He can't defeat Iran

So he's turning to something where he had some success...

From Adam Klasfeld's All Rise News newsletter:

As Nicolás Maduro returns to court this week, multiple Latin American leaders appear to be in federal prosecutors’ sights.

Over in the Southern District of Florida, U.S. Attorney Jason Reding Quiñones has an open investigation into the Cuban government’s leadership, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The New York Times recently reported that federal prosecutors in Manhattan and Brooklyn are investigating Colombian President Gustavo Petro, who has been engaged in a protracted feud with Donald Trump. Petro has been one of the most outspoken critics of Trump’s boat strikes in the Caribbean, openly denouncing the targeting of the vessels as “murder.”

[...]

New scholarship based on declassified documents shows how Trump’s former attorney general Bill Barr wrote the legal rationale for the operation to “snatch” [Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega in 1990], providing the groundwork for the raid on Maduro — and perhaps, the White House’s next target.

[...]

One of the pillars of the Barr doctrine holds that U.S. presidents have “inherent constitutional authority” to execute arrests abroad “even if those actions contravene customary international law.”

[...]

The dusted off doctrine now meets a second-term Trump emboldened to use the Justice Department as an instrument of his personal interests, political agendas, and score settling.

With Trump openly angling for regime change in Cuba, the prosecutor investigating the country’s leadership is a reliable attack dog for the White House.

US attack on Venezuela - Day 2

 

Venezuela HAS a government.  The Trump administration is acting as if it doesn't.

Machado is the woman awarded last year's Nobel Peace Prize.  She was no doubt in support of Trump's illegal operation to kidnap Maduro.  She must be pretty offended that he publicly said she doesn't have the respect needed to govern.  (Not that she's interested in the job.)

If you're leaking to the New York Times or the Washington Post (or any other mainstream media outlet), you're leaking to the wrong people.

UPDATE 01/04/2026:  Give us your country.  Or else.

Well, she's in a pickle.  Venezuelans will not allow her to do that.

Putin is only asking for Ukraine.

He couldn't have done what he did without the support and assistance of Venezuela's opposition party, which probably thought THEY'D be in charge.  The Faustian bargain is alive in the person of Donald Trump as Satan.

That's the true Trump Derangement Syndrome.  It's a virus running rampant.

Greenland and Denmark are part of NATO.  Taking Greenland would be a little tricky, but I would not put it past the mad orange king to try.

Of all the places he's threatening, this one, which should be the easiest given Cuba's location, is the least likely to even be undertaken.  Cuba has Putin's backing.  Perhaps he'll make a deal with Putin, Cuba in exchange for Ukraine.*

How many soldiers do we have?   Are we just going to send Erik Prince's mercenaries to occupy foreign houses of government?

UPDATE 08:55 pm:

What excuse will Trump use to eliminate her?

Game on, I guess.

This cannot end well.

If  you think Venezuelans are going to lay down for a Trump takeover, watch "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised."

 

UPDATE 09:23 pm:

He's not going to break the Venezuelan people, either.  He has bitten off more than he can chew.  

*UPDATE 01/05/2026:  I see the deal was already made.  But not using Cuba.

Colombia president claims innocent fisherman bombed by Trump

Posting on X, [Colombian President Gustavo Petro] said: "The Colombian boat was adrift and had its distress signal up due to an engine failure," when it was struck. He added: "We await explanations from the US government."

[...]

Writing on social media, Trump said US intelligence confirmed the vessel was "loaded up with mostly Fentanyl, and other illegal narcotics".

  Yahoo

If the intelligence was Pete Hegseth or Kristi Noem, you know the Colombian president is right.

The attack is at least the sixth US strike on ships in the Caribbean Sea in recent weeks. It is the first time survivors have been reported.

Writing about an earlier attack in September, Pedro wrote on X on Saturday that: "US government officials have committed a murder and violated our sovereignty in territorial waters.

"Fisherman Alejandro Carranza had no ties to the drug trade and his daily activity was fishing. The Colombian boat was adrift and had its distress signal up due to an engine failure."

Alejandro Carranza was reportedly killed on 15 September when US forces allegedly fired on his boat while he was fishing the Caribbean.

Trump's way was quicker and resulted in less hassle

 That's good if you aren't interested in simply killing people and bragging about it.

Fascism on the march

This comes after Petro, on his social media, posted a video of himself addressing a large crowd and asking the United States Army "not to point their rifles at humanity".

