Whom Shall America Bomb Next For Displeasing God-Emperor Trump?
Our fascist leader spent the weekend listing some options!
Amidst all the awful crap that follows America’s raid on Venezuela and kidnapping of its president this weekend — the death, the destruction, the hit to whatever positives might remain of America’s reputation, the unconstitutional act of ignoring Congress, the members of Congress who support being turned into floormats the president can wipe his feet on, the feckless response of some of the leaders of the opposition party (whose response to being lied to multiple times about the administration’s intentions was to slam their fists on the table and demand ... a meeting), the arrogant chest-thumping by the almost cartoonishly stupid and obnoxious leaders of the administration — we can add one more terrible result:
Donald Trump is feeling damned invincible right now.
Might there be some danger if a narcissistic, brain-addled Fox News grandpa with impulse control problems, the powers of the presidency at his disposal, and a retinue of scheming, amoral, unprincipled, poop-headed viziers cheering him on is feeling cocky? Oh, a little!
How invincible is Trump feeling? Well, he spent his Sunday night flight back to the White House from Mar-a-Lago threatening to do what he just did in Venezuela to a whole bunch of other countries with whom he has some sort of beef. Let’s run through the list:
Greenland and Denmark
Reporters asked President Bagel-Head if he “expects to take action against Greenland,” thus fulfilling his long-held desire that it become a territory of the United States. Trump demurred, saying to ask him again in “about 20 days.” Which is a surprise, because usually when someone asks him when he’s going to present a plan for anything, he says it will happen in about two weeks. So, he’s slowing down!
The laughter you hear in that clip is from Lindsey Graham and Commerce Secretary Howard Nutlick Lutnick, who seem to find alienating our NATO allies and bullying smaller, weaker nations just pants-pissingly hilarious.
Denmark had already been pushing back this weekend. On Sunday, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen demanded the US stop with the threats to forcibly take over Greenland. The territory’s prime minister, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, said that “threats, pressure and annexation have no place between friends,” and echoed Frederiksen in demanding an end to the trolling.
Nielsen was responding to an X post by Katie Miller, execrable wife of Stephen, which suggested the US will soon make Greenland part of America:
Normally, we wouldn’t put much stock into what some charisma-free wet sock of a mommy podcaster thinks, but her husband is one of the most powerful figures in government. (Also perhaps the most psychotic and able to yank Trump’s marionette strings.) So, not good.
By the way, the Millers revealed on New Year’s Eve that Katie is now pregnant with their fourth child, so a hearty mazel tov to them for almost having a full Hitler Youth troop in their house.
Cuba
The helicopter carrying Nicolás Maduro and his wife out of Caracas had barely lifted off before Trump was threatening the island nation of Cuba, Venezuela’s closest ally.
At his press conference on Saturday morning, he stated that “Cuba is a badly failing nation,” and reiterated his desire to “help the people” there in some non-specific way. He repeated this on the flight home Sunday night, then had his lickspittles Graham and Lutnick reiterate the point.
Meanwhile, Secretary of State Marco Rubio had some harsh words for Cuba at Saturday’s press conference. This led to the hilarious moment where he denounced Cuba for being led by “incompetent, senile men” while the incompetent, senile man he works for was dozing off on his feet behind him.
Mexico
Trump made some comments on Sunday to the effect that Mexico is “being run by cartels” and that something will need to be done about it. What might that something be? An invasion? Sanctions unless Mexico lets American troops on their soil? Banning Mexican telenovelas from broadcasting or streaming in the US? Encouraging Taco Bell to bastardize their cuisine even more?
Trump has offered more than once to send American troops to the country to fight the cartels. Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, has turned him down because she’s not an idiot:
“I don’t believe in an invasion; I don’t even think it’s something they’re taking very seriously,” Sheinbaum said. “On several occasions, he has insisted that the U.S. Army be allowed to enter Mexico. We have said no very firmly — first because we defend our sovereignty, and second because it is not necessary.”
One thing we can say for sure: Invading Mexico at the same time we are co-hosting the World Cup with them could be a touch awkward!
Colombia
Trump and Colombian president Gustavo Petro have had something of a war of words lately. Trump recently said Petro should “watch his ass,” a sentiment he reiterated in his Saturday press conference:
“He has cocaine mills. He has factories where he makes cocaine. And yes, I think I stick by my first statement. He’s making cocaine. They’re sending it into the United States. So he does have to watch his ass.”
