Monday, January 12, 2026

🧊 it Looks Like It Takes About… 🦒

... a dozen guys to take down a giraffe. For interefering…? By telling jokes on a bullhorn?

Granted, it wouldn’t be an unreasonable number of agents if it was a real giraffe. 🦒  Instead of a guy in a hoodie.
At this point, I gotta go with Democrats completely defunding ICE and shutting it down and starting over. These guys think they’re only accountable to Stephen Miller, and that they are superior to the Constitution. End it, root and branch. That guy at the service station? The one where 30 or more goons shut down the whole station so they could carry him off? ICE beat him senseless: Bovino was there, overseeing it. We need to get rid of him, too.

After a time-consuming (because it had to be) court case in Chicago that banned ICE and BP from any activity in the Chicago area without a prior arrest warrant, ICE packed up and went to Memphis and Minneapolis. How long do they have to suffer before the courts stop ICE there?The court system is simply not set up to handle this level of disregard for due process and equal protection. That has to come from the legislative branch. Congress.  “DEFUND ICE” should be a mantra until November. Extirpate it, and try again. Take it out, root and fucking branch. And for pity’s sake, get Bovino off the government payroll.
Or as early as ‘27. Bovino is a martinet who thinks his shit don’t stink. He wastes too much money just flitting around the country. The guy's a fucking clown:
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Aggie Jokes Updated

 I told my sister-in-law, a TAMU alumnus, about the the school banning Plato’s Symposium. She replied: “TAMU: where men are men, and sheep are scared.”

I think that might have something to do with gender ideology, so it might get me banned from the A&M campus….

Anyway, Aggie jokes are the usual kind, although my favorite requires a knowledge of Texas geography and climate locale. (The Aggie’s girlfriend told him: “Kiss me where it’s warm and smelly!” So he drove her to Beaumont.) Most are on the order of: How many Aggies does it take to screw in a light bulb? The updated version of that would be: How many ICE agents does it take to pull one man from a car?

The answer seems to lie in another ad/joke from my childhood. This was an animated ad for Tootsie Pops, a chunk of Tootsie Roll embedded in a thick sucker. A cartoon kid asks a cartoon owl (because owls are wise, ya know): “How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?” The owl counts off three licks, when temptation overcomes him and he bites his way into the center. The narrator then rhetorically asks: “How many licks does it take to get the center of a Tootsie Pop? The world may never know.”

How many ICE agents does it take? The answer seems to be “X times as many as you think possible,” where “X” is a variable which cannot be solved for, but has to be presumed to be greater than 5. Just based on the video.
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Old Times There Are Not Forgotten

And the NYT didn’t bury the lede this time:
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Interesting Times

The tl;dr of this report is not that these administration officials are upset about ICE having murdered Renee Good (one still says, on background, that she was a "domestic terrorist"); it's that even these goons realize Noem's lies about the murder were so poorly crafted that people aren't going to believe all the other lies the administration tells the public.
How’s that working out for them? Or any other incident. Yes, that is about the Fed, not ICE. But it is all of a piece. The GOP is panicking over ICE and the Fed:
Republican Senator Thom Tillis blasts Trump for weaponizing the DOJ against Jerome Powell and the Fed:

"If there were any remaining doubt whether advisers within the Trump Administration are actively pushing to end the independence of the Federal Reserve, there should now be none. It is now the independence and credibility of the Department of Justice that are in question.

I will oppose the confirmation of any nominee for the Fed—including the upcoming Fed Chair vacancy—until this legal matter is fully resolved."
and probably Venezuela next (if not Greenland). There is no joy in Mudville. 'Cause you don’t fuck with the money. And you don’t shoot white women in the face, ESPECIALLY after they’ve just said: “It’s okay, dude, I’m not mad at you.” Not that ICE is learning that lesson:
"Sir! This is a warning!" the agent yelled as he punched the man's vehicle window. "Stop f—king following us! You are impeding operations! This is the United States federal government!"

"I live over here," the driver explained. "I got to get to my house."

"This is your warning!" the officer exclaimed.

"I serve the Lord; go to church," the resident replied.

