Stuart Jeanne Bramhall's Blog: The Most Revolutionary Act , page 108
March 6, 2025
Bullet for the President
Bullet for the President
Directed by Vladimir Soloviev (2024)
Film Review
Russian with English subtitles
For the most part this all of this documentary consists of commentary by Retired Soviet and Russian intelligence officer Andrey Bezrukov. However Russian-American Dmitri Simes, former president of the US Center for National Interest, appears briefly at the end. *
Bezruikov, who believes the assassination attempt against Trump led Biden to drop out of the presidential race, begins with a number of general observations about US politics:
The US is a country of radical people and their politics are always radical and messy. He cites the 1963 assassination of John F Kennedy and the 1982 assassination attempt on Presidential Ronald Reagan.The financial interests that currently control the US want a manageable president who does what “the system” wants them to. When JFK and Nixon didn’t do what they were told, they were removed from office. Trump has also broken “the rules of the game.”According to Bezrukov, after the US became the sole world power, the US elite seemed to go brain dead. At present, they protect their own personal interests by installing members of their personal clique as president. Meanwhile US industry has lost its competitiveness and ability to create jobs.
In 2016, underrepresented Americans who hated the worsening corruption in Washington and had ceased to engage with the US political system, were inspired to vote for Trump after he promised to 1) focus on US domestic problems rather than interfering in other country’s domestic affairs and 2) to root out the US deep state and restore their country to an open participatory system envisioned by America’s founding fathers.
Bezrukov believes Trump practically fulfilled all his campaign promises during his first term but two: “draining the swamp” (eliminating the corruption) and improving relations with Russia. Hillary Clinton’s Russiagate smear, based on totally fabricated allegations that the Russian government meddled in the 2016 election, was a major factor behind the deterioration in US-Russian relations after Trump left office.
In the second half of the film, Bezrukov analyzes the total breakdown in basic security the day (July 13, 2024) Trump was shot:
Police spotted the gunman Thomas Crooks in Trump’s security perimeter 64 minutes prior to the shooting and the Secret Service made no effort to remove him from the scene.The Secret Service failed to secure a rooftop in Trump’s security perimeter.The way the Secret Service tackled Trump immediately increased his risk of being shot by keeping him upright as a visible traget.Bezrukov feels it’s too soon to differentiate between criminal negligence on the part of the Secret Service and a deliberate assassination conspiracy. However he clearly reject the claim that Crooks was an unstable “loner” operating on his own.
He notes that Trump was guarded by a private military company during his first campaign but the Secret Service took over his security once he was elected president in 2016. Bezrukov notes that 48% of the Secret Service were fired or resigned during the Biden presidency and it takes 3-5 years for new Secret Service officers to reach their full effectiveness.
He ends by sharing his view that, as with the Soviet economy in 1988, the US economy is on the brink of collapse. He also seems to believe (as did a lot of the people who voted for him) that Trump possibly has both the insight and courage to keep that from happening.
*Former president Richard Nixon started the US Center for National Interest in 1994 to improve US-Russian relations. Simes, its first president, stepped down in 2022 and returned to Russia. He’s currently under investigation by the US State Department for violating US sanctions against Russia.
March 5, 2025
Arizona Lawmakers Approve Psychodelics Bill to Create Psilocybin Advisory Board and Fund Ibogaine Research
By Kyle Jaeger
Arizona lawmakers have approved two different bills focused on psychedelic therapy.
Senate passed a bill to create an advisory board tasked with studying the science of psilocybin, as well as state and federal policies surrounding the psychedelic, while the House separately approved a measure to fund clinical trials on ibogaine.
The Senate legislation from Sen. T. J. Shope (R) cleared the chamber in a 23-4 vote on Tuesday after it was significantly amended in committee, with members removing central provisions to establish licensed psilocybin service centers for adults seeking mental health treatment.
On the House side, the body advanced the ibogaine research legislation, sponsored by Rep. Justin Wilmeth (R), in a 36-22 vote on Monday, sending it to the Senate. It would provide funding for the state Department of Health Services (DHS) to “conduct a certified clinical research study on the use of ibogaine for the treatment of neurological diseases.”
An earlier version of Shope’s Senate psilocybin bill moved through both chambers last year with the regulated access components intact, but it was vetoed by the Democratic governor, who argued that “we do not yet have the evidence needed to support widespread clinical expansion.”
