By Donald Jeffries
"I Protest"
January 13, 2026
Donald Trump has finally done it. Earned the respect of The New York Times and other powerful organs of our state controlled media. CNN unquestioningly parrots the line that "the U.S. runs Venezuela." So, let's get this straight- we abducted the leader of another sovereign nation, bombed them, but it wasn't an act of war. It was justified.
Don't suggest that this is something new. Sure, Trumpenstein's bombastic theatrical personality makes it seem that way. But this goes back to at least 1953, when the CIA ousted Iran's prime minister Mohammad Mosaddegh. True, they didn't literally kidnap him and his wife, but the leader of another sovereign nation was removed from power. By our leaders, none of whom were Iranian. The next year, Jacobo Arbenz was forced to flee from his position as leader of Guatemala, with a little help from the CIA. In 1960, the CIA made possible pan-Africanist Congo prime minister Patrice Lumumba's assassination. The Dominican Republic's Rafael Trujillo was the next assassination victim of our government, in 1961. On November 1, 1963, the CIA engineered the murder of South Vietnam leader Ngo Diem, an act which outraged and deeply disturbed President John F. Kennedy, only three weeks before he met his fate in Dallas. Chile's Salvador Allende fell to the CIA in 1973. Now, that's a track record.
Of course, Americans found out during the 1975 Church Committee hearings in the Senate, that the CIA had comically tried to assassinate Cuba's Fidel Castro repeatedly during the early 1960s. Acting like Control agents from the TV show Get Smart, they were stupendously unsuccessful. Well, nobody's perfect. In 1989, George H.W. Bush's military invaded Panama, for the purpose of overthrowing one time U.S. asset Manuel Noriega, wanted for racketeering and drug trafficking. Any Venezuelans reading this may notice a familiar theme. The Pentagon estimated that 516 Panamanians, including over 200 civilians, were killed during the ludicrously named Operation Just Cause. This was the start of all those Orwellian names our government continues to glorify its murders and occupations with. Noriega was shockingly convicted in one of our illustrious courts of justice, and would serve thirty years in prison. It pays to not to hang out with the wrong crowd. Like the U.S. government.
A few years earlier, in 1986, Ronald Reagan had launched air strikes on Libya, in order to kill that country's leader Muammar Gaddafi. As I have noted, Gaddafi was known as Qaddafi, or sometimes Kaddafy, at the time. For unclear reasons, these spellings of his name have been flushed down the memory hole. At any rate, the air strikes failed to hit Gaddafi/Qaddafi, although they did kill forty other Libyans, including Qaddafi's three year old daughter. Well, she was probably a budding terrorist anyhow. I mean, what else could Qaddafi's daughter grow up to be ? In 2011, "liberal" President Barack Obama finished what Reagan started, as Qaddafi was killed by U.S. forces. The lovely former antiwar activist Hillary Clinton, then Secretary of State, memorably declared, "We came. We saw. He died," in a celebratory outburst. By this point, U.S. leaders were not only acknowledging assassinating others, but bragging about it. Obama would joke, "I'm really good at killing people." Give the man his due- he certainly was.
Also in 1986, Ronald Reagan authorized the abduction of Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos and his wife Imelda, who had long been close allies with the United States. Although Marcos would later absurdly be charged with "racketeering," the real reason for what Marcos himself described as a kidnapping was the fact that he won the election, while under the watchful eye of Jimmy Carter and other international "experts" in vote fraud (except here in the U.S.A., where it cannot be detected). It seemed that our leaders wanted Cory Aquino, his opponent, in power. So like they had done countless times before, the U.S. simply installed Aquino as president. Marcos died in 1989, before what would have been a rubber stamp conviction in our courts of justice. Amazingly, his widow Imelda, who had been ridiculed in our state controlled press for allegedly having an estimated one trillion pairs of shoes, was exonerated on charges of raiding the Philippines treasury.