[...]

“Disobey the orders of Trump. Obey the orders of humanity,” he added.

  WION

Does that incite violence?  Against himself by MAGA, perhaps.

In response, Petro said the United States’ decision “breaks all the norms of immunity on which the functioning of the United Nations and its General Assembly is based.”

“The fact that the Palestinian Authority was not allowed entry and that my visa was revoked for asking the US and Israeli armies not to support a genocide, which is a crime against all humanity, demonstrates that the US government no longer complies with international law,” he posted on X.

[...]

Last week an independent United Nations inquiry concluded for the first time that Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

Republicans (and Trump) have wanted to get rid of the UN for a long time.  Personally, I think the UN should find a new location in a more stable country that upholds its values.  Paris? Ottawa?  
 

UPDATE 04:17 pm:

Trump revenge

Colombia turned back 2 deportation flights.  Trump responded.

Things are going to get far out of hand far too quickly.

UPDATE 07:09 am:  Looks like the bullying worked.

Colombia’s foreign ministry released a statement soon afterward that said “we have overcome the impasse with the United States government.” It said the government would accept all deportation flights and “guarantee dignified conditions” for those Colombians on board.

[Gustavo] Petro began the day by announcing that he had turned back U.S. military planes carrying deported immigrants. This set off a furious back and forth with Mr. Trump, who in turn announced a barrage of tariffs and sanctions targeting the country, which has long been a top U.S. ally in Latin America.

Mr. Trump said on social media that the United States would immediately impose a 25 percent tariff on all Colombian imports and would raise them to 50 percent after a week. The Trump administration would also “fully impose” banking and financial sanctions on Colombia, apply a travel ban on Colombian government officials and their associates, and revoke their visas, the president said.

Mr. Petro hit back on social media. In one post, he announced retaliatory tariffs of 25 percent on U.S. imports to Colombia; in another, longer post, he said those tariffs would hit 50 percent.

Directly addressing Mr. Trump, Mr. Petro also questioned whether the American president was trying to topple him.

“You don’t like our freedom, fine,” Mr. Petro said. “I do not shake hands with white enslavers.”

The clash reflected how Mr. Trump was ready to make an example out of Colombia as countries around the world grapple with how to prepare for the mass deportations of unauthorized immigrants that he has promised.

[...]

Early on Friday, Guatemala received two U.S. Air Force jets carrying around 160 deportees in total, making it one of the first countries to publicly receive such flights.

Officials in Mexico, the source of the largest number of unauthorized immigrants in the United States, have said that they remained open to receiving deported citizens. Routine deportations have taken place to Mexican cities along the U.S. border in recent days.

[...]

Honduras, which like Colombia has pushed back against the Trump administration’s plans for mass deportations, has said that it has not yet explicitly been asked by U.S. officials, but that it is open to receiving military flights.

  NYT

The arguments all seem to be, not over receiving deportees, but the manner of deporting them on military flights. The whole world is insane.

Fucking nuts.  Is this so people have to go to his social media site?

"Columbia"

Trump ambassadors

I understand he picked Kimberly Guilfoyle for Greece, because she wanted to go there and needed a consolation prize for getting dumped by Don Jr, but why does THIS guy want to go to Colombia?  Or why does Trump want him to?  It's not because he'll blend in.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Need any more Third World comparisons?

Or in this case, perhaps it's still a contrast.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Respected again

Colombian newspaper Publimetro earlier this week released a 24-minute audio of Colombia’s Ambassador to the United States Francisco Santos and the country’s Foreign Minister-designate Claudia Blum. The paper said the pair had been recorded last week in a Washington, D.C., café by an unnamed third party.

In the animated and muddy recording, Santos — the country’s former vice president and a longtime diplomat — offers Blum advice about navigating the Washington power structure.

[...]

Santos said that a decade ago, when he visited Washington, “it was predictable. You knew how things worked. Now that’s all over.” As an example, Santos said that the ambassador from Singapore to the U.S. had confided that during the Obama administration he used to visit the State Department once a week, but now hadn’t been there in eight months “because it doesn’t count.” While he said that U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo still carried weight in Washington, his underlings had no power, and that real policy decisions were being made by the National Security Council.

  Miami Herald

He's not wrong about that.

