a supplier of cocaine to the U.S. as other South American and Latin American countries.

There is also no evidence that any significant level of illegal fentanyl — the primary killer in U.S. overdose deaths — is produced in South America, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

Most illegal fentanyl enters the U.S. from Mexico, per UNODC and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. Illicit fentanyl can also be diverted, or stolen, from legal sources as medical professionals use the drug.

The main question is: how long does this last?

And I truly, genuinely, honestly, and seriously want to know.
Has overwhelm formally taken over? Taken us all by the throat?

And it has to be faced: how permanently have we been disabled?

Are we all either asleep or strategically paralyzed? How far have the manipulation and mind control been allowed to go? And realistically, is there ANY meaningful pushback? I’m finding all off this not only truly insane, but also terrifying.

I have a personal tragedy in family from illicit drug traffic. I have only contempt for each and every drug trafficker no matter from where or which country.

Rubio and Hegseth for lying to Congress? And if you think Trump's meddling in Venezuela has anything remotely to do with drugs, then I have a boatload of bridges to sell you.

for mass deportation operations is one motivation. So far he's been losing in court. Venezuela's looking weak and inviting. Multiple motivations are likely.

This obsession never made sense to me. The same with Greenland. Being it is Trump, I thought it might be just mindless saber-rattling as a show of strength. I know it is a convenient distraction for Trump, but it feels like there is something more to it. Maybe Putin whispering in his ear?

I would be putting my military on heightened alert posture near Greenland.

This begs the question: if a NATO country attacks another NATO country and the attacked country invokes Article 5 of the NATO Treaty, which side does the rest of NATO join in on?

Also, how many times can I use "NATO" in one sentence? Feel free to grade my homework.

I believe I read that Denmark has put their military on heightened alert in Greenland.

I've sworn at my computer several times already this morning. I really, really hate this monster.

eom

And preparing for what Donvict might do next. He has already signaled his intentions although I don’t think he was taken very seriously. He should be, imo.

The site has many others, if you are interested.

You ought to read their comments about Hegseth, for one. Things like he showed up for the Army-Navy game in full pads; he's so patriotic he keeps a constant BAC of .1776; the fog of war caused him to wrap his car around a telephone pole...good stuff and well written...obviously under pen names.

Trump asked oil billionaires to give him a billion dollars for his campaign. His payback is to hand them Venezuela’s oil resources, and Venezuela will receive pennies while they earn billions. Trump will probably be paid a cut under the table.

In addition, Venezuela has some rare earths that can be exploited to reduce US reliance on China.

Or he knows he’s not long for this planet and wants to go out with a literal bang?

Or Hegseth wants to play GI Joe with real soldiers. No one in this administration seems in touch with reality

Three letters: O.I.L.

Whatever the reason, it's all bloody terrifying!

any pretext of being our federal legislative body that is supposed to check the executive branch. Trump has been given the reins of government on a golden platter. He is now the dictator that our founding fathers feared would someday be put in place by a wealthy elite with the wherewithal to buy governmental leadership.

Let them clean it up.

we don’t need to show you no constitutional approval” says bandito Trump.

This cluster fuck is all about the oil and payback to the oil companies’ executives that funded Trump’s campaign. It also provides the potential means to manipulate gas prices to give the scum bag republicans a chance in the midterms.

Another important consideration besides just the oil, Venezuela has the second largest refining capacity in the world. Limited refining capacity has frequently been used as an excuse to the reason why even when oil is cheap, gas is not. Additional refining capacity has the potential for the kinds of price manipulation I was suggesting above.

Rec

All twatter exchanges on my browser are blocked.

Secretaries Rubio and Hegseth looked every Senator in the eye a few weeks ago and said this wasn’t about regime change. I didn’t trust them then and we see now that they blatantly lied to Congress.

Secretaries Rubio and Hegseth looked every Senator in the eye a few weeks ago and said this wasn’t about regime change. I didn’t trust them then and we see now that they blatantly lied to Congress.

— Senator Andy Kim (@kim.senate.gov) 2026-01-03T10:37:29.506Z

K & R

They lied to Congress - what a surprise

THIS is his job and needs to be his main focus - not Trenton.

the Trump crime family. Speaking of the oil-igarchy, how does this attack on Venezuela benefit Saudi Arabia? If they benefit, then this is also a payback to the Saudis for Kushner's $2 billion-dollar gift.

Reason #3: Trump is a cruel and vindictive and utterly soulless monster,who thinks bombing countries makes him one of the cool kids, like his idol Putin, whom he craves to impress.

My opinion
There are plenty of payoffs that Clownface and his circus anticipate.
But reason number one is getting Epstein Files out of the headlines.

right: Epstein is the #1 reason.

What I can't believe is that Pam Bondi and President Rump haven't found a way to lose or destroy all of the Epstein files. Doesn't the basement at Mar-a-Lago ever flood anymore? Are they waiting for another Rump family member to fall down some stairs and die so they can bury the files on one of Rump's golf courses again (just speculation on my part about dearly departed Ivanna Rump's burial at the golf course).

Link to tweet