In 2003, the sons of one time CIA favorite Saddam Hussein were killed by U.S. forces, while deposing him from power in Iraq. Again, the U.S. captured Saddam and brought him back to the greatest, freest country the world has ever known. To no one's surprise, he was found guilty of killing 148 Shiite Muslims and sentenced to death. In America, we take the deaths of some Muslims very seriously. But not most, considering how many Muslims we've killed ourselves. In December, 2006, Saddam was hanged. According to our mainstream media, the people danced in the streets of Iraq. That's what the media always says after we overthrow, kidnap, and/or murder the head of another sovereign nation. In 2011, an "elite" team of SEALS (are there any non-elite SEALS?) killed another former CIA asset, Osama Bin Laden, in Pakistan. They claimed his body was thrown in the ocean because of a nonexistent Muslim "tradition." But Bin Laden wasn't responsible for 9/11. His assassins were.
So when we look at the abduction of Nicolas Maduro and his wife the other day, it was really business as usual for a government that has been operating under the notion that it represents "exceptionalism" since at least 1898. What makes this particular case a bit different is the emphasis on portraying Maduro as not only a "dictator" (everyone we overthrow is a "dictator"), but as the king of the new and impossibly horrible "narco-terrorists." Now, Trump wouldn't be Trumpenstein if he hadn't pardoned former Honduras President Juan Orlando Hernandez less than a month ago. Hernandez was convicted in a revered New York courtroom of importing more than 400 tons of cocaine (and weapons) into the United States. Trumpenstein explained that Hernandez's arrest had been a "setup" by the Biden administration: "If somebody sells drugs in that country, that doesn't mean you arrest the president and put him in jail for the rest of his life." Some drug dealers are more equal than others.
So that's where the Trumpenstein Projects stands at this moment. In tatters. Anyone who truly believed in his 2016 rhetoric has long fled the MAGA world. Dan Bongino, the stereotypical bully who announced that Jeffrey Epstein had killed himself, while "serving" as Kash Patel's right-hand man at the FBI, has quit in disgrace and is already back at his podcast. His first act upon resuming his position of very modified hangout was to viciously attack former Rep. Matt Gaetz. He called him a "dick" repeatedly. That must have made Trumpenstein smile. Despite mostly negative comments in response on X, he is continuing to spread the lie that Gaetz was involved with underage girls, when in fact that lurid charge was concocted by a political opponent who was attempting to extort money from Gaetz's wealthy father. But Gaetz is a critic of Israel, unlike Bongino. Recall that Bongino was asked what one issue was "near and dear to your heart," and declared "defense of Israel." So did Glenn Beck.
Perhaps most disappointing of all was the statement released by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. Now, regular readers know that I've been a bit smitten with the lovely Tulsi for some time now. I supported her presidential candidacy and went to a local rally, where I gave her a copy of Survival of the Richest. Tulsi has consistently argued against "regime change," and senseless U.S. interventionism. She had specifically warned that military action in Venezuela would be a "disaster." But now she declared, presumably with a straight face, "Kudos to our servicemen and women and intelligence operators for their flawless execution of President Trump's order to deliver on his promise thru Operation Absolute Resolve." Funny, I don't recall candidate Trump promising to topple the leader of Venezuela. How many MAGA faithful voted for him to annex Greenland, as he is now once again threatening to do ? Meanwhile, here the infrastructure crumbles and we still have no industry.
Trump, envigored by this roided out interventionism, has seized at least one Russian oil tanker. There have been rumblings about Columbia, and Cuba. Fidel Castro is dead, although he did outlive all those who kept trying to kill him. But evidently, this new bizarro MAGA feels that America is justified in taking any and every sovereign country they desire. Why exactly does the oil in Venezuela belong to us ? Well, actually the oil companies. And Trumpenstein has assured the public that whatever cost the poor, struggling oil companies incur in stealing it from Venezuela, will be covered by the always reliable American taxpayer. I guess you could say that expresses a criminally narcissistic example of "America First." Trump has also announced that he wants a $1.5 trillion defense budget this year. His record one trillion from last year just doesn't cut it. Early in 2025, when things seemed a lot more hopeful, Trump gave the green light for DOGE to audit the Pentagon. He's come a long way, baby.