And I would like to point out the obvious: In this same fashion, Trump's Mar-A-Lago dining area national security conversation with Japan's prime minister and Sondland's restaurant call to Trump should be simply understood as publicly available - all over the world. Were they this ignorant or did they just not care?

Santos also worried that Washington might lose interest in the Venezuela issue. As he has for the last several months, Santos said he plans to keep leading delegations of U.S. lawmakers to the Colombian-Venezuelan border, so they can see the crisis first hand.

“We’re going to do that [so] Washington doesn’t forget how important Venezuela is,” Santos said. U.S. lawmakers “need to understand that that sh**show is going to destabilize the entire continent. Here [in Washington] there is no memory, within 10 minutes they’re bored and on to the next issue. I have to keep inventing things so that they will keep Venezuela top of mind. That’s my job when it comes to the Venezuela issue.”

Bolton's gone, but we still have Elliott Abrams

And that's not good for anybody.

The U.S. special envoy for Venezuela, Elliott Abrams, said the U.S. government is not “closer” to a military intervention in Venezuela, but warned that Colombia would have full American support in case of an attack by terrorist groups or the Venezuelan armed forces.

  Miami Herald

Why was it necessary to state that at this time?

On Tuesday, Abrams also ruled out that U.S. support for Venezuelan interim President Juan Guaidó’s efforts to join the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (TIAR) meant a possible U.S. military action.

And Venezuelans know they can't believe a word coming out of Washington.

“The United States is not closer [to a military conflict with Venezuela], but I do worry a lot about the Colombian-Venezuelan border,” Abrams said in a videoconference on Tuesday from Brussels, where he was discussing the Venezuelan crisis with members of the European Union.

[...]

Abrams said the United States has intelligence information confirming the presence of members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN) in Venezuela.

[...]

"This is very dangerous, because if there are cross-border attacks from Venezuela into Colombia, we can expect the Colombians to react. And obviously, we would be fully supportive of Colombia in that situation.”

[...]

sMaduro, meanwhile, has denied the accusations and ordered military exercises on the border with Colombia, which has increased tensions in the region.Maduro, meanwhile, has denied the accusations and ordered military exercises on the border with Colombia, which has increased tensions in the region.

On Monday, Maduro activated the Defense Council to discuss actions against an alleged military threat from the Colombian government, which Maduro accuses of planning terrorist plots against Venezuela.

[...]

Both Abrams and Carlos Trujillo, the U.S. ambassador to the Organization of American States, told reporters on Tuesday that invoking the TIAR — also known as the Rio Treaty — did not necessarily mean that Guaidó would have military support from the United States, an expectation that had grown within Venezuela, especially within the opposition.

Now THAT they can believe.

Guaidó is still trying.



Who will agitate now that Bolton has been canned?


...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

This is the first he's heard of it

Fox News will now air something about it for him.

And on China?  Whatever the voices in his head say at any given moment.



And...he's back on the golf course.  It's been a golfing weekend for him.



Yesterday:

Donald Trump – who cancelled on his Polish hosts at the last-minute last week, citing concerns over a hurricane barrelling towards Florida – was due to spend the day at his golf club in Virginia.

[...]

Yesterday it emerged that Trump, who had given the impression he would spend the day at Camp David with experts to monitor Dorian’s progress, had in fact flown by helicopter from Camp David to his Virginia golf club.

  The Guardian

Also yesterday:



Jesus wept.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Regime change for Venezuela falters

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro announced that Venezuela is breaking diplomatic relations with neighbouring Colombia and gave Colombian diplomats 24 hours to leave the country.

“My patience has run out, we can’t keep allowing Colombian territory to be used for attacks against Venezuela,” he stated to the crowd.

[...]

His comments came at a large anti-imperialist rally in Caracas held under the slogan ‘Hands off Venezuela.’

Tensions have reached new heights along the Venezuelan-Colombian border after self-proclaimed “Interim President” Juan Guaido pledged that aid would enter the country on Saturday “no matter what.”

  Venezuelanalysis

Looks like Guaidó is learning what many coup attempters have before him: the US will let you down at the last minute. Now he looks like he can't deliver. Of course, it's not over yet, but the Venezuelan people who back Maduro have been handed a great morale victory.

Caracas has denounced the move as a precursor for a US-led military intervention into the country and proceeded to shut down the borders with Dutch Caribbean Islands, Brazil and Colombia on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday respectively. This stance has been supported by both the Chinese and Russian governments, with Russian foreign office spokespersons telling reporters Friday that the “aid” scheme “resembled those in Iraq and Libya.”

