He has me confused. Is Eric Erickson stupid, naive, or dishonest? Erickson says
The New York Times pushed out a story just the other day after Renee Good got killed by the ICE agent, a multi-angled camera view to insist it did not look like the ICE agent got hit.... CNN echoed The New York Times, claiming that it did not appear that he got hit.
We now have the medical records of the ICE agent. I believe his name is Jonathan Ross- internal bleeding in his hip area from the impact of the 3,000+ pound car hitting him. He was hit by Renee Good.
The New York Times pushed out a multi-angle camera view claiming Renee Good did not hit the ICE agent. But now we have the agent’s medical records.
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent who fatally
shot Renee Good last week in Minneapolis, Jonathan Ross, suffered internal
bleeding to the torso following the incident, according to two U.S. officials
briefed on his medical condition.
It was unclear how extensive the bleeding was. The
Department of Homeland Security confirmed Ross' injury, but has not yet
responded to CBS News' requests for more information. This story will be
updated as we learn more.
Videos from the scene showed Ross walking away after the
incident.
Ross has not returned to work, one source said, but did not
say why.
Kristi Noem, the Homeland Security secretary, previously
acknowledged that Ross was taken to the hospital after the shooting and was
released the same day. She said he was recovering from his injuries, describing
him as an experienced law enforcement officer who believed he was defending
himself and fellow agents.
Not only is it unclear how extensive the bleeding was, it is unclear whether the injury was more extensive than a common, everyday household injury. As described by the Cleveland Clinic, this sounds a lot like internal bleeding:
“Ecchymosis” (pronounced “eh-chuh-mow-sis”) is the medical
term for a bruise. A bruise, or contusion, is skin discoloration from damaged,
leaking blood vessels underneath your skin. Even though there’s blood pooling
underneath your skin, you won’t have any external bleeding unless your skin
breaks open.
We don't know whether Ross was severely injured. However, we do know that "internal bleeding" can be no more serious than a bruise and that we cannot take remarks by anyone in this Administration about this incident as the gospel truth.
Soon after the shooting, Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem called Renee Good a"domestic terrorist." She was not.
Vice President J.D. Vance called the victim a "deranged leftist." There is no evidence that she was deranged or in any way mentally or psychologically deficient.
President Trump almost instantly after the killing remarked that "the woman" was "very disorderly, obstructing and resisting, who then violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE officer. She did not. (Good was leaving the scene when she eviently was shot three times and clearly did not "willfully and viciously" run anyone over.)
This Administration's record on the killing of Renee Good alread has been one of division and deceit, lying profusely to justify its inhumane and destructive policy toward both immigration and protestors. Nonetheless, we'll be able to determine definitively, hopefully, the extent of Agent Jonathan Ross' injury once his medical report is released. That may be released simultaneously with the release of the alleged shooting of presidential candidate Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania in July, 2024 or release of the full Epstein files. When pigs fly.
Obviously, The View's Joy Behar is not saying anything about illegal immigrants voting in "the next election" or any election. Ironically, she is talking about, well, non-election. She states "I worry about that Trump is looking for this kind of pandemonium to go on like you just described so that he can declare martial law and also cancel the midterms."
He is, and he probably could. However, there is something else Donald could do, and he already has hinted at it. In a recent interview with The New York Times, President Trump said
that he regretted not ordering the National Guard to seize voting
machines in swing states after his loss in the 2020 election, even though he
doubted whether the Guard was “sophisticated enough” to carry out the order
effectively.
The remarks by Mr. Trump in the interview last week harked
back to one of the most perilous moments from his first term in office, when he
was urged by some advisers to order his national security agencies to take
control of machines manufactured by Dominion Voting Systems in an effort to
find evidence that they had been hacked to rig the election against him.
The statement also came as he has continued his attacks on
digital voting machines, saying that he wants to “lead a movement” to get rid
of them altogether in advance of this year’s midterm elections.
This was not a spur-of-the-moment thought. Rather
Mr. Trump has long been obsessed with voting machines,
particularly those built by Dominion, a company that has figured prominently in
conspiracy theories that technology was used to rob him of victory in his race
against Joseph R. Biden Jr.
