Obeying in Advance only encourages them. And every Trump initiative is really a con job.

[photo montage courtesy of pixabay.com]

have committed one of the sins that enables fascism: I have obeyed in advance. Despite the fact that no-one has specifically threatened me, I have shut up. For the past few months, I have posted little (although I did post that: 1. Trump is a psychopath, 2. America is fast becoming a fascist state, and 3. Trump’s dementia is becoming obvious). I have only made one post a month lately.

I have lost what little audience I did have by not keeping you entertained. I am so sorry.

The only thing that has exceeded my fear of saying anything is my outrage at the surgical decapitation of the Venezuelan government. A brilliantly executed incursion and extraction of President Maduro by a highly trained military unit (for which the Biden administration should be given credit, as it was trained up by his DEI generals not Trump’s) was still done by unconstitutional order and constituted an illegal act under international law.

Mr. Trump has dropped all attempts at pretense, and has stated that he did it to grab the oil (not to stop narcotics trafficking, in which Venezuela plays a minor role). He has seized several million barrels conveniently stored in a number of large oil tankers that have been “sanctioned” for their involvement in the Iranian oil trade.

Trump has stated that he will take 30-50 million barrels of Venezuelan oil, which represents three or four months of their production at current rates. Most of this confiscated oil is already in tankers on the high seas.

That oil will go to American refineries in the Gulf, which are suited for this heavy grade. A key factor in dealing with Venezuelan oil is that it is largely very heavy and “sour” (high in sulfur). Fortunately, many American refineries were built to use heavy oil. Unfortunately, most American crude oil is relatively light and sweet so much of it has to be exported to other countries that have the right type of refinery. (This is due to a decision made in building American refineries decades ago that is time-consuming to change.)

The more serious problem is that crude oil is selling for roughly $60 a barrel, and American companies have estimated that they need a price of $80 a barrel to profitably process and sell Venezuelan oil. So Trump’s delusion that he can lower American gasoline prices by importing that oil is sure to crash into reality soon. At yesterday’s meeting of oil executives at the White House, many sweet words were said, but no firm commitments were made.

The most serious problem is that Venezuela is rated as “uninvestable” due to its history of twice having expropriated multiple American oil company assets under socialist governments. The government theoretically owes the companies roughly $12 billion that is still being contested in court. So Trump’s suggestion that American oil companies should invest $100 billion over the next ten years to develop Venezuelan oil fields to the point at which they can more than double production is veritably a nonstarter (although they didn’t tell Trump that).

So, in the final analysis, this is just another Trump con job that will fall flat in a year or two. After a year, everyone will have forgotten Venezuela. Already we are obsessing about Greenland and the destruction of NATO.

Or are we obsessing about the killing of a 37 year old woman, an American citizen, who was shot by an ICE agent in Minneapolis less than half a mile from George Floyd’s five year old death site? There was a blizzard of lies about this shooting coming from every government-associated person with a microphone.

It was “snowed under” within days by the announcement that Trump demanded the end of $10 billion in child-care aid to five Democratic-led states because of his reaction to bogus fraud allegations from right-wing influencers. A federal judge has already enjoined this suspension. This was followed today by the suspension of $120 million in food stamps for Minnesota, again due to fraud allegations.

In the past few days, Trump (or his management team) has announced numerous scattered initiatives, including some that appear to gesture at reducing expenses for the middle class. For example, he demanded that credit card companies reduce their interest rates to 10 per cent. He also directed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to purchase a hundred billion dollars in mortgage-backed securities (this is the maneuver that precipitated the near-bankruptcy of the giant mortgage lenders back in 2008).

PS The publication of the “Epstein files” continues apace and hasn’t been mentioned in a week of breaking news. Are you distracted yet?

{numbers in this screed derived from multiple recent Atlantic articles– references available on request.}