"I will arrest you!" the officer threatened.

"Don't make a bad decision," another agent warned.

"I serve the Lord," the driver repeated. "Not a draft-dodging coward."

"Let these people go to church," the driver added. "Let these people serve the Lord and worship."

"You're not going to like the outcome of this, sir," the first officer said. "I guarantee that... Did you not learn from what just happened [when Renee Good was killed]?"

"Learn what?" the driver asked. "I serve the Lord, not a draft-dodging coward. I can't believe you'd take orders from a draft dodger."

"Make America safe again, brother," one of the officers quipped.

"Always," the driver agreed.
So all these reports of ICE being followed around town by “paid agitators” is probably just reports of … traffic? It’s time to not take anything anyone connected to this government says as truthful, or deserving of the benefit of the doubt. They aren’t just liars, they’re not reliable witnesses.
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Meddling With Primal Forces

BARTIROMO: This morning, JP Morgan's stock is down 3%, American Express is down sharply. Analysts say this is going to see an impact on 2026 earnings of these credit card companies between 25% and 250%.

BILL PULTE: Well, I would defer to President Trump on this specific policy. Obviously I support it. He knows exactly what he's doing.
Navarro on Jerome Powell: "If you actually look at what he's being investigated for, it looks like there's luxury elevators and dining rooms ... we know he made false statements. The only question is whether he was aware and did it with malice." (Note that even Maria Bartiromo isn't really buying it.)
And it’s going so well, too: This will be reassuring.
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Pressure

This is the next “Keep the government open/government shutdown” bill. And the GOP doesn’t want to fight over further ICE funding, something the Democrats last week weren’t sure was a hill they wanted to die on. Now Republicans are throwing down their arms and running down the hill as fast as they can.

Gee, I wonder what changed? 🤔
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Acting President Of Venezuela

Trump’s interview with the NYT:
… Trump was asked why he needed the US to own Greenland instead of just entering into a security arrangement with the territory: “Because that’s what I feel is psychologically needed for success. I think that ownership gives you a thing that you can’t do, whether you’re talking about a lease or a treaty. Ownership gives you things and elements that you can’t get from just signing a document.”

 Does he think he’s quibbling over the deed to Greenland?

Trump talking to Hannity:

… Trump on Venezuela: “We have taken over a whole country. We have taken $4 billion worth of oil in one day and that will increase. All the big oil companies are coming in. They are going to make a lot of money. We brought stability to the region.”
I’m going to estimate, arguendo, that VZ crude is selling at $40 bbl. The VLCC tankers hold around 2 million barrels. $4 billion of oil, at $40 a barrel, is 100 million barrels. So Trump is saying 50 VLCC’s left Venezuela headed for America, in one day. I don’t know who “we” is, but who’s paying the port fees and the shipping fees and the transport to refinery costs, and the refining and marketing costs? And giving “us” the $4 billion supposedly left over?

Not to mention most of those 50 hypothetical ships are going to be waiting to dock for a long, long time.

Donald Trump is possibly the stupidest man alive.
*Buzzer* Sorry! We were looking for “national security” or “interference with foreign policy.” (He’s talking about a social media post he wrote. Now, the law about releasing the Epstein files, that real law, he can ignore with impunity. There is no credit card law, and no penalties for violating a non-law.) A)  Because he doesn’t want to?
B)  Because “affordability” is a hoax?
C). Because he doesn’t want to? His proposal is to lower it for only a year, after all. After November, fuck the non-rich.
And one old guy with a very cross look, and…what’s that other thing? Oh, yeah! NATO. (Now somebody ask him how far Alaska and Hawaii are from the continental states.) Looney as a clockwork orange. (My concern is, Congress will back him. And again: ask him about Alaska and Hawaii.) An NYT reporter reviewed that video with him:
As a slow-motion surveillance video of the shooting played on the laptop, we told him that this angle did not appear to show an ICE officer had been run over.

