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The elements behind Trump’s war on Venezuela are fourfold.

They center on the theft of Venezuela’s oil; the removal of Cuba’s primary lifeline; the protection of the dollar-based petrodollar; and Trump’s desperate need to deflect attention from the deepening quagmire that is the Epstein scandal.

And the ultimate question they raise is: will his blatantly illegal violation of U.S. and international law finally result in the impeachment and removal of Trump from the White House or the 2026 mid-term elections lead to an end of his destructive control of the U.S. government.

The lethal litany of reasons for Trump’s invasion is led by the U.S. seeking Venezuela’s huge reserves of oil—it supposedly has 303 billion barrels compared to the U.S. with but 45. After Venezuela is Saudi Arabia with 267 and Iran with 208 and then the list drops by 100.

Tim Walz

While Trump pretends he is saving Latin America, Greenland, and other places where he wants to plant the US flag, and presumably his brand, his war on the poor in America has reached new, unconscionable extremes. In recent weeks he has blocked childcare funds from Minnesota, as he tried to exploit a welfare scam there which as crushed the career of Governor, and recent Vice-President candidate, Walz. Now he has taken all of this another tragic step forward and blocked both welfare and childcare funds from Minnesota, New York, California, Colorado, and Illinois, claiming scandal, while offering no proof or evidence of any such thing. This is just crazy.

TANF or the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families is a miserly program that renamed welfare assistance like AFDC, Aid to Families with Dependent Children, in the Clinton presidency. One of the changes made these welfare payments block grants, allowing governors and legislators to divert fund away from the poorest American families to other ends or in some cases to not distribute the full amounts because of the Scrooge like policies.

Is this political? Heck, yes!

We open GREEP zoom #252 with MAYOR HEIDE LAMPERT of Waldport, Oregon, a democratically elected official arrested by an armed fascist.

We follow with our Poet Laureate, MIMI GERMAN’s ode common decency, and to CLAIRE ELIZABETH HALL, words from Steven Kent for an esteemed and beloved County Commissioner.

We also honor the great HOWIE KLEIN, who truly made a difference for the better.

Indivisible’s AMY ANDERSON gives a critical report on an upcoming Congressional primary.

The great KARL GROSSMAN joins us to explain the four evil movers pushing the Venezuela assault, including oil, Epstein, Cuba and the petro-dollar.

From JENNIE GAGE we get a report on the MAGA response to this latest imperial war, which is full of tortured contradiction.

From Congressional candidate HARTZELL GRAY we hear a cry against colonialism and the class imperative to finally end it.

Radio talk host LYNN FEINERMAN offers a heart-felt stand for Marjorie Taylor Green and warns of the anti-female dimension to this fascist regime.

Media hero DAVID SALTMAN digs deep into the stock exchange’s role in laundering the petro-dollar throughout the decades.

Renee Good

DHS lies.

They lied about Ayman Soliman. They lied about Venezuelans in Ohio, calling them gang members when they were not. They lied about Operation Buckeye in Columbus, where the overwhelming majority of the people arrested have no criminal history.

Meat

This article first appeared on Substack

I have spent most of my adult life working at the intersection of food, health, and public policy. I did not come to this work through ideology. I came to it through lived experience, long before I ever held a policy title.

My mother reversed severe, debilitating Crohn’s disease decades ago after being advised to undergo radical intestinal surgery. Doctors told her there were no other options. She refused to accept that verdict and changed what she ate. Through a whole food, plant-based approach, she regained her health. That decision reshaped our family’s relationship to food and planted the seed for my life’s work.

Look at the life of Renee Nicole Good. She was a mother who loved her child. She was a daughter who was cherished. She was a wife, a dog mom, and a vibrant soul who for 37 years occupied a space in this world that can never be filled again.

Twelve hours ago, Renee woke up in her home. Tonight, her wife goes to bed alone. Her child will never see her again. Not because of a “tragedy,” but because of an execution. This week the Trump administration sent 2,000 ICE agents to Minnesota. And because of that?

Oh good. Now we have a war to focus on. Everyone’s tired of Epstein by now, and tired of the possibility that the bad guy may be, ho hum, our own national leader, a.k.a., the commander-in-chief.

So the commander-in-chief has stepped in for the sake of the public good, bestowing on America a far more traditional enemy to hate and fear and let dominate the headlines: narco-terrorists.

I’m still trying to grasp the fact that Donald Trump has actually invaded Venezuela. He’s no longer simply bombing boats in the ocean. The U.S. military bombed Caracas on Jan. 3 and broke into the home of the country’s president, Nicolas Maduro, and his wife Cilia Flores. They were kidnapped and extradited to the United Staes, where they are now on trial for drug trafficking – as though that was the moral purpose of the invasion.

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