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An Anniversary
Lest we forget, today is the anniversary of the attack on the nation's Capitol building in 2021 by right wing militants encouraged by the defeated candidate for the presidency, Donald Trump, to prevent the counting of the electoral votes. This marked the descent of the United States of America to the status of a Banana Republic.
JL
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Trump's Venezuelan Adventure
Four years later, he was legally elected.
Now that our president has used our armed forces to seize the Venezuelan dictator, what does he plan on doing with him? Normally, in a situation like this, once a ‘democratic’ government would be established in Venezuela, Maduro would be turned over to it. But really, there is no such government acceptable to us on the horizon.
Trump says there is, but that ain’t so! He seems to think the world is as dumb and gullible as the Republicans whose Party he allegedly heads.
Commentator Simon Rosenberg’s latest posting initially summed up the situation in its headline reading ‘Is Trump in Charge of Venezuela? The Maduro Government Say No. What the F-ck is Going On?’
Additional commentary on what’s going on, which is still in flux, can be found in the substack postings of Professor Timothy Snyder and Professor Heather Cox Richardson and in many other places, onlne and in print. Start off with Professor Richardson’s ‘Letters from an American’ dated January 4 by CLICKING HERE or visiting https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/ You don’t have to select a ‘paying’ option to read it. Interesting is that Richardson quotes Simon Rosenberg reflecting an inbreeding among those criticizing President Trump.
A solution using a hemispheric organization like the Organization of American States won’t work either because some of its members, for various reasons, still support Maduro, or at least oppose the actions of the United States bombing the country and seizing him in Venezuela. To them, that smells like an exercise in imperialism which they abhor. The same goes for the United Nations, where Maduro has friends and allies, specifically Cuba and Russia, and where Trump’s action is a violation of the UN’s charter. I believe the United States offered Maduro the opportunity of a very comfotable exile which he laughed off, incorrectly hoping we would not pursue him further.
Sending American troops there to temporarily govern the place will eventually lead to an Iraq-style tragedy, since their army’s loyalties are unknown; the American public will not stand for members of its armed forces being used, and potentially killed, to satisfy Trump’s ego.
There are parallels between Venezuela and Iraq. Both sit on large oil reserves. Our involvement in both situations involved lies. In Iraq, it was 'weapons of mass distruction' that never existed. In Venezuela, it is their non-existent strategy of smuggling drugs into the U.S.
One thing is clear. Trump’s Venezuelan adventure has demolished whatever credibility he had among the nations of the world, making him no different from the leadership of recognized dictatorships like Russia, China, or North Korea. He is a burden on our presidency. Americans just do not behave that way….. So,
The best thing that could happen right now would be for President Trump being eased out of office via the 25th Amendment or a lightning-fast impeachment, either of which would require strong and immediate Republican support.
This would leave any successor with the choice of either justifying or or undoing the great harm to the nation, including this particular adventure in Venezuela, that Trump has brought about.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, left by Trump to ‘run Venezuela,’ seems content to let that country run itself so long as they stick to some yet undefined guidelines we would provide, primarily dealing with petroleum and drug manufacturing and their distribution. I don’t hear too much about installing democracy.
This difference in emphasis between Trump and Rubio may be an acceleration of a hoped-for drifting away from the president by some Republicans, necessary to remove him from office.
Dealing with a less deranged successor would be easier than dealing with Trump. It occurs to me that capturing Maduro, legal or not, moves the spotlight from other issues such as how Americans pay for healthcare, inflation, and the Epstein documents, all of which bother Trump. Venezuela doesn’t leave much space left in the news for them, but they don’t go away, as Donald hopes they would!
We cannot forget that such harm to the nation cannot be entirely attributed to President Trump. It was carried out with the support of voters whose profound ignorance and gullibility the Founding Fathers and the writers of subsequent Constitutional Amendments never anticipated.
Today’s best news is that It appears that Trump’s support at home is finally waning, even in the supposedly independent States which were supposed to be a balance to a strong central Federal government. Even Marjorie Taylor Green, resigned from Congress, has become critical of him, along with others far on the right. But that isn’t happening fast enough.
Legally removing President Trump would be preferable to leaving the present situation to work itself out with the passage of time. Even American petroleum companies, logically the chief beneficiaries of Trump’s seizure of Venezuela’s government, are being skittish about backing him in what is an illegal action, unacceptable to the rest of the world.
And we cannot count on Maduro’s allies sitting idly by either. They can easily recruit ‘volunteers’ if we put boots on the ground to carry out Trump's plans, whatever they may be. Such thinking is far beyond the limits of Trump’s ego dominated brain. Meanwhile in Moscow, Vladimir Putin is doubled over in laughter, Trump’s imbecility having given legitimacy to Russia’s aggression in Ukraine. And I won’t even mention China’s eye on Tawain.
But right now, the job is to get Donald John Trump out of the presidency, and harmlessly esconced at Mar-a-Lago. Then and there, as a carefully watched civilian, he can do no further damage to the nation, becoming no more than another of Florida’s tourist attractions, like Disney World or the acclaimed Weeki-Watchee Mermaid show.
JL
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Housekeeping on Jackspotpourri
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More on the Sources of Information on Jackspotpourri: The sources of information used by Jackspotpourri include a delivered local daily ‘paper’ newspaper (now becoming the South Florida Sun Sentinel) and what appears in my daily email; that includes the views of many contributors. Be aware that when I open that email, I first quickly glance at and screen out those sent to my very old former email address and those considered ‘promotional’ by Gmail’s system as no more than advertisements or requests for donations.
Besides these sources, I also utilize the Google search engine where I can look up any subject I want.
Lately, these search results have been headed by a very generalized summary clearly labeled as being developed by AI (Artificial Intelligence). On occasion I might use such search results, but when I do, I will say that I am doing so. Generally, however, I try not to use such summaries in preparing Jackspotpourri.
After such ‘AI’ search results, there follows the other results of my search. Unlike the anonymous AI-generated summaries, the sources of these results are clearly indicated, giving them a greater credibility than any AI summary.
I feel that It comes down to who YOU want to be in the driver’s seat in seeking information: yourself or something else (Artificial Intelligence), the structure of which somewhere along the way had to have been created by others, with whose identity I am neither familiar nor comfortable. At least when I read a column by Timothy Snyder, for example, I know from where it comes, and to some extent, what to expect.
Caution should be exercised in using Artificial Intelligence.
JL
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