“Well,” Mr. Trump said. “I — the way I look at it … ”

“It’s a terrible scene,” Mr. Trump said at the end of the video. “I think it’s horrible to watch. No, I hate to see it.” But did this fatal shooting mean his ICE operation had gone too far? Mr. Trump sidestepped the question, instead blaming his predecessor's immigration policies.
It seems Trump doesn’t remember that. Then again, Trump has always been in favor of the death penalty; whoever administers it. Exxon said “No.” People don’t say “No,” to Trump. Or if they do, he doesn’t listen. (This settles an issue the Lovely Wife raised. She wished someone would tell Trump the truth, to his face. The CEO of Exxon did. Trump was incapable of hearing it.) "TOP O’ THE WORLD, MA!” (This also explains why the State Department told Americans to leave Venezuela. Trump can’t protect them from gangs there, either. (They are foreigners, after all.)) Government money is for the rich, after all. He is the acting President of Venezuela. One certainly can’t distinguish it from America anymore.
“This new threat is not about my testimony last June or about the renovation of the Federal Reserve buildings," Powell added. [Powell has been subpoenaed to appear before a grand jury for Congressional testimony he made that month.] "It is not about Congress's oversight role; the Fed, through testimony and other public disclosures, made every effort to keep Congress informed about the renovation project. Those are pretexts. The threat of criminal charges is a consequence of the Federal Reserve setting interest rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the public, rather than following the preferences of the President."

"This is about whether the Fed will be able to continue to set interest rates based on evidence and economic conditions—or whether instead monetary policy will be directed by political pressure or intimidation," he continued.
Wasn’t it Chavez who took over Venezuela’s central bank, and drove the country’s economy into the ground?

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Sunday, January 11, 2026

The Country Stephen Miller Wants To Live In

Doctor: "Where were you born?”

Curly: “In a hospital.”

Doctor: “Why?”

Curly: “I wanted to be near my mother!”
You know, teenagers can be more cooperative than that. Trump probably thinks if he can kidnap the Ayatollah, he’ll control Iran, too. After all, Mitch McConnell said all Trump has to do is notify Congress 48 hours after it’s over. Stephen Miller says this is exactly the country he wants to live in. And you thought you were voting for a better economy.
Surely the Board knows what democracy is. It is the line that forms on the right. It is the don’t in Don’t Shove. It is the hole in the stuffed shirt through which the sawdust slowly trickles; it is the dent in the high hat.
Or the ICE thug taking a pratfall while chasing a citizen with a camera.

And at Texas A&M University, English and Philosophy professors cannot include Plato in the curriculum. Specifically, they cannot teach the Symposium, because among the many discussions of love Aristophanes argues there were three genders in the beginning: male, female, and a mix of both. TAMU considers that “gender ideology,” and will not allow impressionable young Aggies (the student nickname) to be exposed to it.  TAMU has long been the source of “Aggie jokes” in Texas (basically about how dumb they are). The university is determined to meet that stereotype head on, and become it.
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A Clear Case Of Domestic Terrorism Which Will Be Investigated As Such

TAPPER: But Minnesota officials are saying the DOJ isn't working with them. Should they?

KRISTI NOEM: I would say that these locals, if you look at what Walz and Frey have said, they've extremely politicized and inappropriately talked about the situation on the ground in their city. I would encourage them to grow up.
And then:
TAPPER: You called Renee Good a "domestic terrorist" shortly after the shooting. Why did you not wait for an investigation?

KRISTI NOEM: Everything I've said has been proven to be factual and the truth. This administration wants to operate in transparency.

TAPPER: What you said is not what happened

NOEM: It absolutely is what happened
This is why we have jury trials, rather than trial by government positions.
TAPPER: How can assert that there's no ambiguity in this before an investigation has taken place?

NOEM: I had just been in Minneapolis and had been with those officers, had seen what they were facing on the streets, and had talked to their supervisors as soon as the incident happened
“We don’ need no steenken’ investigation!” Trust us; we’re from the government. What was going on, “on the ground.”
TAPPER: The officer appeared to have fired 3 shots, the second and third through the side window. What is the justification for the second and third?

NOEM: You see how quickly the situation unfolded

TAPPER: But what is the reason for the second and third shot?