However, the year before, Gov. Katie Hobbs (D) signed into law budget legislation that included provisions to fund research into the medical potential of psilocybin mushrooms for a variety of conditions.
The new Senate-passed bill hopes to leverage some of those appropriated $5 million to create an Arizona Psilocybin Advisory Board, comprised of up to 12 members appointed by the governor and legislative leaders.
Representatives of the attorney general’s office and DHS, as well as military veterans, first responders, scientists with experience with psilocybin and physicians would be among the members.
Under the bill, the board would need to be selected by December 31, 2025, and they’d need to hold their first meeting by March 1, 2026.
[…]
Trump Reject Egypt’s Gaza Plan: Stands By Ethnic Cleansing Vision
Arab states have endorsed an Egyptian reconstruction plan for Gaza that rejects any displacement of Palestinians.
Washington has rejected the Egyptian post-war Gaza proposal put forward by Arab states at a summit in Cairo this week, doubling down on US President Donald Trump’s vision for the expulsion of Palestinians and the takeover of the strip.
“The current proposal does not address the reality that Gaza is currently uninhabitable and residents cannot humanely live in a territory covered in debris and unexploded ordnance,” US National Security Council spokesman Brian Hughes said in a statement on 4 March.
“President Trump stands by his vision to rebuild Gaza free from Hamas. We look forward to further talks to bring peace and prosperity to the region,” the statement added.
At a highly anticipated summit in Cairo on Tuesday, Arab states endorsed an Egyptian plan to reconstruct the Gaza plan. The plan would see Hamas give up governance of Gaza. A detailed draft of the Egyptian plan obtained by Sputnik envisions setting aside $53 billion to reconstruct the strip and forming a committee to manage it for six months in preparation for the return of the Palestinian Authority (PA).
As part of the Egyptian plan, an international conference for the reconstruction of Gaza in Cairo will be held later this month. At the same time, a trust fund will be set up to receive contributions from donor nations. The draft of the plan added that “implementing reconstruction requires arrangements for transitional governance and providing security in a way that preserves the prospects of a two-state solution.”
The Egyptian plan anticipates that the early recovery phase will last six months and require $3 billion, while the first reconstruction phase will last for two years and cost $20 billion. The second reconstruction phase is expected to last two and a half years and cost $30 billion.
Egypt’s proposal categorically rejects any displacement of Palestinians. Hamas welcomed the plan in a statement on Wednesday.
Trump announced in February that Washington aims to take over Gaza and expel its residents. He claimed the initiative strives to find a safer location for Palestinians while international development teams take charge of reconstructing the battered and besieged strip.
The president said his plan aims to transform Gaza into a “Middle East Rivera.”
He has since backtracked, claiming in late February that he does not wish to impose the plan by force but will recommend it.
Trump said during a speech in Congress on Tuesday, “we are bringing back our hostages from Gaza” – making no other references to the Gaza ceasefire or his plan for the strip.
Israel has been blocking the ceasefire from moving forward to the second phase, and is reportedly making plans for a resumption of war against Gaza.
[…]
Billionaire-Backed Global Citizen Whitewashes Kagame’s Invasion of DRC
John Legend’s concert in Rwanda signaled global elite support for Paul Kagame amid his bloody invasion of the DRC. The event was organized by Global Citizen, a pseudo-activist NGO backed by corporations hungry for Africa’s resource wealth.
On February 21st, as the Rwandan army deepened its invasion of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), John Legend took the stage in Rwanda’s capital, Kigali. There, the superstar singer-songwriter headlined a Move Afrika concert produced by Global Citizen, the international NGO front for global elites, NATO, and a corporate world order which bills itself as “the movement changing the world.”
The future that Global Citizen heralds is a borderless network of public-private partnerships in which oligarchs, global corporations, and the World Trade Organization profitably manage the world in the name of equity, sustainability, and climate defense. It’s the future promised in the Davos Agenda and the UN Pact for the Future passed by the UN General Assembly in 2024. (Russia, Belarus, Iran, Nicaragua, North Korea, Sudan, and Syria opposed the pact as a threat to national sovereignty.)
Global Citizen doesn’t raise and disburse funds; it conducts global “awareness” campaigns to manufacture global consent – in this case, for the West’s decades-long proxy war for DRC’s unparalleled resource wealth, which has left millions of Congolese dead, and the rest of the country’s population with one of the world’s lowest per capita annual incomes.