Allegations that Dominion machines were hacked in a plot to
flip votes away from Mr. Trump swirled constantly in the chaotic period after
the 2020 election and sat at the heart of several lawsuits filed by the
pro-Trump lawyer Sidney Powell that sought to overturn the results of the vote
in four key swing states.
The accusations about Dominion came to a head during a
pitched Oval Office meeting on Dec. 18, 2020, when a team of outside advisers,
including Ms. Powell and Michael T. Flynn, the former national security
adviser, pitched Mr. Trump on a brazen plan: They wanted the president to use
the military or federal law enforcement officers to seize Dominion machines in
several states where he believed there had been fraud in order to conduct a
recount of the vote.
The advisers went so far as to present Mr. Trump with draft
executive orders that they claimed would grant him the authority to follow
through on the outrageous plan.
Cooler, perhaps more democratic, heads prevailed as
Even proposing the idea of inserting armed federal forces
into the administration of a presidential race shattered the most basic norms
of American democracy. And it was vigorously opposed at the meeting by several
of Mr. Trump’s top aides, including Pat A. Cipollone, his White House counsel
at the time. The aides argued that Mr. Trump had no legal basis to seize the
machines and they quickly called other top officials in an effort to persuade
the president that there was no evidence that Dominion systems had been
interfered with.
Still, Mr. Trump explored the possibility of seizing the
machines. He raised the question separately with Attorney General William P.
Barr, who immediately shot it down. And he directed one of his personal
lawyers, Rudolph W. Giuliani, to ask high-ranking officials in the Department
of Homeland Security if they could legally seize the machines. Again, he was
rebuffed.
In the end, Mr. Trump did not move forward with the proposal
— a decision he said in the interview with The Times that he regretted.
“Well, I should have,” he said.
It seems that Donald would hesitate only if he doubted the efficacy of such an attempt to steal an election because
Asked whether using the military to impound voting machines
had been a viable option, the president questioned the sophistication of the
National Guard.
“I don’t know that they are sophisticated enough,” he said.
“You know, they’re good warriors. I’m not sure that they’re sophisticated
enough in the ways of crooked Democrats, and the way they cheat, to figure that
out.”
This is not ancient history nor merely theoretical as
Mr. Trump’s expression of regret, while somewhat vaguely
worded, was nonetheless a warning sign that he had not given up on the idea
that voting machines were dangerous or that they could be seized in an effort
to curb fraud.
Just last week, he reposted several social media messages
that continued to push the claim that Dominion machines had been rigged against
him. And last month, he sought to pardon Tina Peters, a former Colorado county
clerk who is serving a nine-year prison sentence on state charges of tampering
with Dominion machines in an effort to prove that they were used in a plot
against Mr. T
Every good and authoritarian plan can use a trial run. In this case
At the same time, Mr. Trump has not been shy in using the
National Guard, deploying thousands of its troops in recent months to cities
that he says are overrun with crime. He has argued that the deployments are
necessary to restore law and order to the cities, despite the objections of
state and local leaders, who have called the moves unnecessary and unlawful.
The president’s use of the National Guard during his second
term has become the focus of a multistate legal battle. While some cases remain
largely unresolved, in December, the Supreme Court ruled against Mr. Trump for
his deployment of troops in the Chicago area, citing an 1878 law, which bans
the use of the military for domestic policing.
Since taking office again almost a year ago, Mr. Trump has
sought to expand the scope of his powers and has wielded federal authority to
exact retribution on political enemies and push his domestic agenda. And he has
said he is willing to invoke the Insurrection Act and federalize some National
Guard units if he feels it is important to do so.
Donald may cancel the mid-term elections if there appears to be a reasonable chance that Democrats retake the House of Representatives and/or the Senate.There are other options for a lawless President. He could send masked immigration agents to polling places in Democratic precincts. If Republican losses result in their loss of the House or Senate, the President could "suggest" to Senate President John Thune or House speaker Speaker in Name Only (SINO) Mike Johnson that he refuse to seat newly-elected Democrats.
