Everything.

Flim Flam Man has lost the Hispanic vote, the Independent vote, hell, even alot of the moderate repub. vote.

I'm truly horrified at what he's possibly going to do to Ven., they don't deserve the US meddling in their affairs, yes, Maduro is a tyrant dictator, which surprises me that Flim Flam Man hates him, after all, birds of a feather and all that, but the bottom line is that Maduro is the Ven. peoples problem and it's up to them to take care of it, not the US military.

Oh, and that oil that he's claiming is ours, it was never ours, it belongs to the people of Ven.

I guess Flim Flam Man misses US military coffins arriving at Dover AFB.

Congress, do your fucking job and reign in this tyrant.

They can be brought back

They collectively donated one billion to his campaign and he wants more from them after wasting taxpayers money stealing another country's oil to make them richer than they already are (the CEOs).

The tyrant dictator to worry about is in the White House.

MAGA delenda est.

I hope this is not a preview of the declaration of war he plans to announce. I just wish he would die.

civilized people do. I admit I know NOTHING about this. But this is getting ugly real fast!!

he kicked out the US oil companies and nationalized the oil industry, which, in Flim Flam Man's warped brain, is tantamount to declaring war.

wants to fight for the oil companies--with our troops blood?? We shall see.

he was duly and fairly elected as Pres. by the people of Venezuela.

That’s why the CIA and MI6 launched a coup to overthrow Mosaddegh and install the shah. Then, the Anglo Iranian oil company became BP.

this nonsense is making the run-up to the War in Iraq look like a well organized plan.

………..the Crime Syndicate Fascist is coming for all of you.

He’s motivated by revenge and humiliation of his threats.

Shit, at this rate, Flim Flam Man has estranged any allies we had, except of course, the nations ruled by dictators and tyrants.

I think that if he does commit ground troops, his family should be in the first wave.

Our allies have left the house.

Thank you, USMC!

He's agitated. I think the Epstein release is due 12/19 so that is coming up too.

... in the end the US oil companies realized this was a good thing for them, it made the maintenance of oil production a responsibility in the hands of the nation. All the US does is sell it. They do not care if prices go, the US produced oil will go up, too.

tries to make the U.S. a victim as well, but it is a projection of his own feelings. He did the same thing when he complained about NATO and countries not paying their fair share. Painting the richest, most powerful country* in the world as used and abused is quite a stretch.

Plus, we know how much he loves all the drama.


*Well we WERE the richest and most powerful when he took office anyway.

....because he wanted to nationalize the oil industry. They installed the Shah which eventually led to the rise of the Ayatollah.

He doesn't have the motivation to do his own fact finding - someone is giving him info to steer these decisions.

Penchant for compulsive pathological lies takes over.

He's a psychopath.

It's not crazy to argue that Stephen Miller is effectively the POTUS. He is the equivalent of a university provost; Trump is like the university president.

— Jon Becker (@jonbecker.bsky.social) 2025-12-17T23:52:13.385Z

Wonder who got that idea from?

Is anybody going to stop this insane psychopath?

If trump wants a war with Venezuela, the very least we ought to expect is a genuine, lawful basis for expending huge amounts of American money and American military lives. Absent legally-binding exploration contracts, Venezuela's oil is Venezuela's. Not exactly rocket science, here...

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

trip to Aruba if this continues. Our military planes almost caused a collision with a Jet Blue flight a few days ago. Sickens me that he wants to use our military to start shit. Probably just trying to divert our attention from something else illegal that he is doing.

he also stopped paying foreign companies which accelerated the massive decline in VZ; going from the one of the wealthiest countries in SA to one of the poorest

A little sarcasm there.

Big Oil tried to exploit Venezuela and rob it of the future wealth belonging to its people - as it does with any powerless country. Chavez said no, fuck you. Of course that is simply not done, is it? Especially by a socialist country (gasp and clutch pearls)!!

Venezuela has been doomed by the common interests of both Big Oil/oligarchs and long-standing U.S. interventionist foreign policy in South America. It will now become another U.S. client state, where "freedom" really means free to be exploited by the likes of Exxon and the greedy pigs running our world.

ALL of that decline is on Chavez & now Maduro. Not "Exxon & the oligarchs".
Venezuela MADE MONEY from the oil companies.. Oil production today is a fraction of what it used to be when the evil oil companies were there. Millions of people have fled the country
I don support ANYTHING Trump is doing down there. But if he gets rid of Maduro & a REAL government of the people replaces him, Trump WILL be looked at as a hero by many down there whether we like it or not. But it'll be hard to instantly replace him with a true leader of the people.

I do believe most Venezuelans would disagree with you. I'm not sure you understand the centrality of oil ownershp in Venezuelan national pride and identity. There is no going back for them to the bad old days of American oil companies and their AMERICAN worker-enclaves colonizing their land and exploiting.THEIR oil.

Now that Trump has made his intentions clear - as if there was any doubt - Venezuelans will coalesce around HANDS OFF OUR OIL! As all Americans should unite around NO BLOOD FOR OIL!