The NGO’s corporate “partners” include tech giants PayPal, Cisco, WorldWide Technology, Verizon, and YouTube (Alphabet/Google), all of which depend to a large extent on minerals extracted from the DRC. Others, including Citibank, are hardly known for commitment to human rights; Citibank is, in fact, implicated in the 2001 UN investigators’ report on illegal resource traffic in DRC.
Global Citizen’s Global Board of Directors includes executives from Citibank, Cisco, Delta, and a long list of global asset managers, along with the former prime ministers of Norway and Sweden, top UN agency officials, and officers of closely allied billionaire-backed NGOs like the Open Society Foundations of George Soros, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Its Country and Regional Boards evince a special interest in Africa, the world’s most resource rich continent. Elites from Europe, Canada, Australia, and Africa are well represented there, but figures from Latin America and Asia are not, despite Global Citizen’s growing presence on those continents. In November 2025, the NGO will head to Brazil with “Global Citizen: Amazonia, the World’s First Impact Concert in the Amazon” at the UN’s 2025 COP.
An impact concert? What kind of impact? So far, participants have been promised a collection of “global and local artists” who will “celebrate major COP commitments, spotlight Indigenous leaders, and amplify campaigns for climate action.” Beyond that, the details are vague. “More info coming soon,” Global Citizen declares.
The consummately bland and meaningless language that fills the NGO’s website is clearly intended to gloss over any conflict or contradiction. But the blood-spattered backdrop to Global Citizen’s Kigali concert was impossible to ignore.
The “Global Citizen” as elite frontman
It should come as no surprise that John Legend performed in Kigali as Rwandan troops advanced in DRC, continuing the 30-year genocide against Congolese people. Like Kagame, the singer has been cultivated for over a decade as a top-tier frontman for the neoliberal global elite. Back in 2012, the Davos-based World Economic Forum appointed Legend to its Forum of Young Global Leaders in 2012. This February, Global Citizen announced on its Instagram page that it was “joined on the ground at Davos by three incredible artists” including John Legend.
Though he has at times spoken out in support of Palestinian human rights, Legend elected to perform at the August 2024 Democratic National Convention in support of then-Vice President Kamala Harris as she took ownership of the Biden administration’s genocidal policy toward the besieged Gaza Strip.
During his February 22 visit to the Kigali Genocide Memorial, Legend decried man’s inhumanity to man, likening the Rwandan Genocide to the Holocaust and the genocide of Native Americans, but omitted any mention of Gaza or Congo, genocides not granted the official status established by criminal indictments and Western-controlled international courts.
Legend has lent his status to numerous milquetoast productions by Global Citizen. In 2020 he hosted and performed for the second year in a row at the Global Citizen Prize for Activism, which honored Black Lives Matter, billionaire philanthropist Warren Buffett, and Sesame Street’s Sesame Workshop. What more could any organization do to support the status quo?
[…]
Confronted with criticism of his performance in Kigali, Legend insisted that he did not want to limit any country’s economic opportunity because he disagreed with its government. However, back in 2019, he supported a proposed Hollywood boycott of US states which had enacted limits on abortion rights. As a loyal Democrat, he has actively campaigned for Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and many of the party’s down-ballot candidates, while severing his personal ties with his former artistic collaborator, Kanye West, over his support for Donald Trump. “Money talks,” Legend said of his boycott of states with anti-abortion GOP leaders.
Deploying his talents in support of NATO at the 2022 Grammy Awards, Legend debuted his slave liberation anthem, “Free”, in a choreographed spectacle that featured Ukrainian musicians and President Volodymyr Zelensky pleading for military support on a larger-than-life background screen.
On the Grammy’s official website, the National Academy of Recording Arts & Science trumpeted Global Citizen’s concurrent Stand Up for Ukraine extravaganza, which urged its million followers to join “one of the largest digital campaigns on social media by sharing why you support Ukraine and refugees everywhere.”
Several days after the awards ceremony, Global Citizen hosted an online propaganda rally for the Ukraine proxy war, presenting a series of online video messages from a long list of celebrities, including Julian Lennon performing his fathers pacifist anthem, “Imagine,” in a room full of candles in service of the NATO military machine.
