Sad when your thought process and actions align with an FBI informant and certified coon like Julia Brown -
UPDATE: Donald Trump Takes Office as the 47th US President
- Thread starter DC_Dude
- Start date
This is not going to be a good Christmas
I met Chávez and Maduro. I know drugs are not the reason Trump wants war with Venezuela
- by Greg Palast
- for Raw Story
- October 24, 2025
- 1. Venezuela has the largest reserves of oil on the planet.
- 2. Venezuela has the largest reserves of oil on the planet.
- 3. Venezuela has the largest reserves of oil on the planet.
(By the way, Donald, when you announce a “covert” operation, it’s no longer covert. But never mind.)
For years, I was BBC Television’s correspondent covering Venezuela and US attempts to overthrow their elected government. Trump invented nothing. This is at least the fourth US-backed attempt at overthrow and assassination of a Venezuelan president.
The first attempt was in March 2002 when I was tipped off that Chavez would be overthrown in a military coup. Indeed, in April of that year, he was kidnapped by renegade officers who had the fantasy, shared by the US State Department, that the public hated Chavez and would celebrate his overthrow.
But it turned into another Bay of Pigs after tens of thousands of angry Venezuelans surrounded Miraflores Palace while the coup leaders “inaugurated” Exxon Oil’s lawyer as “President.” George W. Bush’s Ambassador to Venezuela attended this wacky inauguration of the faux president.
But then, the plotters, with Exxon’s man and the US Ambassador, fled the Presidential Palace after the coup leaders, fearing for their lives, returned Chavez, by helicopter, safely to his Oval Office.
Greg Palast interviews Hugo Chavez for BBC Newsnight.Watch the film of my BBC reports,
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I met days later with Chavez, who told my BBC audience that, while he was in the helicopter, he clutched his rosary because he expected to be pushed out into the sea.
Instead, he was returned safely by the frightened coup leaders back to his office. Chavez then chose to let his kidnappers escape without punishment.
In 2004, Maduro, the future president, was sent by Chavez to meet with me at my office in New York to review the evidence that Wackenhut Corporation (now called GEO, a major operator of ICE detention centers) had planned to assassinate Chavez.
(Photo: Palast Investigative Fund, 2004.)
Venezuelan intelligence had secretly taped US Embassy contractors in Caracas talking in spook-speak: “That which took shape here is a disguised kind of intelligence… which is annexed to the third security ring, which is the invisible ring.” (“Invisible Ring”? Someone at the State Department has read too many John le Carré novels.)
The State Department under George W. Bush also tried to purge voters from Venezuela’s election files (and those in Argentina and Mexico) using the very same company, Choicepoint Inc., that purged voter files in Florida in 2000 to hand Bush his baloney election “victory.”
Third try: During Trump I, the US attempted to bully Venezuelans into electing a white guy named Juan Guaidó (who lived in the US) whom Trump hoped would defeat Maduro in an election. But the Black and Indian population of Venezuela, after they finally elected one of their own, Chavez, were not going back to white minority rule which had crushed them for 400 years. Guaidó never even ran for President, but the US government, nevertheless, declared him the true President and gave this grifter all the US assets of CITGO, the Venezuelan oil company.
Today, we are at the fourth attempt to overthrow Venezuela’s government by kidnap (again?!) or assassination.
This time is different. Because President Maduro really did lose his third re-election bid for the presidency. But Maduro has simply refused to leave office. (Hey, you’d think Trump would admire that.)
No question, Maduro has become a dictator. But, if the US thinks it can invade Venezuela, or appoint Maduro’s replacement, you don’t know Venezuelans. They are patriots and they are all armed. How many Americans will Trump send to their deaths to get his hands on Venezuelan crude?
Democracy
The saddest thing is that Maduro has corrupted and destroyed the robust democracy that Chavez brought to Venezuela. In 2006, I joined Chavez’s opponent Julio Borges, a decent guy, on the campaign trail. Borges would get just two or three supporters in a town. Then I joined Chavez who, in the same town, would appear and draw thousands.Chavez was wildly popular because, as an opposition journalist told me, derisively, “Chavez gives them bread and bricks!” — that is, he gave the public food, housing and medical care by using the nation’s massive oil proceeds for public services. Under the old regime, the oil wealth was siphoned into the pockets of wealthy Venezuelans in Miami.
I have little sympathy for Maduro, who like Trump, has taken office through vote manipulation. But the invasion or assassination of either head of state should scare and horrify us all.
