That’s another thing we agree on! But which side is creating the chaos? The folks that created the mess or the ones having to clean it up?
Here’s the problem. You see videos of a protest that gives you the view of whatever propaganda network you tune into. We also live in a country that has been known to place antagonist within protest so is what you are seeing real, or just theater.
I know people who have been to protest and 100% of them are good people who love this country but hate what it is becoming. I agree with that sentiment .
Case in point, the Venezuelan “rallies” after the Maduro kidnapping. Legacy media was circulating 6 year old campaign rallies, World Cup celebrations, and saying “See! The people are with the United States! He’s a brutal dictator.”
It was all bullshit. And they got caught.
Nothing is black and white. I know from your post you blame the left. I on the other hand think both sides of screwed up and neither side has the ability to clean it up. I don’t view this as Biden era problems needing fixing. I view the entire system as needing fixing.
Term limits. Limit spending on elections. Get rid of super pacs and big donor donations. Completely open primaries. Limit the ability of politicians to make investments. Tons of things need to be done. Neither party actually wants it.
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The total number of deportations since Donald Trump took office in January 2025 is reported to be over 622,000 by December 2025, according to Wikipedia and corroborated by U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) statements.
DHS figures break this down further:
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Over 527,000 deportations were reported by October 27, 2025.
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By early December 2025, DHS stated that more than 593,000 people had been deported, putting the administration on pace for fewer than 700,000 deportations in the first year.
In addition to formal deportations, the administration claims that 1.9 million “self-deportations” occurred, where individuals left the U.S. voluntarily under pressure from enforcement policies. This brings the total number of people who left the country—through deportation or self-deportation—to over 2.5 million by December 2025.
Independent analyses suggest discrepancies, with some estimates placing actual deportation numbers lower than official claims, but the 622,000 figure is the most consistently cited total by the end of 2025.
8 million Venezuelans left their country after Chavez and Maduro took over. The vast majority live in the USA, so how many will go back if the situation there goes back to pre dictator times? If there were no sanctuary cities and people who committed crimes locked away, there wouldn’t be the chaos we are seeing today. Sanctuary locations are located in deep blue states and cities….I wonder why?
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Again, more agreement with you, especially in your second paragraph…but the ICE situation is totally the fault of the left. This Renee Good situation is another George Floyd event for the left.
I believe the majority of all politicians are corrupted once they get elected then have to run for re-election. It’s a money thing, as usual. But, I have to pick a side and I picked the right side.
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First, sanctuary city policies are illegal. I’m not sure how this has been able to stand as long as it has. I’m against the majority of sanctuary policies and they are obviously self serving for local governments.
Second, the AI post cited Wikipedia, so we can’t take a word of that seriously but let’s split the difference and say 500k have been deported. Far cry from where it should be at this point. That’s certainly not a “mass deportation.” And what exactly is a “self deportation?” How exactly do you quantify someone self deporting? I interpret that as a made up phrase, a made up number and just another lie for this administration to save face.
As far as Venezuelan out-immigration… The United States has sanctioned that country into financial ruin. Of course people have left the country. We’ve invited them here, pillaged their country, used them in geopolitics, meddled in their governmental affairs and destroyed their ability to sell their natural resources. The US has done this to several Latin American nations. Which is one of the biggest reasons we have millions of migrants in this hemisphere beating down our southern border to get in.
I wonder what would happen if we just let them run their own countries…
Disagree. I think what caused this is not black and white. You do have someone on the left who rightly or wrongly is protesting but you also have a group that has been militarized in our streets and are completely lacking training. If ice was actually being trained properly this could have been avoided.
One of my biggest issues with this admin from the top to bottom is the lack of ability to de-escalate situations. They pour gas on fire and wonder why things get worse. From my viewpoint that is intentional to create chaos.
None of them are going to go back because the same regime is in charge. Maduro was dictator in name only. There’s ~10 people in charge of Venezuela, each having power over different arms of the state. Nothing is going to change except our gas gets a little cheaper, and the shale revolution in the US is going to come to an abrupt stop.
The CEO of ExxonMobil is already openly questioning the profitability of any exploration in Venezuela. We’ve spent the last 50 years pouring billions into Alberta to replace the loss of Venezuelan crude and now we’re just going to go back to Venezuela when oils at $55-60 a barrel with no raise in sight? I think not. Our local economy is going to stay stagnant as the majors dip their toes into Venezuela, while trying to balance not destroying the price. Oils not going to come roaring back here and Venezuela is going to continue being a drain on our hemisphere from a human rights perspective.