We should not even be having this conversation 20+ years after Iraq. Seems we are doomed to repeat history after not learning from it.

"THEIR oil" is hardly even being produced compared to 25 years ago. The people are FAR worse off than 25 years ago. Thats why Maduro had to STEAL his "reelection'
I cant b believe anyone here today thinks that most people wouldnt LOVE to go back to when they didnt have to flee their own country just to survive. By no metric is the country better off now than when the evil corporations were there. Come on. At least in Saudi Arabia they give the people money while oppressing them. In VZ Maduro & his cronies keep it all for THEM

If you were to look beyond the right-wing talking points that you seem to have espoused and swallowed whole, you would then know that VZ was not doing great at all prior to Chavez. Neither economically nor democratically.

Your "once prosperous" Venezuela had a poverty rate of close to 50% by the end of the '80s, and a staggering 70% by 1995 - well before Chavez, who managed to cut this in half if you are interested in facts. Clearly all that wealth was not distributed equally.

Is this what you meant by "once prosperous"?

I could go on, but I have a feeling it won't do any good.

He robbed the country, broke international laws, imprisoned opponents, stole foreign property etc. Maduro continued it.
When he FIRST took office, he did drop poverty rates, but it didnt last long. It became all about HIM; again just like Trump.
As recently as a year ago over 1/2 the country lived in poverty. 50% are in extreme poverty.

Wow, thanks for pointing that out!

But seriously. Of course VZ is in dire straights and its people starving and suffering. Around 7 million have fled. It's horrible. What decent human being would NOT want to do what they can to alleviate their suffering? So of course Trump won't.

Many people believe that "stealing" from the rich to give to the poor is wrong. I'm not one of them. The rich became rich by exploiting the poor in the first place, so wealth redistribution is simply righting the wrong.

The uber-rich are still in Venezuela as are the ultra-poor and barrios that always existed, even when Venezuala was "once prosperous" as you seem to believe. Yet the lives of the poor were far better under Chavez than they were under the IMF's punishing austerity crap and even before. After he died and oil crashed, then the embargo and sanctions, it all went to hell. The wages of forming a Petro-State at the expense of manufacturing, agriculture and other vital sectors. But that happened long before Chavez and Maduro who it must be admitted continued on that wrong path. Not that they had much choice either way, it was already baked in. But their ultimate mistake was in thinking they could go up against the Western Empire and its interests.

Lastly, it's pretty naive to think that Venezuela is going to be allowed to choose a "leader of the people" as you put it. Nothing will rise from the ashes of its sovereignty except a right-wing strong-man who will bow down to Trump and whoever else is pulling the strings of the Empire at any given time. Venezuala already had a "man of the people". It will not be allowed to have another one.

See you around.

And likely won the election.

As of us here, winning in '26 & '28 will be a lot harder if democrats tell people "the people were better off under Chavez". Not going to win over any voters

It's not crazy to argue that Stephen Miller is effectively the POTUS. He is the equivalent of a university provost; Trump is like the university president.

— Jon Becker (@jonbecker.bsky.social) 2025-12-17T23:52:13.385Z

We produce 13 times as much oil as Venezuela.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_oil_extraction

United States 13,401,000 North America
Saudi Arabia (OPEC) 10,815,700 Asia
Russia (OPEC+) 10,750,000 Asia/Europe
Canada 5,500,000 North America
China 4,915,000 Asia
Brazil (OPEC+) 4,900,000 South America
Iraq (OPEC) 4,462,000 Asia
Iran (OPEC) 4,084,000 Asia
United Arab Emirates (OPEC) 3,200,000 Asia
Kuwait (OPEC) 2,559,000 Asia
Norway 1,990,000 Europe
Kazakhstan (OPEC+) 1,880,000 Asia/Europe
Mexico (OPEC+) 1,762,000 North America
Qatar 1,746,100 Asia
Nigeria (OPEC) 1,700,000 Africa
Algeria (OPEC) 1,415,000 Africa
Libya (OPEC) 1,380,000 Africa
Venezuela (OPEC) 1,098,000 South America

MAGAts are creaming their pants at the thought of free gas at the pumps for their big pickup trucks and SUVs. Oh yeah, foreigners are stealing our jobs and our oil. They're so sneaky like that.

18 years ago.

In 2007, the government further nationalized the remaining foreign-operated oil fields, requiring companies like ExxonMobil, Chevron, and BP to accept minority stakes in joint ventures, solidifying state control over the world's largest reserves. Chevron still operates in Venezuela. They are the only American company that still does.

There are other forces aligned Trump who planned this action against Venezuela. Trump is the perfect vessel to get this done. A profoundly stupid yet narcissistic man who is manipulated into these actions by his cabinet of Wormtongues. They whisper in his ear, knowing he will act on it.

The felon better not interrupt my watching of The Floor.

is what the war with Venezuela is about.

Ain’t about no drugs.
Ain’t about no cartels.

The "Great Powers" have a God-given right -- nay, a sacred obligation -- to seize those unfortunately placed resources and put them to their "proper" use.

If you don't think there are people who hold exactly, literally, such beilefs, you haven't read enough history.