NOEM: This investigation will continue to unfold and more and more information will come forward
Which we won’t tell you about unless we like it.
Tapper: Those are officers being attacked on Jan 6th? By this standard, would any of those officers be justified in shooting and killing the people, causing them physical harm?

Noem: When people are physically harming them, they have the authority to arrest those individuals.

Tapper: The president pardoned every single one of them.

Noem: President Trump has been so focused on is making sure that when we're out there, we don't pick and choose which situations are in which laws are enforced and which ones aren'

Tapper: I just showed you video of people attacking law enforcement officers. Undisputed proof, undisputed evidence. And I just said President Trump pardoned all of them. And you said that President Trump is enforcing all the laws equally. It's just not true. There's a different standard for law enforcement officials being attacked. If they're being attacked by trump supporters. We just saw that.
Ruh-roh.
Tapper: You said this was a federal agent recklessly using power that resulted in somebody dying. Does your rhetoric need to change?

Frey: I said this was a federal agent recklessly using power that ended up in somebody dying, because that was a federal agent recklessly using power that ended up in somebody dying. I mean, am I biased in this? Of course. And I'm biased because I got two eyes
"I can’t call Kristi Noem a stone liar, but your rhetoric, sir!” I’m surprised Tapper didn’t get a fit of the vapors.
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What “Venezuela Oil Money”?

 What money is Trump imagining he’ll get his hands in? His executive order says it’s a matter of national security and foreign relations that he, alone, have access to the government account where the money from Venezuelan oil will go.

What money?

Does he expect to collect the royalty payments oil companies pay landowners for extracting oil from their property? Is that even a provision of Venezuelan law, a practice in the country? And how does the U.S. step in and control that? I don’t mean “legally,” I mean at all? Trump claims he now controls Venezuela, but his State Department is telling Americans to run for their lives. 

Trump thought he was going to come out with deals with the major oil companies for Venezuela’s oil, but Exxon told him VZ was “uninvestable,” and no one in the room disagreed.

And if an oil company did agree to invest in oil production there, is Trump going to nationalize that company and claim all the proceeds from VZ for the U.S.? Or is he just going to claim the “profits”? Maybe a percentage? “Just a taste”?

What the hell does he imagine this is going to happen? He’s going to dip the government’s hands in that revenue stream and divert some? Into an account only he controls? Yeah, I get the corruption angle (could it be more obvious?). I’m talking about the actual money stream Trump imagines. What oil company is going to make a contract with the U.S. government to share some level of proceeds? Especially since the U.S. government has no control over conditions in Venezuela, nor on the legal system in Venezuela, barely even (if at all), on the government of Venezuela. 

How does this magic money get into an account set up by Presidential fiat? Where does it come from? Anything beyond customary royalties is a non-starter. This ain’t Permian Basin sweet, light crude we’re talking about. The value of VZ oil is low. The cost of extraction is high. Where does the U.S. government get its “taste”? On what legal basis, because at least in America, this will be a matter of contract. And what company is going to make that contract without some Congressional authorization for the U.S. government to join it?* On Trump’s say-so? This would be a multi-year investment. Trump is gone in three. The next guy could cancel it before it even starts to pay off.  Or bandits in Venezuela (the same ones terrorizing American citizens) could make the whole matter impossible. Where does the money come from, then?

Does Trump imagine a new form of tariff, one that goes to his “special account” rather than the “tariff shelf”?

Which brings me back to my original questions: where the fuck does the money come from, and how does Trump get his grubby little hands on it?


*Not to mention what consideration the U.S. would give to be a party to the contract. Security guarantees? Military protection in the VZ oil fields? Protection from the well head to the port? How does the U.S. claim any interest in these proceeds? Even the mafia bosses in “The Godfather” do something for their “taste.”

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Saturday, January 10, 2026

Pretty Much What The Exxon CEO Was Talking About I’m

But the oil majors can still “deal with Trump,” right? They just can’t send any foreign personnel, is all.

So how is Trump going to cut deals with the regime to steal their oil? 
The US this week has seized several oil tankers carrying sanctioned crude. American officials have said they are working to set up a sales process, which would deposit money raised into US-controlled accounts.