Why not Saudi Arabia?
Trump and our National Security Advisor Marco Rubio have said that Maduro must go because he has threatened democracy in Venezuela and is trafficking fentanyl into the US.Think about it. If Trump wants to save democracy, why attack Venezuela, not the dictatorships of Saudi Arabia or Abu Dhabi or the Emirates? Let’s not forget that Arabian Peninsula “royals” are merely dictators in bathrobes.
Why Venezuela and not the Arabian Peninsula potentates?
Let me count the ways: Qatar has bought $2 billion of Trump crypto coins that will go into Trump family pockets. And there’s that little gift from Qatar of a 747 jet for The Donald, not the US government. And there’s the $2 billion in easy squeezy from the Saudis for Jared Kushner.
Maduro a “narco terrorist”?
Trump has accused Maduro of running a cartel dumping fentanyl into the US, an accusation as credible as Trump’s claim against that other alleged narco-terrorist nation, Canada.I am no fan of my once-friend Maduro, now a brutal authoritarian and vote thief, a Venezuelan Putin. But drug lord? No sane drug dealer would run drugs from Caracas to Miami. In fact, according to the latest UN World Drug Report, Venezuela is neither a major drug producer nor a key trafficking corridor to the US.
Trump’s troops have slaughtered more than two dozen people who were supposedly running drugs from Caracas to Miami. While Trinidad’s President is a Trump ally, that government stated that the two dead who could be identified, Chad Joseph and Rishi Samaroo, were simply commuting from work, like many workers, across the 7-mile strait between the countries. Even our Secretary of State, “Little Marco,” said the boat was merely heading to Trinidad when he changed his statement to “Miami” after Trump announced their supposed destination.
And did you notice? Every time a US prosecutor interdicts a drug shipment, they proudly display the drugs and cash, and the names of the dealers obtained in the haul. Yet after these little commuter boats were attacked, not sunk, we were never shown the drugs, the evidence.
There was indeed a drug boat, a submersible, attacked by the US. But American media generally failed to mention that, unlike the fishermen and commuters killed coming from Venezuela, the one real drug haul came from Colombia and was captured in the Pacific Ocean, not the Caribbean.
So where are the drugs coming from, if not Venezuela or Canada? According to a New Yorker investigation, one of the world’s largest and most violent cocaine cartels, the Kinahan Organized Crime Group, is run out of — you guessed it — Abu Dhabi.
An Act of War
There’s no doubt why most Venezuelans want to see Maduro go. The economy is on its deathbed. Why? Because a US blockade, basically a siege of Venezuela, has caused the near total collapse of Venezuela’s source of wealth, its oil industry. By blocking oil equipment from going in, and an embargo of oil going out, the nation is being strangled. An embargo is a globally recognized act of war which Americans (let alone Venezuelans) never authorized.The idea that Maduro wrecked the economy is bullshit through and through. Imagine if America laid siege to Texas, allowing no goods in, blocking oil from going out.
Nevertheless, the public, hoping the embargo would lift, voted out Maduro. He must go.
And let me tell you as an energy economist, that the embargo of Venezuelan oil, cutting the nation’s exports 74% from 2.4 million barrels a day to 735,000, has easily added nearly a dollar to the price paid by Americans at the gas pump.
Chavez told me that he knew the limit of how far he could push the US and its oil companies. “I’m a good chess player,” he told me. Not Maduro. For example, Maduro turned down British Petroleum’s request to take over the oil fields once operated by the French national oil company. Britain later seized $10 billion in Venezuela’s gold reserves held in the British Exchequer.
As you’ll see at the opening of my film, The Assassination of Hugo Chavez, the whack-o idea of murdering Venezuela’s president was first floated on television by none other than televangelist Pat Robertson, whom inside sources told me was furious that he was turned down in his request to Chavez government for a diamond mining concession.
To his TV audience, Robertson said, “You know, I don’t know about this doctrine of assassination, but if [Chavez] thinks we’re trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it. It’s a whole lot cheaper than starting a war.”
That’s true, I suppose. But why start a war at all?
Oil and diamonds. How much blood are they worth?
May I suggest that we return democracy to Venezuela with ballots, not bullets.
