Will the administration’s obvious war crimes finally motivate Congressional pushback? We can only hope.
As I write this, the media is filled with stories about the attacks on fishing boats ordered by Trump and Hegseth, and evidence of their illegality. Trump has been ordering these vessels blown out of the water, and Hegseth has reportedly ordered survivors murdered, in clear violation of the Geneva Conventions and the laws of war.
These actions are being investigated by Congress, and we can only hope that partisanship will not distort that investigation, because the purported reason for these attacks is patently phony.
Trump insists that the attacks are efforts to stop drug trafficking–that the boats that have been blown out of the water aren’t really fishing vessels. Of course, as is typical for this administration, the boats have been attacked and their occupants killed with absolutely no evidence offered or due process occuring. We’re supposed to take Trump’s word for it (despite ample evidence that when Trump’s lips are moving, he’s lying.)
What makes these allegations even more suspect than other Trump lies is the enormous hypocrisy of Trump’s claim to be against the importation of drugs. As Charlie Sykes–among others–has pointed out, his attacks on these fishing boats and his threats to invade Venezuela come at the same time as his pardon of Juan Orlando Hernández, a Honduran ex-president convicted of cocaine trafficking who has boasted about stuffing drugs “up the gringos’ noses.”
The American public is evidently supposed to believe that Trump blew up fishing boats and is threatening a military campaign in an effort to deter drug trafficking–at the same time he is ordering the release of a man convicted of taking “cocaine-fueled bribes” from cartels–a man convicted of using the full power and strength of his state — military, police and justice system–to protect drug traffickers, a man who–as prosecutors convincingly demonstrated– allowed “bricks of cocaine from Venezuela to flow through Honduras en route to the United States.”
As Sykes summed it up:
- Trump declares war on drug kingpins.
- Trump’s uses the war on drugs as the justification for extrajudicial murders on the high seas; and calls for the execution of six Democratic members of Congress who tell members of the military they do not need to follow illegal orders.
- As part of Trump’s war against drug kingpins, SecDef Pete Hegseth orders Seal Team 6 to “kill everybody,” including unarmed survivors.
- We are inching toward the invasion of Venezuela, because its president is allegedly a drug kingpin.
- Trump pardons notorious drug kingpin.
Paul Krugman also addressed the obvious hypocrisy,
At first glance, the juxtaposition seems bizarre – Trump is either murdering or committing war crimes against people who are at worst small-time drug smugglers, and may be innocent fishermen, while pardoning a drug lord who was responsible for thousands of American deaths while savaging his own country, Honduras. But there is a pattern to this murderous madness, once one connects the dots between Trump’s mob-boss persona and the billionaire crypto/tech broligarchy.
According to Krugman, Trump’s vendetta against purported penny-ante drug smugglers is intended to set the stage for an invasion of Venezuela. And he reminds us that Trump “positively revels in his association with big-time criminals, whether it’s Putin or Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman” or Ross Ulbricht, whose underground e-marketplace is known for drug trafficking, and whom Trump pardoned immediately after assuming office.
Still, why would Trump, whose poll numbers are cratering, generate even more negative headlines by pardoning Hernández, who was duly convicted of conspiring to send more than 400 tons (!) of cocaine to America?
The answer is the influence of the crypto/tech broligarchy. In fact, many of Trump’s pardons of the most egregious criminals are closely linked to their influence.
Krugman points out that Peter Thiel was a supporter of Ulbrict and that the ex-president of Honduras is also connected to the titans of crypto-currency. Those ‘crypto-bros” were also behind Trump’s pardon of Changpeng Zhao, formerly the CEO of cryptocurrency exchange Binance. Zhao pled guilty to charges of violating U.S. laws against money-laundering and was personally fined $50 million, in addition to Binance’s fine of $4.3 billion.
The revelations of wrongdoing go on. And on.
In one of the recently disclosed emails from Jeffrey Epstein, the predator wrote “I have met some very bad people … none as bad as Trump.” In several others, he referred to Trump as insane–and a danger to America.
Believe the predator.
Clearly, Trump doesn’t care about the hypocrisy or the crimes he and his people are committing. Add that to the immunity given him by the fundamentally corrupt SCOTUS and the Heritage Foundation millions that support them and their families and you have the scenario Todd and I worry about: “Elections? We don’t need no stinkin’ elections.”
Trump fills the Caribbean with the US war machine claiming it’s all about stopping drugs coming out of Venezuela. Nearly eighty people traveling in boats he claims are transporting those drugs to the US are killed. He does this without the authorization of the Congress. People mostly do not protest this unlawful military action because drugs are bad and this seems so far away. Enter two new policy statements just this week.