Or he could have National Guard soldiers, the military, perhaps even ICE officers seize voting machines. It would be overly dramatic but the actor known for "You're fired!" has a flare for the dramatic. Draconian and tyrannical, it would be right up his alley and makes any prediction for the eventual, effectual outcome of the 2026 elections the most unpredictable ever, notwihstanding Nancy Pelosi's confidence.
Keith Ellison, Minnesota’s attorney general, told me that
since ICE ramped up its operations in Minneapolis, it’s felt “like we are being
inundated with a hostile paramilitary group that is mistreating, insulting,
terrorizing our neighbors.” And the residents of Minneapolis have responded:
“People have got their whistles, and they’ve got their little alert system to
tell people ICE is in the neighborhood. They’ve been protesting. They’ve been
out there trying to protect their neighbors.”
Many of these people probably believed that even in Trump’s
America, citizens still have inviolable liberties that allow them to stand up
to the jacked-up irregulars who’ve descended on their communities. The civil
rights of immigrants have been profoundly curtailed; even green card holders
are on notice that this government may detain and deport them simply for
protesting. But Americans — particularly, let’s be honest, white Americans —
might have thought themselves immune from ICE abuses.
The killing of Renee Nicole Good, a [white] mother of three
and widow of a military veteran, tests that assumption.
S.M. concludes
The Republican base is as racist as you imagine. But the
racism of the right is part of a larger belief system in which people with
certain attributes -- white, right-wing, heterosexual, Christian,
anti-feminist, pro-gun, and pro-fossil fuel -- are seen as better than everyone
else in the world and deserving of a homeland in which no other people exist,
or at least none have power, including mere voting power.
I don't think many of the anti-ICE protesters expected to be
immune to ICE violence -- less susceptible, clearly, but certainly vulnerable.
These people hate everyone who disagrees with them to at least some extent.
Their core hatred might be racial, but they have plenty of rage to go around.
That's largely accurate. However, we knew that much of the GOP base is racist (or racially biased, as I would argue) and there is a core hatred of non-whites.
What we have never acknowledged- and which, to her credit, Goldberg comes close to doing- is that the hostility is usually not primarily grounded in ethnicity. The left is coming close now- with absolutely no help from the center- in acknowledging that most unjust state violence is not perpetrated for reasons of race.
We should have understood this in the summer and autumn of 2020. I tried, with limited success, to explain that there are many evils in this society and that most of them cannot justifiably be attributed to race. Instead, when the George Floyd protests came about, virtually no one (and "virtually" may be inaccurate) in the center or on the left found anything wrong with a movement called "Black Lives Matter."
Somehow, we got it into our collective heads that all - yes, all- of the problem with police violence against the public involved black civilians. There were victims and all were black, perhaps with a few Latinos.
There were three responses to the movement launched by the murder of George Floyd. There were supporters of the Black Lives Matter movement, which in those heady days constituted a majority. Most of those opposed to the movement protested that "Blue Lives Matter." And then there were a few people, usually denounced as racists by not only leftists but also by centrists, who maintained "All Lives Matter."
What a bizarre claim! The notion that "all lives matter" was considered bigoted and/or bizarre not only by the left- progressives and liberals alike- but also by centrists. Meanwhile, conservatives countered with the politically wise "Blue Lives Matter." It was hard to argue against that slogan and the left was not chanting "civilian lives matter" nor claiming that police lives don't matter. Strategically, the politically correct "Blue Lives Matter" was the correct, albeit disingenuous, response.
No one I heard or read ever suggested that not only was the slogan "black lives matter" exclusive of whites, but also of Latinos and Asian-Americans. Yet, while there was disproportionate (unjustified) police violence directed against blacks, there were other individuals who were victims of bad policing. I'm sure Daniel Shaver would agree, were he still alive to be asked about it. In December, 2017 The New York Times reported
Newly released body camera footage shows a police officer
shooting an unarmed man in an Arizona hotel after the man sobbed and pleaded
with officers not to shoot him.
