CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 113th Edition. Some things you aren't hearing much about right now and some things that require explanation that we're not getting. The Venezuelan Distraction Edition.

Hmmmm. . . . 

The U.S. attacked Venezuela over the weekend as its a major drug exporter to the U.S., or maybe because we wanted to liberate the country from Maduro, or maybe because it has oil.  

One of those things.  

Anyhow, 

Somethings we aren't hearing much about now.

• Where are those Epstein files?

Where, where?

Still delayed.

Marjorie Taylor Greene, whose leaves office today, claimed Trump would attack Venezuela as nothing distracts like war.  She said that, not me.

I'm not saying that he attacked Venezuela for that reason, although I don't put it past him.  But we sure aren't hearing much about them now, are we?

They could have dropped the entire file in a giant Playboy Ephebophilia, Collectors Edition, complete with underaged centefolds, and nobody would have noticed.

• What's up with the economy?

Do you know?  I don't, and I follow the economy.

• What's going on in the Russo Ukrainian War?

Trump was going to instantly end the war, but it turned out to be hard.  

Over the last month he was praising Putin, and then sort of praising Ukraine, and now we don't hear anything about the war at all.  Utterly nothing.

I'm sure Trump didn't end the war.

By The image created by © Yuriy Kvach, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=31547668

Somethings we need explanations on.

• Greenland?

What is the real source of Trump's fascination with Greenland?  The strategic need line is complete and utter crap.  If somebody is actually telling him that, they need to be dope slapped into the 21st Century.  

I don't really think it's Trump, as I don't think Trump is smart enough to know anything about Greenland.  Having watched him now for years, I'm pretty much convinced that he was a fairly good salesman at one time, but he was never very intelligent.  Now he's demented so he's not even a good salesman.  

It's something or somebody else, or . . . 

• Putin and Trump?

We have to seriously consider once again why Donald Trump is a Russian asset.  

We know that he is a Russian asset, but we don't know why.  He may be simply because he likes them for some reason.  Or he may have really bought into some weird vision of the world that's centered in the 18th Century, in which he's King Donald the Demented and Putin is Tsar Vlad the Magnificent.  Btu with the threats on Greenland we need to at least consider the possibility that Trump is a full-blown Russian asset as they have something on him, or are giving something to him.

That sounds extreme, but a US that pulls back to the Western Hemisphere and wrecks NATO is a gift to Russia.  And it appears to be happening.  Putin had been a backer of Maduro but he didn't lift a finger to help him once our illegitimate head of state caused that illegitimate head of state to be seized.

And Putin has been oddly quiet.

It's clear that at least for the time being the relationship between the United States and Europe is wrecked.  If you were writing a script for a Russian mole to occupy the White House, even Tom Clancy couldn't do better than this.

Harry Dexter White. . . it's sort of happened before.

• Lindsey Graham.

What's going on with Lindsey Graham.  Unlike Trump, he's not dumb.  His complete and utter sycophancy needs some explanation.

• Stephen and Katie Miller

Okay, this is going to be delicate, but there's something really weird about Stephen Miller playing Joseph Goebbels and his wife playing, well, Joseph Goebbels.

They're both Jewish.

Miller is the chief proponent of White Anglo Saxon Protestantism in the administration, and he ain't one.  I don't know the ethnicity of his wife, but she could pass for a Mizrahi Jew.  

This might not quite be as weird as it sounds, although its downright dangerous for them.  Goebbels had been a Communist and you can find plenty of Nazis who were drawn from German populations that were repressed in the most violent ways during the Third Reich, but there's the lesson.  The policies that Miller advocates for would, in the end, put him and Katie in the hold of a boat and deport them to a place that people who think like him would think he would find more to their liking, or at least theirs.

Before this sounds too one sided, there's a real lesson for Catholics supporting Trump.  His people don't think you are very American either.

Careful Steve and Katie. . . this is how a lot of your fellow travelers see you.

• The weather.

It's been super warm this winter.  No winter at all.  

How long do we intend to ignore this?

Last edition:

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 112th Edition. Clinton calls Trump's bluff.

Labels: Bill Clinton, Crime, Donald Trump, Ephebophilia, Epstein Scandal, Republican Party, The Second Trump Administration, The wealthy, Trump Derangement Syndrome, Zeitgeist

What we actually did and are doing.

Lex Anteinternet: So now what, and what did we actually do?: Yesterday, early, the Armed Forces of the United States staged a commando raid and removed Maduro et ux from Venezuela. The raid was loss fr...

So, Marco was hitting the news shows today.  I didn't listen to them all yet, and indeed I only heard Marco's part of This Week.

Marco was speaking, at first, with the Trump Admin Patented Arrogance, but he couldn't maintain it.  We now know:

• The US isn't occupying Venezuela.
• Venezuela isn't cooperating with anything.
• We don't have a plan, really.
• We're going to keep pressuring the country by seizing oil tankers. 

So the big raid was just using the military, under orders from one illegitimate ruler, to grab another.

King Donny probably believed his statement.  He probably still does, sort of.

A prediction.  The same justice system that never got around to prosecuting Donald Trump, insurrectionist, won't convict Maduro of anything, or even really try to.

So now what, and what did we actually do?

Yesterday, early, the Armed Forces of the United States staged a commando raid and removed Maduro et ux from Venezuela.

The raid was loss free, which has caused one knowledgeable person I know to speculate that the Venezuelan military was in on it, and that it basically amounted to a coup in favor of  Delcy Rodríguez of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela.

Pity poor Maria Corina Machado, the opposition leader we supposedly favored.  I guess she's yesterday's news.

Anyhow, yesterday the senile illegitimate occupant of the White House, Donald Trump, came on and gave a rambling press conference full of weird diversions and babble, but he indicated "we", i.e.,  the United States, was going to run the country.

A commando raid an occupation does not make.  Venezuela remains in control of the Venezuelan military and the United Socialist Party of Venezuela.

And Rodríguez rejected the assertion that Maduro has been replaced.  No doubt a United Socialist Party isn't going opt accept the doddering old fool's suggestion that the country's oil is going to be taken back over by American oil companies, which aren't really American, but are international for the most part.

So what actually happened?

Well, if we look at it positively, a really bad guy was replaced by somebody we don't know all that much about, but who shows every sign as being just as much of a socialist as Maduro.  Maybe she'll be better simply because she's educated.  And perhaps she'll try to take Venezuela out of the drug business, although there are no doubt powerful forces that would resist that.

Maybe that's all we were trying to achieve, but based on the babble, Trump apparently believed that we were actually going to take over the country.

If the Administration was trying to do that, it fell way short of it, or so it would appear, and we're going to have to come up with some cover story for our failure, or we're going to have to outright invade the country.

I don't see that latter thing happening.

Which brings me to this.  I don't think there was ever a plan to take over the country.  I think the military needed a way out of this expensive endless project and this is what they came up with.  Donny was told the results would be that he could install Marco Rubio as Maximilian I of Venezuela.  Rubio probably went along with the whole thing as well.

Frenchy would be emperor of Mexico, Ferdinand Maximilian Josef Maria.

So now the project is divert Don while the sailors and soldiers are sent to new projects.

But, a military in the hands of the senile remains pretty dangerous to everyone, including the nation they are supposed to serve.