What Trump Says about Minnesota Brings to Mind the U.S. Capitol on January 6…. and, Is the U.S. Capitol a Federal Building?

Trump has issued the following statement on Truth Social: “We will guard, and very powerfully so, any and all Federal Buildings that are being attacked by these highly paid Lunatics, Agitators, and Insurrectionists. There will be no spitting in the faces of our Officers, there will be no punching or kicking the headlights of our cars, and there will be no rock or brick throwing at our vehicles or at our Patriot Warriors. If there is, those people will suffer an equal, or more, consequence.”

 

What about the U.S. Capitol and the January 6 mob? Trump has repeatedly alleged that January 6 rioters were given a bad rap, as they were really "political prisoners" and “patriots.” Indeed, he pardoned them. Trump kicked off his first rally of the 2024 campaign with a rendition of the "Star-Spangled Banner" recorded from a phone by Jan. 6 defendants in prison, including an alleged Nazi sympathizer. During the 2024 presidential campaign, he called January 6 a "day of love," notwithstanding the fact that, according to Prosecutors, 140 officers were injured that day.

 

Trump and his allies (including the Republican Senators who blocked the creation of a National Commission to investigate January 6) claim that January 6 rioters were denied due process and that the Department of Justice under Biden had weaponized the incident. For Trump, the victims of the January 6 riot (including police officer Brian Sicknick who was assaulted with pepper spray that day and died due to injuries inflicted by the rioters) were the perpetrators and the perpetrators (namely the rioters) were the victims. Thus, in Trump’s words: "the cops should be charged and the protesters should be freed." Furthermore, Trump blamed the FBI for infiltrating the crowd of rioters with 274 agents who allegedly provoked the violence.

 

The turnaround of Trump and his allies from defending the January 6 rioters to accusing peaceful demonstrators of being “terrorists” can only be considered cynical. Talking to people I realize I’m not the only one asking ‘does this guy really believe what he says?’

 

 National Deputy of Spain Gabirel Rufián: “The dignity of María Corina Machado doesn’t exist.” He then draws a logical conclusion. If Machado can't rule in Venezuela because, in Trump's words, she lacks the “respect” of Venezuelans, how can one think that her candidate won the last presidential elections with as many as 70% of the vote, as she claims?

The False Media Narrative that the Chavista Leadership in Venezuela is about to Implode

A false narrative has been put out there by the mainstream media ever since President Maduro’s and Cilia Flores’ kidnapping on January 3, namely that the Chavista government is divided, and that there are “traitors” in the government. Today’s article in the NY Times titled “Splits Emerge Among Venezuelans as Revolutionary Dream Fades” attempts to build on this narrative, but without providing any concrete proof that there's tension and infighting among the Chavistas. The mainstream media played on the same narrative in 2013 following Chávez’s death when they predicted that Diosdado Cabello and Maduro were about to lock horns in a battle for leadership. None of that happened then, and there is no evidence that it’s about to happen now.

 

CORPORATE MEDIA'S WEAPONIZATION OF SEMANTICS

The corporate media’s use of the term “illegal” transportation when referring to the export of Venezuelan oil is a good example of the weaponization of semantics. The shadow (or “ghost”) fleets that transport the oil to circumvent the U.S.-imposed sanctions are owned by companies that change their names. They use fake flags and turn off tracking in order to avoid being seized, as is happening today in the Caribbean. But does that make them illegal? Maybe by U.S. law they can be considered illegal, but the high seas are not U.S. territory. By calling this activity “illegal” the corporate media is reinforcing Trump’s discourse based on the notion that the U.S. owns the world.

 

THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT ISSUED AN INDICTMENT TODAY: It was an indictment of Marco Rubio, Donald Trump, Pam Bondi and the corporate media.

Today the DOJ recognized the non-existence of the Cartel de los Soles. How many hundreds of thousands of times has the Cartel de los Soles, allegedly headed by Nicolas Maduro, been referred to by the Trump Administration and the corporation media? The corporate media, unlike with their references to the allegations of electoral fraud in 2020, never - not once - called the accusations against Maduro a lie. The truth has come to light for all to see, namely that the claims about the Cartel de los Soles are as fallacious as claims of electoral fraud in 2020. The media should recognize their failure to explicitly state that the claims regarding the Cartel de los Soles were completely false. 

The DOJ is now saying that the “Cartel de los Soles is a culture. Does that mean that Maduro heads a culture? Makes no sense. Saying that a cartel is a culture is like saying that a banana is a moon. It’s semantic nonsense.

 

Washington’s Hope to Impose a Submissive Government in Caracas

What happened this morning was a reaffirmation of Nietzsche’s “might makes right.” It’s not as if there was no resistance. In today’s news conference, the military officer stated that there was considerable resistance and that one helicopter was hit. But there were 200 U.S. planes operating from 20 bases involved in the operation. How could a country as small as Venezuela resist such a display of force. Trump and Rubio stated that Venezuela has to reimburse the U.S. for the “stolen oil.” Trump claimed that the U.S. built the oil installations and then it was taken from us. The narrative is plain: that Venezuelans or the Venezuelan governments are thieves and that today’s operation was just to recover stolen property. By that logic, the U.S. could have invaded Mexico in 1938 in response to the nationalization of the oil industry and other countries as well. But the fact is that a nation has the right to set its own policies, and furthermore the oil was never “confiscated” as Trump claims since both Carlos Andres Perez in 1976 and Chavez after that were set on paying indemnification. Furthermore, the claim that Maduro is a drug trafficker has no basis in fact. It’s been rejected by analysts across the political spectrum. Even some who favor the overthrow of Maduro state that the drug trafficking claim has no basis in fact but that Maduro should be removed because he is a dictator. But by that logic the U.S. should overthrow the government of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and so many non-democratic governments which are U.S. allies. In fact, the U.S. has always supported dictatorial regimes that are aligned with Washington, beginning with Franco in the 1950s when the government of Eisenhower built military bases in Spain.

 

The Trump administration is predictably doing everything possible to intimidate the Venezuelan government into accepting U.S. terms for a “transition” in Caracas. Trump states he does not rule out “boots on the ground” and insists that under no circumstances will the U.S accept the continuation of the Chavistas in power in Venezuela. But the fact is that the Chavista government has a significant base of support, and that the military up until now has remained loyal to Chávez and subsequently to Maduro, and that the opposition led by María Corina Machado (with her unconditional support for Trump and his policies on immigration, sanctions and the show of military force) has lost considerable support in Venezuela in the last year. Trump himself, in today's declaration to the press, recognizes that Machado is not popular in Venezuela. These factors together suggest that the U.S. will not be able to easily impose the type of government that Trump seeks.

 

Furthermore, Trump’s talk that Venezuela must reimburse the United States for the “stolen oil” – a stated objective of Washington’s actions against Venezuela – runs counter to Venezuelan nationalistic sentiment. In short, I do not anticipate that Trump will succeed in imposing on Venezuela a submissive government that is to the liking of Washington, as it did in Panama in 1989.

 

The Trump Administration Calls Oil Tankers Carrying Venezuelan Oil “Illegal.” The Corporate Media Fails to Question the Use of the Term.

The Trump administration labels the tankers carrying Venezuelan oil in the Caribbean “illegal” in what is referred to as “Venezuela’s illegal sanctions evasion.” It’s just assumed that Washington’s sanctions against transportation firms abide by some kind of system of international legality. But journalists should know better (and they do). They know full well that what the U.S. government decrees has no validity in international waters. Just one more example of how vocabulary coming out of Washington is manipulated in order to distort facts.