On Jan. 18, 2016, six officers were called to a La Quinta
Inn and Suites in Mesa, Ariz., after guests reported seeing a man with a gun in
the window of a fifth-floor room. The video showed Mr. Shaver and a woman
walking into a hallway as Philip Brailsford, a two-year veteran of the Mesa
Police Department who was wearing the body camera, trained an AR-15 rifle on
them.
Another officer can be heard ordering them to get on the
floor and threatening to shoot if they do not comply.
“If you make a mistake, another mistake, there is a very
severe possibility you’re both going to get shot,” the officer says in the
video. He shouts at Mr. Shaver, “If you move, we are going to consider that a
threat, and we are going to deal with it, and you may not survive it.”
“I’m sorry,” Mr. Shaver says at one point. “Please do not
shoot me,” he says at another.
The officer’s commands at times seemed contradictory.
“Do not put your hands down for any reason,” he tells Mr.
Shaver. “Your hands go back in the small of your back or down, we are going to
shoot you, do you understand me?”
“Yes, sir,” a tearful Mr. Shaver responds.
But immediately after, the officer commands, “Crawl towards
me,” prompting Mr. Shaver to lower his hands to the floor and begin moving
toward the camera.
A police report by an officer who reviewed the footage
offered two possible explanations for why Mr. Shaver had bent his arm, the
movement before the gunfire. It was “a very similar motion to someone drawing a
pistol from their waist band,” the officer wrote, according to The Atlantic —
but it “was also consistent with attempting to pull his shorts up as they were
falling off.” No weapon was found on Mr. Shaver.
The Police Department fired Officer Brailsford two months
after the shooting.
If you haven't already guessed, Shaver was white; if you didn't hear about this killing at the time, you weren't alone. It didn't fit the narrative of the left, the center, or the right (for the last group, because police can do no wrong). Interestingly
The jury deliberated for less than six hours before
acquitting him. The acquittal came the same day that a judge in South Carolina
sentenced Michael T. Slager, a white police officer, to 20 years in prison for
the 2015 shooting of an unarmed black motorist, Walter L. Scott.
Perhaps now, with the killing of Renee Gold, we will begin to understand that most law enforcement officers are fair and just and some, (being human) are not, as with persons in every profession. Of course, there is a danger of over-reaction, inaccurately concluding that state and local police officers are anything like Donald Trump's ICE, which is increasingly acting with impunity.
The upside of the killing of Good- as Goldberg notes- tests the assumption that whites are immune from our "inviolable liberties" being nullified by the Trump Administration and/or its lackeys. But Goldberg and S.M. need to understand that some of us, even back in 2020, knew that the heavy fist of law enforcement authorities was not confined to blacks. All of us- and our freedoms- matter, or at least should.
In his press briefing on Thursday, Vice President J.D. Vance condemned "many people in the corporate media" for their coverage and added
And I say "attack" ver, very intentionally because this was an attack on federal law enforcement. This was an attack on law and order," Vance continued. "this was an attack on the American people."
Vance said the CNN headline also left out that the woman was there to "interfere with a lefitimate law enforcement operation in the United States of America" and is "part of a broader left-wing network" that attacks ICE officers and prevents them from doing their jobs.
"If the media wants to tell the truth, they ought to tell the truth, that a group of left-wing radicals have been working tirelessly, sometimes using domestic terror techniques, to try to amke it impossible for the President of the United States to do what the American people elcted him to do, which is enforce our immigration laws," Vance said.
So Vance (presumably) believes Good's misbehavior "was an attack on law and order.... and on the American people." She was allegedly part of "a group of left-wing radicals (who) have been... using domestic terror techniques to try to make it impossible for the President of the United States to do what the American people elected him to do." Previously, he had stated "the reason this woman is dead is because she tried to ram somebody with her car."
Good may have been interfering with a law enfocement operation. However, once she began to pull away, she was removing herself from the situation. That did not satisfy, or even please, Officer Jonathan Ross. But in the Vice President's telling, Renee Good was a left-wing radical who attacked law and order with domestic terror techniques to obstruct the will of our President and of the American people and specifically tried to ram somebody with her car.