"We are open for business," Trump said.

On Friday, Trump signed an executive order that seeks to prohibit US courts from seizing revenue that the US collects from Venezuelan oil and holds in American Treasury accounts.

Any court attempt to access those funds would interfere with US foreign relations and international goodwill, the executive order states.

"President Trump is preventing the seizure of Venezuelan oil revenue that could undermine critical US efforts to ensure economic and political stability in Venezuela," the White House wrote in a fact sheet about the order.
Sure. That’ll work. Or get Vance to say the government has “absolute immunity.”
Venezuela's oil production has been hit in recent decades by disinvestment and mismanagement - as well as US sanctions. At roughly one million barrels per day, the country accounts for less than 1% of global supply.

Chevron, which accounts for about a fifth of the country's output, said it expected to bolster its production, building on its current presence, while Exxon said it was working to send in a technical team to assess the situation in the coming weeks.
I suspect the news from the State Department is going to change Exxon's plans.
But analysts say meaningfully increasing production would take significant effort.

"They are being as polite as humanly possible, and being as supportive as they can, without committing actual dollars," said David Goldwyn, president of the energy consultancy Goldwyn Global Strategies and former US state department special envoy for international energy affairs.

Exxon and Shell are "not going to invest single-digit billions of dollars, much less tens of billions of dollars", without physical security, legal certainty and a competitive fiscal framework, Goldwyn said.

"It's not really welcome from an industry point of view," he said. "The conditions are just not right."

While smaller companies might be more eager to jump in and help boost Venezuela's oil production over the next year, he said those investments would likely hover in the $50m range - far from the "fantastical" $100bn figure that Trump has floated.

Rystad Energy estimates it would take $8bn to $9bn in new investments per year for production to triple by 2040.

Trump's suggested $100bn of investment into Venezuela could have a major impact on production - if it were to materialise, said the firm's chief economist, Claudio Galimberti.

He said companies would only be likely to invest on that scale with subsidies - and political stability. Americans should not expect the situation in Venezuela to lower oil prices anytime soon, he added.

"It's going to be difficult to see big commitments before we have a fully stabilised political situation and that is anybody's guess when that happens," he said.
Not soon, anyway. I thought Trump was in charge of Venezuela?

Trump is a fucking idiot.
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Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One ✋

Trump has no fucking idea what he's talking about.
Trump has said he will unleash the South American nation's oil after US forces seized its leader Nicolas Maduro in a 3 January raid on its capital.

"One of the things the United States gets out of this will be even lower energy prices," Trump said in Friday's meeting at the White House.

But the oil bosses present expressed caution.

Exxon's chief executive Darren Woods said: "We have had our assets seized there twice and so you can imagine to re-enter a third time would require some pretty significant changes from what we've historically seen and what is currently the state."

"Today it's uninvestable."

Venezuela has had a complicated relationship with international oil firms since oil was discovered in its territory more than 100 years ago.

Chevron is the last remaining major American oil firm still operating in the country.

A handful of companies from other countries, including Spain's Repsol and Italy's Eni, both of which were represented at the White House meeting, are also active.

Trump said his administration would decide which firms would be allowed to operate.

"You're dealing with us directly. You're not dealing with Venezuela at all. We don't want you to deal with Venezuela," he said.
Trump’s word and $5 will buy you a cup of coffee at Starbucks.

Oil prices are set by the global market, not by the piddling amount coming out of Venezuela. (Permian Basin production is at least 20 times the production of VZ, and it’s higher value product.)

Trump is not the God Emperor of Venezuela. Trump is a fucking idiot.
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“The People Are Revolting!” 🤢

It’s déjà vu all over again, circa the 1960’s. Protests = violence, except the violence came from law enforcement, then and now. Dogs, water cannons, and clubs for civil rights marchers; a police riot in Chicago, 1968; students killed at Kent State by National Guardsman sent to quell an anti-war protest.

Minneapolis officials yesterday pointed out there had been two shootings in the city this year. One was an ICE agent shooting Rachel Good.