Below is a timeline of some of the most notable demands and efforts for reparations since 1865:
Late 19th and early 20th centuries
- 1865: "Forty acres and a mule": Following the Civil War, Union General William T. Sherman issued Special Field Order No. 15, which promised 40 acres of land and a mule to newly freed Black families. About 40,000 families were settled before President Andrew Johnson reversed the order just a few months later, returning the land to former Confederate owners.
- 1896: The first mass movement: Former slave Callie House, co-founder of the National Ex-Slave Mutual Relief, Bounty and Pension Association, organized thousands of former slaves to lobby Congress for pensions. The organization filed a federal lawsuit in 1915 to claim a cotton tax collected between 1862 and 1868, but it was unsuccessful.
Mid-20th century
- 1951: Father Divine's call: Religious leader Father Divine of the International Peace Mission demanded "retroactive compensation" for African Americans.
- 1969: "Black Manifesto": James Forman, a leader in the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, demanded $500 million in reparations from white churches and synagogues for their role in perpetuating slavery.
Late 20th century
- 1970s and 80s: Activism in the wake of other reparations: Calls for Black reparations were spurred by the government issuing compensation to other groups, including Native American tribes and Japanese Americans who had been interned during WWII.
- 1987: Formation of N'COBRA: The National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (N'COBRA) was founded to advocate for reparations.
- 1989: Introduction of H.R. 40: Congressman John Conyers Jr. (D-MI) introduced H.R. 40, a bill to create a commission to study the issue of reparations. The bill was reintroduced in every subsequent congressional session.
21st century
- 2000s: Corporate and institutional accountability: The movement expanded to include demands on private companies and institutions that benefited from slavery. Insurance company Aetna publicly apologized in 2000, and several lawsuits were filed against other corporations.
- 2015: First municipal reparations: Chicago passed an ordinance to provide reparations for victims of police torture, which included financial compensation, free college tuition, and a public memorial.
- 2020: Resurgence and local action:In the wake of nationwide protests against police brutality, the call for reparations gained renewed momentum.
- Asheville, NC: The City Council committed to a reparations program for its Black residents.
- Evanston, IL: The city became the first in the U.S. to create a reparations fund, financed by tax revenue from recreational marijuana sales, to address housing discrimination.
- 2021: State-level initiatives: California created the nation's first state-level task force to study and develop reparations proposals.
- 2023: Harvard's "Legacy of Slavery" fund: Harvard University created a $100 million fund to address its ties to slavery.
- 2024: Public opinion growth: Polling data indicates that support for reparations among Black and white Americans has increased since 2000.
each and everytime the response has been FUCK NO! But somehow Obama fucked it up???!!
There are more layoffs coming.
These Corporations accountants are going thru the books now cuz Wall Street’s 4 Quarter ends December 32.
To balance the books, they need to make cuts.
Payroll is the first place. The week before Christmas has historically been the time Pink Slips are issued.
What the hell? My comment about Obama had zero to do with reperations dog.Below is a timeline of some of the most notable demands and efforts for reparations since 1865:
Late 19th and early 20th centuries
- 1865: "Forty acres and a mule": Following the Civil War, Union General William T. Sherman issued Special Field Order No. 15, which promised 40 acres of land and a mule to newly freed Black families. About 40,000 families were settled before President Andrew Johnson reversed the order just a few months later, returning the land to former Confederate owners.
- 1896: The first mass movement: Former slave Callie House, co-founder of the National Ex-Slave Mutual Relief, Bounty and Pension Association, organized thousands of former slaves to lobby Congress for pensions. The organization filed a federal lawsuit in 1915 to claim a cotton tax collected between 1862 and 1868, but it was unsuccessful.
Mid-20th century
- 1951: Father Divine's call: Religious leader Father Divine of the International Peace Mission demanded "retroactive compensation" for African Americans.
- 1969: "Black Manifesto": James Forman, a leader in the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, demanded $500 million in reparations from white churches and synagogues for their role in perpetuating slavery.
Late 20th century
- 1970s and 80s: Activism in the wake of other reparations: Calls for Black reparations were spurred by the government issuing compensation to other groups, including Native American tribes and Japanese Americans who had been interned during WWII.
- 1987: Formation of N'COBRA: The National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (N'COBRA) was founded to advocate for reparations.
- 1989: Introduction of H.R. 40: Congressman John Conyers Jr. (D-MI) introduced H.R. 40, a bill to create a commission to study the issue of reparations. The bill was reintroduced in every subsequent congressional session.