She factually was not a domestic terrorist and Vance probably was aware that video would prove that she did not try to ram somebody. But, aware of the political difficulty that would ensue, he did not wish her dead. Oh, that makes so much sense.
Also not wishing her dead was the President himself. Yet, in a Truth Social post of 3:28 p.m. on Pearl Harbor Day, Donald wrote/typed/dictated
I have just viewed the clip of the event which took place in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is a horrible thing to watch. The woman screaming was, obviously, a professional agitator, and the woman driving the car was very disorderly, obstructing and reisisting, who then violently, willfull, and viciously ran over the iCE officer, who seems to have shot her in self defense....
Let me see if I understand this correctly. "No one of the right wishes that person were dead." The leader of the right, Donald J. Trump,illegally orders boats, probably carrying drugs to Trinidad or Europe, blown up along with the occupants. the leader of the right, He (presumably) believes that the ICE officer, in order to prevent being injured or killed, shot a professional agitator who was very disorderly, obstructing and resisting, then trying to run over the officer.
If Trump did in fact view the "clip" of the killing, he would know that the Good woman did not try to run the woman over, which would prove very inconvenient for the Administration once it was widely seen. She was a dangerous radical but he's sorr she's decesdl. But he did not wish the Good woman dead, even though if he did watch the clip he claims to have watched, he would know that big trouble awaited- if she had lived.
President Trump and Vice President Vance may not be glad that Renee Good is dead. Call them "relieved."
On Halloween, the Deputy White House Chief of Staff, who reportedly is in charge of immigration policy, appeared on Fox News. Host Will
Cain asked Miller under what federal authority the Trump
administration could arrest Pritzker if the governor tried to arrest ICE
agents.
“To all ICE officers, you have federal immunity in the
conduct of your duties,” Miller said. “And anybody who lays a hand on you or
tries to stop you or tries to obstruct you is committing a felony.”
ICE officers thereby were given a "get out of jail free" card. And on January 7, 2026, one emboldened immigration agent decided to take advantage of Miller's largesse.
Of course, this would be legitimate were Renee Nicole Good attempting to stop the officer or trying to obstruct him. This does not appear to have occurred.
One officer approached the driver's side of the car and may have yelled for Good to get out of the car. Another officer was moving from the front passenger side to the front driver's side, whereupon the motorist steered clockwise, away from the officer, who then fired the fatal shot. Former FBI supervisor Rob
D’Amico said the officer’s attempt to open the door may have
distracted the woman, causing her not to notice the other officer in front of
the vehicle, and that better training could have helped prevent the situation.
“It reminds me of a time that one of the first arrests I
went out in Miami, I actually got in front of a vehicle, and my supervisor
grabbed me after, and I think he was pretty strict with me. He said, ‘Look,
people don’t block vehicles. Vehicles block vehicles,’” he recounted. “Don’t
put yourself in a situation where you then have to employ deadly force if that
vehicle comes at you, because, one, you’re not going to stop it. You’re going
to get hit no matter what.”
Horrible, foolish police work, in which authorities escalate rather than de-escalate a situation, is not necessarily illegal, but it is very important. Few if any in the government (of course) or the media seem interested in the motive of the three ICE officers who approached Good's vehicle. They might find out that that the motorist was partially blocking the roadway and that good police work would entail approaching the vehicle in an unthreating manner and ordering the motorist to leave the area.
The purpose, presumably, would be to clear the area, which Good was trying to do as she began to drive away. And if that was not the aim of the officers, law enforcement was even more irresponsible than the appears from the video.
Apprised of this incident, Stephen Miller's heart leapt. So did J.D. Vance's heart, and that of Donald Trump. Jesus wept.
1) an organism that primarily obtains food by the killing and consuming of other orgnaisms; especially, an animal that preys on other animals;
2) one who injures or exploits others for personal gain or profit.