One day after the social media rally, Global Citizen capped off this propaganda extravaganza with a real-life rally in Poland, one the most ardent supporters of the US war for Western capital and global corporations.
Convened by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, it concluded in a grand “global pledging summit” that saw governments and corporations promise $4.6 billion in grants and $5.5 billion in loans to aid Ukrainian refugees and IDPs. Contributors included the European Commission, Canada, and a list of European nations. Lenders included the European Investment Bank and the Council of Europe Development Bank. It wasn’t clear who the loans would go to, who would pay them back, or how.
Coca Cola, Nestle, Cisco, Google, and Bridgewater Associates, the world’s largest hedge fund, were among the global corporations which contributed to demonstrate that they could be good global citizens too.
For all this, Global Citizen won an Anthem Award, a self-styled global do-gooder NGO whose mission is “amplifying the voices that spark global change” in support of “a purpose-driven society.”
Of course, there could be no better way to advance such a lofty mission than standing up for a NATO proxy war in Ukraine that has left a country in ruin, while music-washing a resource war in the heart of Africa – one that has left millions dead and a nation in chaos while its prime instigator danced to the crooning of John Legend, bathed in red and blue light, with “Global Citizen” emblazoned on his chest.
“Global Citizen” Paul Kagame manages lab for Western elite
Rwandan President Paul Kagame is a darling of the global elite. He hobnobs with them annually at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, though he kept clear of the neoliberal confab this year, presumably to manage the latest phase of his war in the DRC. Under Kagame’s management, Rwanda has become a veritable laboratory for technocratic, Davos-driven experiments in global governance, from digital IDs and “sustainable cities” to mandatory or even forced vaccination. In 2022, one Rwandan told Deutsche Welle that he was handcuffed in order to receive the jab. Others fled the country to escape being injected against their will.
In 2022, Kagame began negotiating with UK Prime Ministers Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, and then Rishi Sunak, to outsource migrants from war-ravaged areas of the Middle East to Rwanda for processing, asylum, and resettlement, demonstrating his readiness to volunteer his country as a dumping ground for the West’s human surplus. In 2023, after two years of outcry and legal struggle, a UK court ruled that Rwanda was not a safe place to remove asylum seekers to, and Prime Minister Keir Starmer then declared the plan “dead and buried” on his first day in office.
Kagame has also offered the Rwandan Defense Force in the service of Western military objectives on the African continent, most visibly now as an armed enforcer of the interests of France’s TOTAL Energies in Mozambique.
In 2017, Zionist influencer and sex toy salesman “Rabbi” Shmuley Boteach’s World Values Network presented Kagame with a prize for Outstanding Friendship with the Jewish Peoplei in the name of casino baron and pro-Netanyahu financier Sheldon Adelson and his wife Miriam. A year later Israel opened an embassy in Rwanda, with the Times of Israel heralding it as “a bid to strengthen its diplomatic foothold in Africa.” Israel and Rwanda have intertwined and reinforced their victims’ narratives since 1995.
Like Israel’s cutouts, the Davos set ignores decades worth of documentation of Kagame’s crimes in the DRC as long as he advances their agenda. Their infatuation also survives countless reports of his repressive extremes within Rwanda, including use of Israel’s Pegasus surveillance software, his transnational repression, his assassinations of critics at home and abroad, and his wholly implausible electoral victories, such as his 99%+ win in 2024.
[…]
Rwanda’s War in DRC
John Legend said he’s “aware of what’s happening” in DRC, but what does he know about the conflict? Why aren’t he and Global Citizen as concerned by Rwandan troops in DRC as they are by Russian troops in Ukraine?
Have they bothered to consider UN investigators’ abundant documentation of Rwanda’s invasion, occupation, massacres, and atrocities in DRC, much of which has been summarized by the legacy press?
On the day before Legend’s Kigali concert, the UN Security Council passed a resolution demanding that Rwanda’s M23 militia immediately cease hostilities, withdraw from all areas that it controls, “and fully reverse the establishment of illegitimate parallel administrations in the DRC territory.” It also called on Rwanda to withdraw all Rwandan Defense Forces (RDF) from DRC and stop “supporting” M23.
President Kagame continues to deny that Rwandan troops are in DRC, but Rwanda’s invading and occupying army is in direct command of M23. Further, the May 2024 UN Group of Experts Report on the DRC documented the presence of 4,000 Rwandan troops inside Congo, more than M23.