And Emmer complains Walz thinks “he can call the National Guard up.” That’s literally allowed under Federal law.
Emmer is a fucking idiot.
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The Administration Wants The Fight On Social Media

Not in the courts.
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Nothing To See Here

George Conway: “The notion that Donald Trump claims this is somehow making the country safer is absurd. It’s making the country more dangerous. The domestic terrorists are ICE. It’s hard to believe we have a criminal president running a lawless government trying to intimidate the people of this country through force.”
And clumsiness, and stupidity. Which nobody could have predicted: Yeah, but what’s that against the price of eggs?
PHILLY DA Larry Krasner warns ICE agents in wake of the Minneapolis shooting: "If any law enforcement agent, any ICE agent is gonna come to Philly to commit crimes, then you can get the F out of here."

"I will charge you with those crimes. You will be arrested. You will stand trial. You will be convicted."

"Donald Trump cannot pardon you for a state court conviction. Do you hear me, ICE agents?"

"There are honest, decent moral law enforcement officers out there by the bushel, including in ICE. This is not for you. This is for any one of your colleagues who thinks they are above the law."
All I can say is: you’d better have officers standing by to secure the scene. Because ICE won’t do it.
Posted by @liminalwarmth.bsky.social:

“Someone I personally know in Minneapolis posted this to Facebook a few hours ago. This isn’t what orderly law enforcement looks like. No charge, no location info? How do you even know citizens are getting due process here?”
ICE is just enforcing immigration law. Right?
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“Dear Secretary Kennedy…”

"I am sitting in the smallest room in my house. Your letter is before me. It will soon be beneath me.”

—-Nina Workin, Federal Ministry of Health, Germany [channeling Mark Twain.*]

*A possibly apocryphal attribution, but one meant to honor the Master.
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No 👑👑

Senate Majority Leader John Thune on Democrats who want to block DHS funding until ICE stops brutalizing and killing people: "Democrats are right now pretty much unhappy about anything, and Trump derangement syndrome is the big cause of that ... obviously the ICE agents are enforcing immigration laws."
Where do I start?
Frey: "I think the initial impetus to come to Minnesota was to arrest & deport a bunch of Somali people. And then they get here & realize the Somali people that would be arrested or deported are all American citizens. Then they turned their ire toward our Latino community & other communities. These are communities that make Mpls a better place."
Trump is hanging a “Whites Only” sign on America. John Thune is fine with that.
Frey: "Over on 3rd Ave, an individual from a car that was in the middle of a pretty significant street was detained. ICE left the car in the middle of the street. The car wasn't even in park, so you got this vehicle just rolling down the street with nobody in it. It could've hit anybody, including my own family. This is not about safety"
If you’re going to make an egg white omelette, you gotta break a few eggs and throw out some yolks. Anybody injured was probably an agitator, anyway; or at least a Democrat.
Rep. Kelly Morrison on a Twin Cities ICE facility she and other members of Congress tried to visit: "We were told to leave. We met with two of the commanding officers, and they told us the reason we were not able to stay and meet with any detainees is because the funding for ICE came from the 'Big Beautiful Bill.'"
Konstitooshenal skollars all the way down.
Rep. Angie Craig: "We were told because this facility is being funding by the 'Big Beautiful Bill,' not the congressional appropriations act, that we would not be allowed to enter the facility. That's complete nonsense ... I informed them they were violating the law. They said they didn't care."
"Fuck Article I! We work for the King!” "...obviously the ICE agents are enforcing immigration law.”—Sen. John Thune 
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Friday, January 09, 2026

🎵 Good Night,, Irene, Good Night 🌙

ICE drive car & van through crowd hitting protesters—shift in reverse accelerate to hit them again.

"This woman was knocked over by the car," witness said. "I had to pick her up to prevent her from getting run over."

Bystanders then pepper sprayed by masked agent from behind car.

In response to the van speeding up toward crowd—someone ran after it throwing chains at the back window.

Local police confirmed that the vehicles were driven by agents with either ICE or the Federal Protective Service.