First, the government will no longer support the switch from gasoline operated cars to electric cars. Second, the new foreign policy position of the United States will now be focused on the Western Hemisphere as we withdraw our support for NATO and our European allies. The entire purpose of the US foreign policy will hereafter be used to further US business interests.
This morning the NYT published a map showing the staggering large amount of oil still to be pumped out of Venezuela…. 330 billion barrels!
Can we all say “The oil oligarchy returns”?
p.s. What kind of oil business deals are being made by the Trump boys in Saudi Arabia?
Knowing and believing all of this information as we watch it as it happens and escalates and the body count rises isn’t worth any more than a fart in the wind from the gas bag president, his ruling congress with full support of the Supreme Court providing Trump’s immunity to his include his followers. Donald Trump is arresting officer, prosecutor, defense attorney, judge and the jury meting out the death sentences with no trial. How soon will he pardon Maxwell and the convicted police officer the world watched murder George Floyd who has requested a new trial?
This nation has become a metaphor for the Hindenburg; filled with lethal gas and is in the process of crashing and burning and we are like the three monkeys, blindfolded, gagged and have lost freedom of speech. SCOTUS will whip the federal court system into shape to fit their current ignoring all democracy, Rule of Law and destroying the Constitution and its Amendments as its playground.
I am ashamed of America and being an American; being glad I am old isn’t enough for me and Google provides no suicide assistance in its vast collection of knowledge. I have tried. I had to struggle through three what used to be simple actions to carry out my day-to-day life; grocery shopping, banking and picking up a prescription with problems at every stop. After 4 1/2 hours I finally returned home to haul in and store groceries to put away and was too sick and in far too much pain to eat. Trump’s insanity has infected all areas of our lives as he declares wars, not only on his imaginary drug boats but on all American businesses to overfill his billionaire owner’s coffers.
I’m wondering if drugs might help me work my way through my days and my sleepless nights??? Ya’ think!!!
Great post, Sheila!
Although I am not a big fan of Krugman, he at least connected the Broligarchy from Silicon Valley. One crucial sidenote is that Honduras, under the corrupt Drug Overlord Presidente, who just got pardoned, sold a large track of land to Prospera, one of Silicon Valley’s (Peter Thiel) Network States. The current leftist administration cut off the deal, and now there is a $15 billion lawsuit between the two. Because of Trump’s election interference in Honduras, a fascist administration has entered the picture again and will most likely cancel the lawsuit.
Also, back in July or August, it was all over the news that Trump turned over the Venezuelan drug boat operation to the Nazi Stephen Miller. That’s why earlier in the week, Trump slipped and said, “I had nothing to do with the double-tap.”
I had an interesting conversation with Google Gemini AI yesterday about Venezuela. At first, it gave me the typical US media response, which was lame and plain vanilla, so I asked additional probing questions. We finance the opposition party in Venezuela and, most likely, in Honduras. In fact, this has been the MO for many decades (like Ukraine). To file charges against Maduro, the US government “claimed” the last election was rigged and declared the opposition party, Guaido, as president. Now, it’s Nobel Peace Prize winner Machado who has already announced a multi-trillion-dollar privatization project. By not recognizing Maduro as president, it removes his state immunity so they can file charges against him, so he’s technically wanted by the US government as a narco-terrorist.
The US doesn’t spread democracy; it spreads capitalism that our Oligarchy operates. It doesn’t matter who’s in charge. If you let the performances fool you, you’re a sucker or the mark.
p.s. Why do you think Putin refuses to meet with Ukrainian or European leaders? Specifically, Zelenskyy. He’s telling the world the proxy war in Ukraine was started by the US and NATO, run by the US.
p.s.s. China needs the oil in Venezuela, and Russia is friendly with Venezuela. Could this be another proxy war, but this time with China and Russia? I am sure the leftwing BRICS nations are asking for help, so we shall see.
And the Epstein files? Do not forget that Trump wants us all to forget them.
I have little doubt about the “crypto/tech broligarchy,” connection, but this is also all one piece with Trump’s playback to the fossil fuel bonus who helped fund his damned campaign.
Hypocrisy is not in his teeny, tiny vocabulary, neither is it in the GOPIGGIE one.
Tom Cotton said that he saw the 2 survivors of the boat bombing working to reload the “drugs” onto the destroyed boat, in order to bring them here. These clowns have less “decency” than Joe McCarthy!!!!!!
Trump understands that he will never be elected for anything ever again, and he cares nothing about any of those who have suffered because of this Presidency. Once that is understood, the path of his expanded NYC con game becomes clearer. I don’t know how and when this farce will end, but clearly the average American needs to both protect and defend their obligations and become part of the offense to make sure the end comes as quickly as possible.