[…]
A continuous stream of RDF and M23 atrocity reports
Reports of M23 atrocities have emerged in continuous fashion since the militia first began rampaging across Congo in 2012-’13. The 2012 UN experts report stated that Rwandan Defense Chief James Kabarebe sat at the top of M23’s chain of command.
In 2014, a UN Security Council report stated that M23 had been responsible for mass killing civilians, raping, killing, and maiming women and children, forced displacement, and the forced recruitment of children..
On January 26th, Vivian van de Perre, Deputy Special Representative for Protection and Operations of the UN peacekeeping mission in the DRC, reported that M23 and the Rwanda Defence Forces had launched an attack on the strategically important city of Goma and that “these attacks continue to ravage the city, killing, injuring, traumatizing, and displacing civilians and exacerbating the crisis.”
During the first week of February 2025, the deputy head of the UN mission in DRC reported that nearly 3,000 people had been killed after M23 seized Goma, the capital of DRC’s North Kivu Province.
In mid-February 2025, after M23 seized Bukavu, the capital of DRC’s South Kivu Province, the UN human rights office accused it of summarily executing children, attacking hospitals and warehouses storing humanitarian aid, sexual violence, child and forced recruitment, and threatening journalists, human rights defenders, and members of civil society organizations.
[…]
Egypt unveils Gaza reconstruction plan ahead of emergency Arab summit
Al Mayadeen English
Egypt’s reconstruction plan for Gaza revolves around the Palestinian people’s right to their land and includes international and Arab financial support.
On Tuesday, Egypt’s Al-Qahera Al-Ikhbariya channel published Egypt’s plan for rebuilding Gaza, which will be presented to Arab leaders at the emergency summit hosted in Cairo on Tuesday.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty previously stated that the plan was designed to ensure the Palestinian people’s dignity and rights, and would be presented on March 4.
According to Abdelatty, Egypt’s alternative reconstruction plan will not be solely Egyptian or Arab but will include international support and funding to ensure its effective implementation.
“We will hold intensive talks with major donor countries once the plan is adopted at the upcoming Arab Summit,” he stated during a press conference with European Union Commissioner for the Mediterranean Dubravka Suica.
Into Egypt’s planThe plan, which is based on preserving the rights and dignity of the Palestinian people, includes the formation of a Gaza Administration Committee to oversee the governance of the territory during a six-month transitional period. This committee will be independent, composed of non-partisan technocrats, and will operate under the Palestinian government.
According to the plan, the committee will be established throughout the current phase and pave the way for the full return of the administration, which would manage the next phase under Palestinian decision-making.
[…]
‘Cody’s Law’: Florida Lawmakers Weigh First State Law to Compensate Vaccine Injury Victims
By Michael Nevradakis PhD
Florida lawmakers are considering a bill that would expedite the review and payment process for vaccine injury claims under the Medicare, Medicaid and Medicaid Medically Needy Programs.
If passed, “Cody’s Law: Florida No Vaccine-Injured Patient Left Behind” would be the first such law in the U.S. and could supplant federal vaccine injury compensation programs.
The bill, filed in the Florida House of Representatives in January and the Florida Senate last week, is named after Cody Hudson, a previously healthy college student who sustained serious — and now terminal — vaccine injuries in 2021.
Cody’s mother, Heather Hudson, advocated for and drafted the legislation. She said the law would fill the “gaps of all the vaccine injury compensation programs and Social Security disability.”
“It provides expedited claims processing, like is done for other severe and major illnesses, by Medicare and Medicaid, and affords the vaccine-injured and Emergency Use Authorization protocol-injured medical care at the onset of injury, when it is needed most,” Hudson said.
[…]
Via https://tdefender.substack.com/p/codys-law-florida-first-state-compensate-vaccine-injury-victims
‘Cody’s Law’: Florida Lawmakers Weigh First State Law to Compensate Vaccine Injury Victims
By Michael Nevradakis PhD
Florida lawmakers are considering a bill that would expedite the review and payment process for vaccine injury claims under the Medicare, Medicaid and Medicaid Medically Needy Programs.
If passed, “Cody’s Law: Florida No Vaccine-Injured Patient Left Behind” would be the first such law in the U.S. and could supplant federal vaccine injury compensation programs.