The incident is being investigated as a hit-and-run by the Hartford Police Department in Connecticut.
Kristi Noem says the police don’t have jurisdiction. Trump signed an EO giving the Secretary of DHS authority to make that decision. And their car was stuck in the snow. And the person who filmed that has been arrested for interfering with ICE. The sidewalk was also charged in the crime. But that made it a crime scene, so the ICE agents slipped away. Interest rate caps on credit cards were raised under Reagan, when Volcker hiked interest rates to double digits to end inflation. Credit card companies complained mightily, and got the states (not Congress) to, basically, eliminate their usury laws. (You can look up “usury.” And say “Hi!” to the ghost of ol’ Ezra Pound while you’re there. If you know, you know.) That allowed credit card interest to rise to 25% or more. All of this was a good 40 years ago..

Bottom line: Congress doesn’t write insurance regulations, and it doesn’t regulate interest rates on credit cards. The states do both of those things. And the POTUS has nothing whatsoever to do with credit card interest rates. Or whether the tide comes in, or goes out. Nor can he cut off federal funds on fake allegations of fraud.
In the ‘60’s the phrase was: “America: Love It or Leave It.” It’s déjà vu all over again. The Native Americans are on line 1. They’d like to have a word about this new policy. And the old one. Maybe Trump can get a court order charging Greenland with narco-terrorism. As we would have said in my misspent youth: “That went over like a flash flood in a Fizzies factory.” (No, I’m not going to explain it to you.) BOMBS AWAY!!! There are responses on Twitter that indicate Exxon is looking for taxpayer support. Nope. Exxon, et al., want a reliable legal structure and system to work in. Saudi Arabia nationalized their oil, but maintained an environment oil companies could rely on. I know families who lived in foreign countries because Daddy worked for one of the Seven Sisters (back in the day). If that was Stavanger, Norway, no problem. But in some countries, they lived in a compound, one actively protected by the local government, who wanted the royalties (ask Trump about that concept. He wouldn’t know what you’re talking about.). Exxon is talking about basic property law protection, the kind of thing we take for granted (which is not to say oil & gas law is basic, or simple. I mean “basic” as “fundamental.”) Until Venezuela changes their laws to protect Exxon’s legitimate property interests, no major oil company in that room is interested.

Which is why they aren’t in Venezuela now. It’s not infrastructure. It’s not a $100 billion taxpayer guarantee. It’s the fact the oil companies can’t spend money on a multi year investment without laws that let them recover their investment. They want the legal protection of sound property law.* Basic capitalism.

And Trump can’t give them that. Not without going full Iraq and replacing the government in Venezuela root and branch. But that would take years. He doesn’t want to wait that long. 

Not what Trump wanted to hear, then. But I haven’t heard about him nationalizing the oil companies yet. So I don’t think Big Oil is too concerned.

*As I learned in law school, like it or not, property law is pretty fundamental to social order, and so to government. And the most basic purpose of government, is to protect (and provide) social order.
Irene, good night.🌙  😴 
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There Are Angels Hovering ‘Round

DOOCY: Vance yesterday suggested Renee Good was part of a broad left-wing network. What has your team told you about this? Who is in charge of it?

TRUMP: I haven't seen the vice president's statement but he's generally very accurate. She was an agitator. Probably a paid agitator. She was not normal
First, hearing Trump describe anyone as “not normal” is rich beyond words. Second: Vance is a punk, unworthy of his office and even his law degree.
Shapiro: J.D. Vance is profoundly and pathetically a weak human being, and he does whatever he thinks his boss wants him to do.

We saw a tragic end of life in Minnesota, where children were left without a mom and a spouse was left without her partner.

What we need right now is not idiotic gaslighting from the sitting vice president, but a thorough investigation…

Vance should be ashamed of himself—and he’s not. And I think that speaks to the weakness of his character.
He’s also proof that an Ivy League degree does not mean you’re smart.  I know 10 year olds who are more intelligent.