21st century
- 2000s: Corporate and institutional accountability: The movement expanded to include demands on private companies and institutions that benefited from slavery. Insurance company Aetna publicly apologized in 2000, and several lawsuits were filed against other corporations.
- 2015: First municipal reparations: Chicago passed an ordinance to provide reparations for victims of police torture, which included financial compensation, free college tuition, and a public memorial.
- 2020: Resurgence and local action:In the wake of nationwide protests against police brutality, the call for reparations gained renewed momentum.
- Asheville, NC: The City Council committed to a reparations program for its Black residents.
- Evanston, IL: The city became the first in the U.S. to create a reparations fund, financed by tax revenue from recreational marijuana sales, to address housing discrimination.
- 2021: State-level initiatives: California created the nation's first state-level task force to study and develop reparations proposals.
- 2023: Harvard's "Legacy of Slavery" fund: Harvard University created a $100 million fund to address its ties to slavery.
- 2024: Public opinion growth: Polling data indicates that support for reparations among Black and white Americans has increased since 2000.
each and everytime the response has been FUCK NO! But somehow Obama fucked it up???!!
xfactor brings up reparations...my response is about reparations.. you jump in with some shit about obama fucking up playing patty cake or some ridiculous shit...if its not about the side topic xfactor brought up then leave it alone...
They won’t because they don’t want to win.
There are more layoffs coming.
These Corporations accountants are going thru the books now cuz Wall Street’s 4 Quarter ends December 32.
To balance the books, they need to make cuts.
Payroll is the first place. The week before Christmas has historically been the time Pink Slips are issued.
Here's another...
Booz Allen Cuts Jobs, Fiscal-Year Outlook as Government Funding Stalls
Excellent work.Below is a timeline of some of the most notable demands and efforts for reparations since 1865:
Late 19th and early 20th centuries
- 1865: "Forty acres and a mule": Following the Civil War, Union General William T. Sherman issued Special Field Order No. 15, which promised 40 acres of land and a mule to newly freed Black families. About 40,000 families were settled before President Andrew Johnson reversed the order just a few months later, returning the land to former Confederate owners.
- 1896: The first mass movement: Former slave Callie House, co-founder of the National Ex-Slave Mutual Relief, Bounty and Pension Association, organized thousands of former slaves to lobby Congress for pensions. The organization filed a federal lawsuit in 1915 to claim a cotton tax collected between 1862 and 1868, but it was unsuccessful.
Mid-20th century
- 1951: Father Divine's call: Religious leader Father Divine of the International Peace Mission demanded "retroactive compensation" for African Americans.
- 1969: "Black Manifesto": James Forman, a leader in the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, demanded $500 million in reparations from white churches and synagogues for their role in perpetuating slavery.
Late 20th century
- 1970s and 80s: Activism in the wake of other reparations: Calls for Black reparations were spurred by the government issuing compensation to other groups, including Native American tribes and Japanese Americans who had been interned during WWII.
- 1987: Formation of N'COBRA: The National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (N'COBRA) was founded to advocate for reparations.
- 1989: Introduction of H.R. 40: Congressman John Conyers Jr. (D-MI) introduced H.R. 40, a bill to create a commission to study the issue of reparations. The bill was reintroduced in every subsequent congressional session.
21st century
- 2000s: Corporate and institutional accountability: The movement expanded to include demands on private companies and institutions that benefited from slavery. Insurance company Aetna publicly apologized in 2000, and several lawsuits were filed against other corporations.
- 2015: First municipal reparations: Chicago passed an ordinance to provide reparations for victims of police torture, which included financial compensation, free college tuition, and a public memorial.
- 2020: Resurgence and local action:In the wake of nationwide protests against police brutality, the call for reparations gained renewed momentum.
- Asheville, NC: The City Council committed to a reparations program for its Black residents.
- Evanston, IL: The city became the first in the U.S. to create a reparations fund, financed by tax revenue from recreational marijuana sales, to address housing discrimination.
- 2021: State-level initiatives: California created the nation's first state-level task force to study and develop reparations proposals.
- 2023: Harvard's "Legacy of Slavery" fund: Harvard University created a $100 million fund to address its ties to slavery.
- 2024: Public opinion growth: Polling data indicates that support for reparations among Black and white Americans has increased since 2000.
each and everytime the response has been FUCK NO! But somehow Obama fucked it up???!!