The bill, filed in the Florida House of Representatives in January and the Florida Senate last week, is named after Cody Hudson, a previously healthy college student who sustained serious — and now terminal — vaccine injuries in 2021.
Cody’s mother, Heather Hudson, advocated for and drafted the legislation. She said the law would fill the “gaps of all the vaccine injury compensation programs and Social Security disability.”
“It provides expedited claims processing, like is done for other severe and major illnesses, by Medicare and Medicaid, and affords the vaccine-injured and Emergency Use Authorization protocol-injured medical care at the onset of injury, when it is needed most,” Hudson said.
[…]
Via https://tdefender.substack.com/p/codys-law-florida-first-state-compensate-vaccine-injury-victims
March 4, 2025
Trump’s Détente with Venezuela
President Nicolas Maduro and U.S. President Donald Trump’s envoy Richard Grenell shake hands at the Miraflores Palace, in Caracas, Venezuela January 31, 2025.
Trump’s corollary to the Monroe Doctrine – “speak loudly AND carry a big stick” – has not been applied full force on Venezuela…as of yet. Instead the new administration appears to be testing a more nuanced approach. In his first administration, he succeeded in crashing the Venezuelan economy and creating misery among the populace but not in the goal of changing the “regime.”
Back in 2019, the Bolivarian Revolution, initiated by Hugo Chávez and carried forward by his successor, current Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, was teetering on collapse under Trump’s “maximum pressure” offensive. The economy had tanked, inflation was out of control, and the GDP was in freefall. Over 50 countries recognized Washington-anointed “interim president” Juan Guaidó’s parallel government.
In the interregnum between Trump administrations, Biden embraced his predecessor’s unilateral coercive economic measures, euphemistically called sanctions, but with minimal or temporary relief. He certified the incredulous charge that Venezuela posed an immediate and extraordinary threat to US national security, as Trump and Obama had before him. Biden also continued to recognize the inept and corrupt Guaidó as head-of-state, until Guaidó’s own opposition group booted him out.
Despite enormous challenges, Venezuela resisted and did so with some remarkable success, bringing us to the present.
Runup to the second Trump administration
In the runup to Trump’s inauguration, speculation on future US-Venezuela relations ran from cutting a peaceful-coexistence deal, to imposing even harsher sanctions, to even military intervention.
Reuters predicted that Trump’s choice of hardliner Marco Rubio at secretary of state augured an intensification of the regime-change campaign. Another rightwing Floridian of Cuban descent, Mauricio Claver-Carone was tapped as the special envoy for Latin America. He had been Trump’s senior director for Western Hemisphere affairs and credited with shaping Trump’s earlier aggressive stance toward Venezuela. Furthermore, on the campaign trail, Trump himself commented: “When I left, Venezuela was ready to collapse. We would have taken it over; we would have gotten to all that oil.”
At his Senate confirmation hearing on January 15, Rubio described Venezuela as a “narco-trafficking organization that has empowered itself of a nation state.” He was unanimously confirmed the very first day of the new administration.
The supposedly opposition Democrats all stampeded in his support, although Rubio severely criticized the previous Biden administration for being too soft on Venezuela. Rubio’s criticism was largely unwarranted because, except for minor tweaks, Biden had seamlessly continued the hybrid war against Venezuela.
Grenell Trumps Rubio
The first visit abroad by a Trump administration official was made by Ric Grenell, presidential envoy for special missions. Grenell briefly served in Trump’s first administration as acting director of national intelligence, becoming the first openly gay person in a Cabinet-level position.
Grenell flew to Caracas and posed for a photo-op, shaking hands with President Maduro on January 31. This was a noteworthy step away from hostility and towards rapprochement between two countries that have not had formal diplomatic relations since 2019.
The day after the Grenell visit, Rubio embarked on an uninspiring tour of rightwing Latin American countries. That same day, General License 41 allowing Chevron to operate in Venezuela automatically renewed, which was a development that Rubio had advocated against.
Diplomacy of dignity
Maduro entered negotiations with Grenell with a blend of strategic engagement and assertive resistance, aiming to navigate Venezuela’s economic challenges while maintaining sovereignty. The approach had win-win outcomes, although the spin in the respective countries was quite different.