This is repulsive:
Rep. Ogles: "It's important that we have a stake in Greenland, that they are quite frankly a protectorate of the US. They've been in relationship with Denmark -- that needs to end. We have spilled more blood protecting Greenland than the Danes ... we are the dominant predator… pic.twitter.com/uAtHMMV0hL
The USA does have a stake in Greenland. However, Danish involvement has been deeper and more lengthy. And according to Mikkel Runge Ollesen of the Danish Institute for Inernational Studies
When the monarchy of Denmark and Norway broke apart in 1814, Denmark kept Greenland. Danish-Greenlandic colonial relations in the 19th and early 20th centuries were characterized by a Danish paternalistic policy for cautious development, ensuring that Greenland would be a profitable colony. In 1916, Denmark’s rights to Greenland were confirmed by the United States, as part of a deal that facilitated the American purchase of the Danish West Indies. A controversy concerning a Norwegian claim to parts of Greenland ended in 1933, when the Permanent Court of International Justice, founded by the League of Nations, ruled against Norway.
Allen Frazer on the Military.com website explains that as combat reached the Arctic in 1943, the Danish-led Sledge Patrol comprising Danes, Norwegians, and Greenlanders, was formed. Using its reports American planes bombed the German base on Greenland and later went to destroy the camp. However, they found it abandoned, merely capturing a lone German staffing the station. Then
In October 1944, USCGS Eastwind seized the German weather
station on Little Koldewey and took twelve German prisoners. Eleven days later,
she boarded and captured the trawler Externsteine, taking seventeen more
prisoners and ending Germany’s weather operations on the coast. These were the
only direct engagements between American and German troops on Greenland.
That was the first presence of the USA in Greenland and, Ollesen notes, in
1949, the United States and Denmark became allies through NATO. During the Cold War and the decades after, the U.S. safeguarded its security interests in Greenland: tracking Russian missiles, bomber planes, and nuclear-armed submarines from that location. This became the basis for the “Greenland card” in U.S.-Danish relations: the idea that base rights in Greenland constituted an important contribution from Denmark and Greenland to the U.S. and NATO.
So the USA, as well as Denmark and Norway, collaborated to throw the Nazis out of Greenland in world War II. This apparently transpired without a staggering loss of life, or "blood spilled" as Representative Ogles of Tennessee would put it. This is not- or, rather, should not be- a competition as to whether Danes or Americans have "spilled more blood protecting Greenland."
Merriam-Webster, again; a "protectorate" is "the relationship of superior authority assumed by one power or state over a dependent one." Obviously, President Trump and adviser Stephen Miller wouldn't be threatening to gain control (in whatever way) over Greenland if the latter were already a protectorate of the USA. Presumably, Representative Ogles invoked the term "protectorate" because it harkens back to the word "protect" and implies, incorrectly, that helping to protect a territory results in the latter being a protectorate. "Protecting" may be necessary; it is not sufficient.
The USA has no nationals security interest in acquiring Greenland because our national security interests already are promoted by our presence in Greenland. The New York Times reported early last year that the Air Force and Space Force personnel at Pituffit Space Bse (formerly, Thule Air Base), "handle missile defense and space surveillance and the Upgraded Early Warning Radar (which) can detect ballistic misslies in thir early trajectory of flight." A Danish deefense analyst says the base is "where the U.S. can detect a launch, calculate the trajectory and activate its missile defense systems."
Consequently, the status quo helps Greenlanders, but especially USA national security. If they want to opt out, they can do so by referendum. A poll taken twelve months revealed majority support for becoming independent, yet with 45% opposing independence if the standard of living would be at all harmed. That would be likely because
the Greenlandic government remains dependent on a yearly
block grant from Denmark of roughly $600 million, as well as on the Danish
state supporting services in areas such as defense, coast guard, and law
enforcement. Greenlandic independence, therefore, depends on substantial
continued Danish assistance after independence, something the Greenlandic
government has yet to convince Denmark to accept.
What kind of a person would argue in full view that his country is the "dominant predator"? A supporter of Donald Trump would. The head of the Washington, D.C.-based security think tank Artic Institute believes it would "mean the end of NATO" (and the "U.S. would be .... shooting itself in the foot and waving goodbye to an alliance it has helped created." A former commander of U.S. troops in Europe argues that also a "loss of trust by key allies.... culd result in a eduction in their willingness to share intelligence with the U.S. or a reduction in access to bases across Europe. Both of these would be severely damagint to America's security."