I qualified everything I said in my statement, it was very clear that what I was saying had to do with the fact that we're not going to fix shit because Obama along with the house and Senate Democrats fucked it off in 2008 and 09 when we had the reigns of government. He wasn't alone but since he was the party leader he takes the responsibility for that shit. I know your eyes gloss over and you can't read well when the statements don't fit your narrative but it was in there.xfactor brings up reparations...my response is about reparations.. you jump in with some shit about obama fucking up playing patty cake or some ridiculous shit...if its not about the side topic xfactor brought up then leave it alone...
You keep making it out like wanting reparations was the problem and that just is not the truth in fact you're a fucking liar dog. You put up all this information about all the times we've been asking for reparations which means we never stopped asking for reparations but somehow Democrats have won elections in the prevailing years so that disproves your entire fucking argument my man. We call that self-defeating. It's not the reason that we lost elections and its not the reason we're in the position that we're in, it's just a scapegoat that for some reason y'all niggas like to keep parroting to blame Black men who want justice. FOH with that bullshit.
Precisely. She's looks Dollar Store canned meals AF, and prob gets pissed in supermarkets whenever she sees Non-Whites with steak, jumbo shrimp, and lobster in they're shopping carts, then tells herself, "they're prob welfare recipients" so she can sleep better at night.
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funny because anything Obama got accomplished Trump is weakening or actively tearing down. I said reparations was a political nonstarter...particularly at the federal level and its clear. So having a position thats reparations or BUST does nothing to help blacks in the short or long term.
Meanwhile...back at the ranch...
The anti-DEIA rhetoric has reignited a racist and harmful trope—“DEI-hire”—that has put Black professionals in the crosshairs of unnecessary degradation. Black middle-class professionals already faced additional headwinds when compared to their counterparts—and these harmful actions only leave them more exposed. Already, some experts are recognizing an “antagonistic posture against the Black workforce” that is showing up in troubling economic indicators. This includes the rise in Black unemployment to 7.2 percent in July 2025, up from 6.8 percent the prior month and 6.3 percent the prior year—with certain states seeing even higher numbers. Likewise, the recent reporting that nearly 300,000 Black women left the labor force in the second quarter of 2025 has raised alarm related to this shifting landscape.
Outside of the job market, Black Americans have relied on other means of equal opportunity to push themselves into the middle class. However, those avenues are also narrowing under a systemic assault from the Trump administration, as it purges policy levers that level the playing field. President Trump has used multiple executive orders to undermine various pathways to economic mobility—from higher education and small business development to housing and health care policies. The administration also systematically attacked legal mechanisms, such as disparate impact, that Black Americans and others use to challenge these inequities.
this is whats happening today.... Forget Obama...there was TWO presidents since him..and none of the bullshit listed above would have happened under Kamala but assholes were too busy complaining she wasnt black enough or whatever dumbshit they used to undermine her candidacy...
and today ALL of the Fuckboi Bunch (xfuckface, gayass vaiz4hustlas aka akata queen aka joemoney***, soulonshit and many more) have yet to say a damn word about what to do about that orange turd. They and YOU just bring up Obama... as if all he had to do was write an executive order for reparations for just Black Americans and there would be no political fall out from that....none at all...its really that simple.
Now that we see what project 2025 looks like in action....can we all agree that Kamala would have been better alternative??? its a yes or no question
*** That dickhead went so far as to DELETE HIS OWN REPARATIONS THREAD AFTER TRUMP GOT ELECTED....what does that tell you???
The Reparations thread has been DELETED! The FUCKBOI BUNCH is REAL!
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Although I have no illusions about this country, it is crazy that this is actually on a government website. I went to usda.gov because I thought the ?fuckthemkids= was bullshit.
just waiting for that Exec Order to come thru.....
meanwhile
- Executive Order 14204: On February 7, 2025, President Trump signed this order to cease all foreign aid to South Africa, citing "race-based discrimination" by its government. The order also committed the U.S. to "promote the resettlement of Afrikaner refugees".
- Suspension of other refugee admissions: In January 2025, the administration suspended the U.S. refugee resettlement program, freezing admissions for people from most other countries. This left thousands of vetted refugees worldwide in limbo.
“It is a genocide that is taking place that you people don’t want to write about,” Trump said to reporters during a press briefing for the signing of his executive order to lower pharmaceutical prices Monday. “It’s a terrible thing that’s taking place and farmers are being killed. They happen to be white, but whether they are white or Black makes no difference to me.”
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