Grenell claimed a “win” from the meeting with the release of six “American hostages” without giving anything in return. Venezuela, for its part, got rid of a half dozen “mercenaries.” Neither country has released the names of all the former detainees.
Grenell took a victory lap for getting Venezuela to accept back migrants who had left the country, a key Trump priority. Maduro welcomed them as part of his Misión Vuelta a la Patria (Return to the Homeland Program), which has repatriated tens of thousands since its inception in 2018.
Trump’s special envoy boasted that Venezuela picked up the migrants and flew them back home for free. Maduro was pleased that the US-sanctioned national airline Conviasa was allowed to land in the US and transport the citizens back in dignity. Congratulating the pilots and other workers, Maduro said: “The US tried to finish off Conviasa, yet here it is, strong.”
Evolution of imperialist strategy
Trump’s special representative for Venezuela in his first administration, Elliot Abrams, believes his former boss sold out the shop. He criticized Grenell’s visit as functioning to help legitimize Maduro as Venezuela’s rightful president, which it did.
In contrast, Robert O’Brien believes, “Grenell scored a significant diplomatic victory.” What is noteworthy is that O’Brien replaced John Bolton as Trump’s national security advisor in 2019 and had worked with Abrams as co-architect of the “maximum pressure” campaign against Venezuela, yet now acknowledges it is time for a shift.
Speaking from experience, O’Brien commented: “Maximum economic sanctions have not changed the regime in Venezuela.” He now advocates: “Keeping sanctions against Venezuela in place, while at the same time, granting American and partner nation companies licenses.”
According to Grenell, Trump no longer seeks regime change in Venezuela, but wants to focus on advancing US interests, namely facilitating deportations of migrants, while halting irregular migration to the US and preventing inflation of gas prices.
Ricardo Vaz of Venezuelanalysis suggests that Trump’s strategy is to adroitly use sanctions. Rather than driving Venezuela into the arms of China and Russia, Trump wants to incrementally erode sovereignty, compel sweetheart deals with foreign corporations such as Chevron, and eventually capture control of its oil industry.
Venezuela’s successes force imperial accommodation
Not only did “maximum pressure” fail to achieve imperial goals in the past, but the Bolivarian Revolution’s accomplishments today have necessitated a more “pragmatic” approach by the US.
Venezuela has resolutely developed resilience against sanctions, achieving an extraordinary economic turnaround with one of the highest GDP growth rates in the hemisphere. Venezuelan oil production is at its highest level since 2019. The oil export market has been diversified with China as the primary customer, although the US is still prominent in second place.
However, if Chevron operations in Venezuela get shuttered, that would take a bite out of the recovery. Trump threatened on February 26 to withdrawal the company’s license, departing from the initial engagement approach. This was seen as a short-term concession to foreign policy hardliners in exchange for domestic support. But even then, the license’s six-month wind-down period offers plenty of room for the two governments to negotiate their future oil relationship. Regardless, on March 1, the Office of Foreign Assets Control reissued the license for another six months.
The government is incrementally mitigating the economic dominance by the oil sector. It has also made major strides towards food self-sufficiency, which is an under-reported victory that no other petrostate has ever accomplished.
It has reformed the currency exchange system reducing rate volatility, although a recent devaluation is worrisome. Tax policy too has become more efficient.
Further, the collapse of the US-backed opposition leaves Washington with a less effective bench to carry its water. The opposition coalition is divided over whether to boycott or participate in the upcoming May 25 elections. The USAID debacle has now left the squabbling insurrectionists destitute. (Venezuela never received any humanitarian aid.).
Washington still officially recognizes the long defunct 2015 National Assembly as the “legitimate government” of Venezuela. At the same time, Trump inherited the baggage of González Urrutia as the “lawful president-elect” (but not as “the president”), leaving the US with two parallel faux governments to juggle along with the actual one. Lacking a popular base in Venezuela, González Urrutia abjectly whimpered: “As I recently told Secretary of State Marco Rubio: We are counting on you to help us solve our problems.”
Although US sanctions will undoubtedly continue, Venezuela’s adaptations blunt their effectiveness. Venezuela’s resistance, bolstered by its natural oil and other reserves, have allowed that Latin American country to force some accommodation from the US. In contrast, the imperialists are going for the jugular with resistance-strong but natural resource-poor Cuba.