So manly, much presidential.
Petro responded with a long, long statement on X telling Trump, in essence, to cram it up his own ass:
“I learned not to be a slave, and I reject your phrases assigning us unilaterally as a field of your dominion; we Latin Americans are republicans and independent, and many of us: revolutionaries. Don’t think Latin America is just a nest of criminal poisoners of your people; respect us and read our history.”
Petro also responded initially to Trump’s attack on Venezuela by saying that “a clan of pedophiles wants to destroy our democracy.” You know, in case you were looking for a president you could actually admire.
By the way, if anyone is wondering why Colombia’s cocaine exports are a problem but the former president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernandez, deserved a pardon despite all his cocaine trafficking activities, it’s an easy answer: Petro is a leftist and Hernandez is a conservative. In America’s long and stupid history of involvement with Central and South America, right-leaning drug dealers get away with it so long as they also help fight leftism. It’s why Marco Rubio, who has spent much of his miserable life marinating in south Florida’s right-wing Cuban community, is fully onboard here: because the Maduro action could lead to the end of the communist Cuban regime.
South Florida, where it is apparently always 1961.
Iran. Iran? Yes, Iran
Iran has been dealing for a few weeks with some large-scale protests of its regime. Over the weekend, Trump suggested the US might get involved. Clearly the fact that there was little blowback (yet — the Iranians have long memories) from the US bombing Iranian nuclear facilities a few months ago has him feeling cocky:
“We’re watching it very closely. If they start killing people like they have in the past, I think they’re going to get hit very hard by the United States.”
If we were the Iranians, we wouldn’t be worried. (At least we think that’s probably just babble-bluster, at this point anyway.)
Venezuela, again.
Venezuela’s vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, took over for Maduro. (And maybe even engineered his removal, though the full outlines of that story aren’t clear yet.) Trump made it clear all weekend that he will tolerate her so long as she gives America what it wants. Which in this case is mostly access to the country’s oil fields. But:
“[I]f she doesn’t do what’s right, she is going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro,” ... Trump made clear that he would not stand for Rodríguez’s defiant rejection of the armed U.S. intervention that resulted in Maduro’s capture.
On the one hand, this could simply be kayfabe. Rodríguez might have to pretend to be mad so Venezuelans will accept her rising to the presidency.
On the other hand, how funny would this scenario be: Rodríguez engineers Maduro’s removal by back-channeling with the US and promising Trump access to all her nation’s oil fields, gains the presidency, and then turns around and tells him to fuck off. We’re very much rooting for that, if only to see the impotent flailing.
As usual, Trump has really thought nothing through. His tiny pea brain made the calculus that he could get rid of Maduro, and then everything would just sort of work itself out. So the chances he follows through with much of his big talk, at least in any meaningful way, are probably slim.
Polls so far show that maybe two-thirds of Republican voters support what he’s doing in Venezuela, which is not a lot for your own party. The oil companies are exceptionally unexcited about rebuilding Venezuela’s oil extraction capacity, which they seem to think could take years while Trump seems to think it could be done by next Thursday.
On the other hand, he’s got people around him with their own agendas, and he’s an easily manipulated idiot. So who knows!
The real literal actual US State Department posted this today:
What a time to be alive.
OPEN THREAD.
[YouTube / YouTube / Reuters / Atlantic]
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Monday Bear.
Coming up on the 10th I will have a special tribute for him with lots of photos as it will be one year since he crossed the Rainbow Bridge.
https://substack.com/@ziggywiggy/note/c-195520263?utm_source=notes-share-action&r=2knfuc
Mr Cakes and I had a good chat yesterday. We've decided we're going to start taking the steps to have another shot at adopting a child this year. There's a fair bit of work to do before we'll be ready to go, so the plan is to start the work now and check in every 3 months until we agree we're ready to go again.
The first step is me trying to build up my fitness, in an effort to do this I've obtained a set of small weights and a underdesk stationary bike. I intend to alternate between the two every day except for weekends and see what progress I make. Hopefully I can start to build up a bit of strength and stamina again.
Other than that it'll be a case of trying to gather our social networks together again.