[...]

During his speech at the end of the rally, Maduro declared that the “coup d’état” initiated by Juan Guaido 30 days ago had been “defeated” and told his followers that they are “on the right side of history” before challenging Guaido to compete in elections.

He won't, because he knows he would lose.

Maduro also promised to apply justice against anyone who violates Venezuelan law, citing a number of right-wing activists who led isolated incidents of violent protests at the Colombo-Venezuelan border towns of Urena and San Antonio in Táchira State Saturday. The violent protests set fire to a public bus and burnt tyres in the streets in an attempt to open the border crossing.

Finally, Maduro reiterated earlier reports that his team are coordinating US $2 billion worth of “technical humanitarian assistance” channeled through the United Nations, as well as receiving 7.5 tonnes of medicine from Russia.

“Of course there are problems in Venezuela,” he told the crowd, “But who is going to solve them? Mr Trump? Or the Venezuelans?”

I think we know their answer.

The International Red Cross [...] voiced further criticism of the border actions taken by Guaido, this time denouncing the illegal use of its symbols by Guaido’s followers on both the Brazilian and Colombian borders. The Red Cross had previously joined the United Nations in describing the aid plan as “politicised.”

I assume Guaidó is still in Colombia, but I don't know. So far, Maduro hasn't called for his arrest.

The tense day saw a handful of skirmishes between right-wing activists left in Colombia after Friday’s “Live Aid” concert and the Venezuelan military. Despite the activists flanking the “aid” trucks as they approached the closed border in Simon Bolivar international bridge, the trucks were able to pass the checkpoints, as tear gas and rubber bullets were used to repel the opposition militants, with witnesses reporting the use of molotov cocktails and other weapons in attempts to try to force entry into Venezuela.

[...]

No deaths were reported on the Colombian border, but a number of wounded are receiving medical attention.

[...]

A tense standoff in Pacaraima on the Venezuelan-Brazilian border resulted in trucks coming from Boa Vista being blocked. The region had seen two deaths Friday when indigenous citizens apparently supporting the entry of the “aid” confronted a military convoy en route to the border, and there were unconfirmed reports of four more deaths in the sector Saturday.

[...]

Unconfirmed claims later in the day from Colombian migration offices suggested that 23 Venezuelan soldiers had abandoned their posts during the day, but no more details have been made available.

《Ser Allendista y no ser Chavista es una contradicción ideológica》 - Pablo Sepúlveda Allende ‏ 
("To be an Allendista and not be a Chavista is an ideological contradiction.")

Bingo.

Case in point:

Trump has been talking up war with Maduro since 2017, when he repeatedly asked McMaster for a plan to overthrow Maduro. New McCabe book confirms Now, Trump says "all options are on the table" and Rubio objects to Senate resolution that forbids war.

I want aid to get to Venezuelans. But let's be honest - Venezuela didn't just lurch into humanitarian crisis. The aid is being sent there now as part of a regime change strategy. Many are hoping that it will be the match that lights a civil war against Maduro.

Senator Rubio rushed to tweet out reports today of Maduro allies firing into Colombian territory, warning that the "the United States WILL help Columbia confront any aggression against them." Venezuela ordered Colombian diplomats out in 24 hours, ramping up the crisis.

Maduro is evil, and the U.S. should pursue a strategy to undermine him and prompt new elections. No one can defend what he has done to Venezuela. But it's quite a different thing for the U.S. to incite a civil war with no real plan for how it ends (sound familiar?).

And finally - and perhaps most importantly - go look up the 1947 Rio Treaty, It's a western hemisphere mutual defense treaty, and may not require a war declaration if Trump is legitimately coming to the defense of Colombia. Don't think the Venezuela hawks don't know this.

Indeed it sounds familiar.  Works every time.

But, Senator Murphy wipes it all out with his next tweet:



This is not democracy promotion, and every time you pretend it might be, you show your true colors. This is regime change for the benefit of the US hegemony.  He who controls the oil wins.

(Not exactly "to raise the international community formally".  More like

"formally propose to the international community that we have to open all options".)

And to do that, we have to remove sanctions and free up their money in the US and UK.

But we won't.

UPDATE:  It appears Guaidó is indeed still in Colombia, and scheduled to meet with Mike Pence tomorrow.