patrick.net

All those fancy Russian anti aircraft and missile defenses were either neutered, or were ordered down.

Top oil producer - check
No Rothschild central bank - check
Spurious terrorist label - check

Russia condemns because the US showed them how to do a special military operation in 3 hours instead of 4 years like Russia is doing. I think Putin should be the next one to go.

The European Union, a geopolitically irrelevant if extremely expensive bureaucratic behemoth that has spent a great deal of energy since 2022 lecturing the world on the evils of military aggression and the inviolability of national borders (at least when those borders are Ukrainian) learned about these events from the internet, along with the rest of us. Finally, around noon, the mentally vacant EU foreign affairs girlboss Kaja Kallas logged onto X to assure the world that “the EU is closely monitoring the situation in Venezuela,” as if anybody gives the slightest shit what these people are doing.

When Chávez died of cancer in March 2013, Maduro was named his successor and won a snap presidential election in April 2013 by a narrow margin.

He was re-elected in 2018 and 2024, though both elections were widely disputed as fraudulent by opposition groups and
international observers.

Maduro remained in power until his capture by U.S. forces on January 3, 2026, following a military operation.

Regarding involvement in drug trafficking, Maduro has faced serious allegations but denies them. In March 2020, the U.S. Department of Justice indicted Maduro and 14 other Venezuelan officials on charges of narco-terrorism, drug trafficking, and corruption.

The U.S. accused him of leading the "Cartel of the Suns," a drug-trafficking organization involving high-ranking Venezuelan officials, and conspiring with the FARC guerrilla group to flood the U.S. with cocaine, allegedly shipping hundreds of tons since the 1990s.

A $15 million bounty was placed on Maduro in 2020, increased to $50 million in 2025.