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Holy shit. Thank you. Tried explaining this to someone yesterday and it went nowhere.
I bet we have a lot of current or former drilling hands on this board that can speak to this further.
Old protest footage has also been misrepresented. Some videos showing large crowds in Caracas were actually recorded during 2024 election protests against alleged fraud, not celebrations of Maduro’s 2026 capture. These have been recycled and mislabeled online to fit the current narrative.
On-the-ground reality in Venezuela remains tense. According to reports from DW and EL PAÍS, people are afraid to celebrate openly due to a government-declared state of emergency that criminalizes public support for the U.S. action. Authorities have arrested individuals for celebrating, posting online, or firing celebratory gunfire. Prisoners, isolated from news, learned about Maduro’s capture only during family visits, and expressions of joy were quickly suppressed by guards.
Real celebrations have occurred outside Venezuela, particularly among the diaspora. Venezuelans in Doral, Florida, and Madrid, Spain, have held public gatherings, danced, chanted, and expressed relief over Maduro’s removal, but these events were not filmed in Venezuela.
SlickRick: The people were protesting the fact that Maduro lost the election and decided to stay…a real dictator. Trump believed he won the 2020 election, but he left the Whitehouse. We are learning more and more about that election. No telling what the difference would be today if he had been re-elected in 2020 as compared to waiting thru Buyden’s term and getting re-elected in 2024.
Never said anything about protestors. There are big picture things here. Kicking China and Russia out of our hemisphere and helping the Persian people to take back their government will stop WW3 from happening. Tied into that is also ensuring that Iran does not get a nuke. The Saudis have already said that if Iran goes nuclear they will too, and then you have hell on earth.
If Trump were completely controlled by the Neocon warmongers and Israel, we would already be neck deep in WW3 by now with tens of thousands of troops on the ground in Tehran and Kiev today.
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I’ve worked in the patch my whole life, 22 years overseas but never in Venezuela. I agree, getting access to VZ oil will not be a positive for the shale revolution in the US, but it’s not going to an “abrupt stop”. But would you rather let China have the VZ oil and continue to provide VZ with arms and military installations? Russia is there too, along with Cuba and Iran….all of our good friends.
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Right on!
I don’t think Trump is totally compromised but he’s one man. AIPAC owns congress. Mossad owns CIA. Our DNI director has been totally nurtured because she’s been critical of Israel. The war lobby makes gobs of cash and most of the operations are geared toward the Middle East. The list goes on and on.
As far as kicking China out of the western hemisphere - good luck. China is now Brazil’s #1 trading partner. Argentina will be next. And that will continue to happen because China only cares about expansion, while we keep trying to export ideology WITH control and expansion.
Obviously, that last part is my opinion but that’s strongly rooted in history.
Well part of the Venezuelan operation is to cut off Cuba from the oil supply.
Disclaimer: This is not coming to the defense of Joe Biden but pointing out hypocrisy.
You name Joe Biden “Buyden” in a way that I’m assuming calls him corruptible.
Meanwhile, your current president’s most recent grifts:
- Trump launched his own cryptocurrency that generated $320 million fees for him.
- Trump created World Liberty Financial, which is a finance company that holds/trades crypto (aka accepts untraceable bribes). He and his family receive 75% of net proceeds when WLF sells tokens. UAB has “invested” $2 billion into it
- Trump created a membership club named Executive Branch. Membership fees cost $500k and is purely another grift meant to provide access to the president.
- Qatar is financing a Trump golf resort worth $5 billion
- Bezos/Amazon will pay Melania $28 million for her self-titled movie
- Trump will receive a $400 million luxury plane from Qatar, which his presidential library will own after he leaves office
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I’ll admit “abrupt stop” was a bit much, but I think my point still stands. And if it were so important to not let China have the oil (which is at most 5% of their imports), why didn’t we go full neocon and take out the whole regime? Why not go full red scare to keep them out of our side of the world? I don’t have the answer to that, but this reemergence of the Monroe Doctrine and distancing from our Western Allies is something I personally don’t trust this administration to handle. Especially when he ran on not doing these exact things.
*gross misinterpretation of the Monroe Doctrine
By me or the administration lol