Destructive to NATO and damaging to America's security? That sounds like a win-win to a President who believes his country is "evil" and a congressman who craves recognition as a "predator."
Washed-up, right-wing actor does not know the meaning of the word "threat."
Maduro smuggled 200+ TONS of heroin into this country, you blithering jackanapes. Then there’s the fentanyl and all the rest of it. Thats no threat? https://t.co/2ajbRtblxo
America doesn't want this war. Nobody asked for this becuase it has nothing to do with American national security. I think that's the most important conversation to have.
Venezuela is not a security threat to the United States. They're not threataening to invade us. there is no terrorist group like Al Qaeda operating there that has plans to attack the United States. To the extent that you care about the drug trade, yes, that brings drugs but the drugs go to Europe. Fetanyl is the drug that's killing Americans. That's not coming from Venezuela. Venezuela produces cocaine. Ninety percent of it is nor coming to the United States.
The military action of this past weekend, which was one-sided, constitutes less a war than an attack, even an invasion. However, Murphy is right about everything else. As a reporter for KCRA 3 in Sacramento, California has explained
drug seizure data shows that it's not as prominent a
supplier of cocaine to the U.S. as other South American and Latin American
countries.
There is also no evidence that any significant level of
illegal fentanyl — the primary killer in U.S. overdose deaths — is produced in
South America, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime
(UNODC).
UNODC analyzes global drug trafficking based on reporting
from its member states, open sources and drug seizure information.
Most illegal fentanyl enters the U.S. from Mexico, per UNODC
and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. Illicit fentanyl can also be
diverted, or stolen, from legal sources as medical professionals use the drug....
Venezuela is not among the primary direct traffickers of
cocaine to the U.S.
Like fentanyl, most cocaine enters the U.S. from Mexico and
typically gets to Mexico via maritime transportation on both the Pacific and
Caribbean sides, according to UNODC research officer Antoine Vella. Some also
arrives in Mexico via land transportation.
While the Trump administration's early September attacks
targeted Venezuelan boats, there is no known direct cocaine trade route from
Venezuela to the U.S. via sea. The only known direct Venezuela to U.S.
trafficking route is via air, according to drug seizure data from UNODC.
Cocaine could still arrive from Venezuela to the U.S. through intermediary
countries.
Colombia, Ecuador and Panama are among the main direct
traffickers of cocaine to the U.S. via boat.
Coca, the plant cocaine is made from, is mainly grown in Columbia, Peru, and Bolivia....
The three coca growing countries also have the most illegal processing facilities.
A "threat," Merriam-Webster informs us, is "an expression of intent to inflict evil, injury, or damage." If we're concerned about nations which would like to inflict injury upon the USA, we can begin with Mainland China. If we're concerned about evil, Russia is #1, with both countries presenting a serious cyberthreat to the USA.
Selling drugs to willing customers, the drug users or middlemen, does not constitute a threat in the literal or practical sense. This does not suggest that hauling Nicholas Maduro into USA federal court is not a worthwhile endeavor if compatible with US law and national interest. However, if the narcotic activities of Nicaragua pose a threat justifying a violent attack, an assault upon Columbia, Peru, Bolivia, and China would be worthy.
And the major threat to hemispheric peace and stability does not presently come from any of those countries, but from the USA. In recent days, President Trump has threatened both Colombia and Denmark and Little Marco has threated Cuba. That's not to spank them with narcotics or with rifle toting, hormone-infused MAGAts, but with the most powerful military in history.
Of course, Trump is little motivated by the proliferation of drugs, as his pardon of former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernandez demonstrates. It's about a lot of oil and rare earth minerals, probably with Donald's expectation of personal profit, as well as satisfying the wet dreams of much of his base by "kicking ass" while Maduro "f'ed around and found out," as Pete Hegseth put it.
Other factors also may have entered into the decision to employ the armed forces because Donald Trump always has an angle, and helping the country he has called "evil" is rarely one of them. James Woods may not understand this, but we can't be sure because he and many others will support any behavior from the most violent and degenerate creature ever to hold public office in this country.