It’s clear Trump and Vance (I won’t post Vance’s tweet with the video he claims proves Good was guilty of “domestic terrorism.” I won’t wrestle with a pig, either.) want to try this case outside the courtroom. Trump has certainly never had much success in the courtroom. The fact the FBI has asserted dominance over the Minneapolis case all but assures there will never be evidence and testimony presented in a court.* So it’s going to be a matter of public discourse. Okay, let’s do it. “No Kings” is already organizing their third day of marches. That will dovetail nicely with rejecting an American Gestapo.
I think people arguing the other side of that proposition have an uphill battle. I remember the Rodney King case, where we all saw the video, and we all knew what had happened. Then a very good defense lawyer (credit where it is due) used that video to convince a jury the law required an acquittal. Which convinced no one but that jury. I also remember the civil rights marches, and how public sentiment turned when they saw film of people being savagely beaten; rolled down the streets by water cannons; and attacked by “police dogs.”

There are reasons police don’t do that anymore….

Perhaps the silver lining in this cloud is that an investigation that dismisses a prosecution will be worse than a trial that dismisses the charges. I don’t believe for a minute this is going to go the way Trump and Vance and the bobble throated slapdick from Arkansas:
... think it’s going to go. They’re just going to convince more people in November that it’s time to get rid of Republicans. Sure she was:
Tim Miller: “I will not be fucking gaslit by these people. I will not tone down the rhetoric. Jonathan Ross murdered her. She talked to him calmly, said dude I’m not mad. This is fucking insane. This is not a tough call. He orphaned her child and called her a fucking bitch after he killed her. Do not let Donald Trump, and JD Vance, and Kristi Noem, and these thugs try to convince you this is anything other than murder”
From his lips to God’s ear. I just feel like we’re on the side of the angels.


*Barring action by Minnesota to seek access to the evidence. There would also be a fight to overcome the immunity federal officers enjoy against state prosecutions (don’t disparage that until you consider how it allowed federal officers to work in Jim Crow states in the ‘60’s. Every coin has two faces.). But the facts already known would probably do it. OTOH, obliteration of the crime scene is a not insignificant obstacle to prosecution.
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“Coal earl!”

The US Admin has created an energy paradox:

They want $50 oil (stated Jan 7, 2026).

They want Venezuela to ramp production (which requires $80+ oil to fund the Capex).

You cannot have both.

At $50 WTI, Venezuelan Heavy nets back to around $38. Nobody builds a multi-billion dollar upgrader for $38 crude.

Prediction: Venezuela will NEVER see 2 million bpd again. The geology is there. The economics are dead.

You just pump the existing decline curve dry and leave.
I can’t say that what I find online is accurate, or true and trustworthy. I can say Trump U.S. a blithering idiot who has no idea what he’s talking about (and aside from Tom Homan’s comment on the Good murder), no one in his Administration who will make a publicly correct statement.

I don’t think Venezuela’s seen 2 MBD in a very long time, and the public estimates of needing $100 billion in infrastructure investment to raise production at all, tells me the country never will. The last line of that tweet seems the most accurate. I’ve also read that Venezuela’s claims about its reserves can’t be verified, that they were made by Chavez and continued under Maduro. I wonder what people in the industry think the truth is. Or if they even give a shit, since they aren’t anxious to drill, baby, drill, there. And once upon a time, Trump understood why; or spoke as if he did.
Journalists are supposed to be cynically skeptical of what the POTUS says, except they credulously report Trump’s nonsense, because no one can “objectively” say the Emperor is naked AND belongs in a rubber room. And the VP is a mendacious liar letting his white supremacist flag fly, while making up legal doctrine he KNOWS is utter bullshit.

Trump keeps saying he’s lowered drug prices, while nothing major has changed. The drug companies know what the oil companies know: Trump has no power. Oil prices are set by a world market, and oil companies answer to shareholders, not the POTUS. Drug companies sell to governments in Europe, who control access to their markets through government funded healthcare. Without that control in America, drugs cost what the market will bear. Trump might as well be Canute believing he can control the tides.

But none dare call it corruption; or venality; or incompetence hiding behind belligerence..

I’ll retire to Bedlam….
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And If Tiger Woods Just Gave Trump…

... one of the green jackets, Trump would be a Master’s champion.

He’s won so many tournaments at his golf courses, he deserves that, too.
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Trump Is An Unreliable Narrator: A Continuing Series

 

When even the NYT sees the racism….
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