Todd, you give too much deference to Putin. He is the aggressor in Ukraine. In fact, he was a party to the deal to get Ukraine to give up its nuclear weapons. The deal was that, if Ukraine gave up its nukes, both the US and Russia would come to their defense, if they were invaded. Then, he took the Crimean Peninsula. We made the mistake of letting that go. Putin took that as a sign of weakness. He thought he could take Ukraine in a few weeks and we wouldn’t get involved. The Ukrainians proved to be a much tougher opponent than he thought they could be. Believe what you want, but understand that the Ukrainians are fighting for their country and we should be supporting them, like we promised when we signed the no nukes agreement.
Putin is not popular in Russia, but he is still finding ways to keep the shelves full in GUM. (That’s the store that so impressed Tucker Carlson.) People I spoke to in Russia said they would tolerate him as long as those shelves stayed full.
lets do a time line,early 80s. Noriega is president of pannama, (omar torrijos misteriously drop dead into gulr of mexico,in plane crash,antl drug big timer)colombian cartels use norriega as go between to ship cocaine by anyone
, cash buys for anyone. CIA Kelly and AF boss Secord drop radar to allow cocaine into U.S. airspace, and land. this is how they financed the shithole war in central America in the 80s. mercinaries were paid by the split from the noriega go betweens and the cartels. easy money. and reagan didnt say a word. the iran contra was the classic flack to covernup the drug money that fuel a war that would never end. take the book killing the messanger with Gary Webb of the San Jose Mercury.following,the honduran ambasssdor to collect the money on the landings of the coke. yea, we dont fight wars in jungles, you never win, you just slaughter people, vietnam would be a better focus,again..trump and his billionaire buddies want this. get it right,the billionaires are running the country. its all power baby
Sorry, Peggy, but like most Americans are told to believe, “Russia was the aggressor in 2022.”
However, they don’t discuss the CIA’s involvement in Ukraine long before 2014. It’s the same playbook over and over again. Topple a left-wing government or anti-capitalist and install a leader who will sell out the country to US Oligarchs. This doesn’t happen overnight – it IS our foreign policy playbook.
As I mentioned, when you first ask ??’s to AI on a topic like Ukraine or Venezuela, you will get the American propaganda version. But if you press the AI, it will acknowledge that “many critics” don’t believe the US version.
In 2025, after 75 years of lies by the federal government, how can you believe anything they say? The funny thing is, only MAGA believes Trump about his phony drug war, when the rest of us know it’s all about regime change and owning their natural resources. While we surround and squeeze Venezuela, if they strike back, will it also be known (or told) that Venezuela was the aggressor? 😉
And Jack, what part of the US received all that cocaine shipped in during the Reagan years?
Arkansas and Louisiana.
Who was the governor of Arkansas?
Bubba Clinton 🙂
The pilot?
Barry Seal, who was later assassinated by the drug cartel he double-crossed.
I guess you could say that Bubba got rewarded for his efforts in using Little Rock as a drug receiving operation. 😉
Russia invaded Ukraine for its human and natural resources.
Those aren’t fidhing boats. They’re high-speed blue water boats with four huge outboards. It’s still murder to blow them up.
It is murder to blow up the people on the boats, not the boats themselves. Remember that there has been no evidence presented to anyone to prove they were any threat to the U.S.
Drugs are not forced on most users. Cocaine comes from Columbia, not Venezuela. Fentanyl ingredients come from China, are used to manufacture it in Mexico and carried to the U.S. consumers who are not forced to take any of the stuff.
The billionaire class are notorious consumers of drugs of most any kind, including alcohol. Do you really believe that the dump administration is worried about fentanyl? Meth is a real killer and made right in our own backyards. Rural Indiana is full of meth labs. Maybe we should be sending out drones to the boonies and drop bombs on meth manufacturers. No? Yeah, right!
JoAnn, I’m worried for you. Surely there are resources–both human and material–that can help. Maybe your comments were just the product of momentary exasperation; god knows I’ve been plenty exasperated these days and have felt hopeless from time to time. I too am embarrassed to be an American now, despite the time I proudly served my country in the Navy. Don’t give up the ship. Your concern, your advice, your voice, are still needed. Please don’t forget that.
Todd, I agree that the CIA worked its magic for regime change in Ukraine. However it wasn’t for Zelensky. He was elected fair and square by the people of Ukraine. Ukraine has a long history of fighting for its freedom. Look at it this way, if they wanted to be a part of Russia they wouldn’t have fought so hard before NATO got involved, when they finally got the equipment they needed for defense. Note that they never got the weapons they needed to move the Russians back.
Don’t tell me that Zelensky wasn’t qualified to be President. He’s a lot more qualified than our President. He’s smart and he obviously cares about Ukraine and its people.