The future of détente
Shifting political forces can endanger the fragile détente. Indeed, on February 26, Trump announced that oil licenses would be revoked, supposedly because Venezuela was not accepting migrants back fast enough. The Florida Congressional delegation, it is rumored, threatened to withhold approval of his prized Reconciliation Bill, if Trump did not cancel.
Clearly there is opposition from his party, both at the official and grassroots levels, against détente with Venezuela. As for the Democrats, elements have distinguished themselves from Trump by outflanking him from the right. The empire’s newspaper of record, The New York Times, recently ran a piece calling for military intervention in Venezuela.
According to Carlos Ron, former Venezuelan deputy foreign minister, the issue of détente between Washington and Caracas goes beyond this particular historical moment and even beyond the specifics of Venezuela to a fundamental contradiction: the empire seeks domination while the majority of the world’s peoples and nations seek self-determination. Until that is resolved, the struggle continues.
[…]
Via https://libya360.wordpress.com/2025/03/03/trumps-detente-with-venezuela/
Ontario’s Premier Threatens to Cut Off Electricity to U.S.
Doug Ford NBC News
Ben Kew
The premier of Ontario, Doug Ford, has threatened the U.S. over Donald Trump’s plans to impose tariffs on Canadian exports.After initially putting a hold on his planned tariffs against Canada and Mexico, Trump confirmed this week that he would move forward with plans to 25 percent tariffs on both countries until both countries agreed to his demands surrounding border security.
In an interview on NBC News, Ford said he had never met a single American who supported the idea of tariffs, despite the fact that the majority of Americans voted for Donald Trump.
Ford ranted:
We are the largest purchaser of alcohol in the world. We buy over 3,600 products from 35 states. I talked to the Governor of Kentucky and Mitch McConnell. Don’t touch our bourbon. I’m going after absolutely everything.
And I don’t want to. We keep the lights on for 1.5 million homes in manufacturing in New York, in Michigan, and in Minnesota.
If he wants to destroy our economy and our families, I will shut down the electricity going down to the U.S. And I’m telling you, we will do it.
Ford then went on to say that Americans, particularly those in red states, would feel immense pain as his retaliatory measures.
[…]
Via https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/03/ontarios-premier-threatens-cut-electricity-u-s-says/
Russia ready to facilitate US-Iran negotiations
FILE PHOTO: Snowy night-time view of the Spasskaya Tower of Moscow’s Kremlin and St.Basil’s Cathedral. © Stanislav Krasilnikov / RIA NovostiRT
Washington has ramped up sanctions on Tehran just weeks after the Islamic Republic signed a strategic partnership with MoscowRussia is ready to broker talks between the US and Iran, including on Tehran’s nuclear program and its regional proxy network, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Bloomberg on Tuesday.
Trump expressed interest in talking to Iran about those issues, both in his phone call to Putin in February and via representatives at the high-level US-Russian meeting in Riyadh just days later, the news agency wrote, citing anonymous officials.
“Russia believes that the United States and Iran should resolve all problems through negotiations,” Peskov told Bloomberg when asked about such contact.
Moscow “is ready to do everything in its power to achieve this,” he added.
US President Donald Trump returned to his “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran last month, just weeks after Moscow and Tehran signed a landmark strategic partnership agreement. Trump’s executive order said that Washington would ramp up sanctions on Iran, aiming to disrupt its nuclear program, conventional missile deployment, and network of regional proxy groups.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry has said the country is building up its defenses, citing regular threats from US ally Israel.
“The Israeli regime’s FM and other officials keep threatening Iran with military action while the West continues to blame Iran for its defense capability. This is outrageous & irrational,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said last week. Given that Israel is “addicted to aggression and lawless behavior,” it is “responsible and essential to maximize our defense capabilities,” he stressed.
The day before, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar warned that a “military option” should be on the table to stop the potential weaponization of Tehran’s nuclear program.
Israel and the West have long seen Iran’s uranium enrichment activities as a secret attempt to develop nuclear weapons – allegations that Tehran has repeatedly denied.
While Trump has touted harsher sanctions, he has also signaled that he is interested in signing a “verified nuclear peace agreement” with Tehran.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has stressed that talks with the US are unlikely to bear fruit, citing the prior nuclear deal Trump unilaterally left during his first presidency.
[…]Via https://www.rt.com/news/613679-russia-facilitate-us-iran-talks/The Most Revolutionary Act
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