The Invasion of Venezuela

[Free]

If only they can convince everyone that Venezuela has been sending oil over here and having people unwillingly snort it...

 

[Free]

Keith Knight | Gentleman Cartoonist

keithknightart.com

 

[Chalice Yao]

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/venezuela-us-talks-export-venezuelan-oil-us-sources-say-2026-01-06/

Caracas and Washington have reached a deal to export up to $2 billion worth of Venezuelan crude to the United States, U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday, a flagship negotiation that would divert supplies from China while helping Venezuela avoid deeper oil production cuts.

Venezuela has millions of barrels of oil loaded on tankers and in storage tanks that it has been unable to ship due to a blockade on exports imposed by Trump since mid-December.

Chevron, which has been exporting between 100,000 and 150,000 barrels per day (bpd) of Venezuelan oil to the U.S., is the only company that has been loading and shipping crude without interruption from the South American country in recent weeks under the blockade.

Annnnnd there we go.

 

[Noodles]

Keith Knight | Gentleman Cartoonist

keithknightart.com

There should be a split track heading off screen coming around where it says "Repugs run on cutting taxes" that says "Route to a functioning country."

 

[Innula Zenovka]

In this case, apparently they had to move the oil somewhere as a matter of urgency because the US blockade means Venezuela is on the point of running out of storage facilities:

Donald Trump says US to take sanctioned Venezuelan oil to American ports (Evernote link because FT paywall)

The US embargo, imposed in mid-December, has left oil transported from the Orinoco Belt, one of the world’s biggest crude fields, stranded in decrepit storage facilities that are at or near capacity.

If the country is forced to halt further production, it will face long delays in restarting, analysts warned.

“Venezuela has such a Herculean task before it to bring their oil sector back,” said Jason Bordoff, founding director of Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy. “Having to shut production is going to make that much harder.”

Any shutdown would imperil Trump’s efforts to rapidly deliver the windfall to the US oil sector that he touted following the brazen raid over the weekend to depose strongman Nicolás Maduro.

To my mind, any decisions taken over the next few weeks about Venezuela's oil are going to be determined more by the fact the country's oil industry is pretty much on the verge of collapse than by any longer-term considerations (other than that the US wants to there actually to be a Venezuelan oil industry, that is).

 

[Veritable Quandry]

For Trump getting any token amount validates his ego.

 

[Free]

*Someone* made a lot of pocket change last week betting on Polymarket that Maduro would be taken out.

A Mystery Trader Made $400,000 Betting on Maduro’s Downfall (archive.today)

Less than five hours before nighttime explosions rocked the Venezuelan capital of Caracas, an unknown trader doubled down on bets that Nicolás Maduro would soon be out as the country’s leader.

The wagers on Polymarket, a popular crypto-based betting platform, netted the trader more than $400,000, a 12-fold return on investment—and fueled suspicions that someone used inside knowledge of the closely held U.S. operation to make a quick profit.

The anonymous user created an account last month and placed an initial bet on Dec. 27, buying $96 worth of contracts that would pay off if the U.S. invaded Venezuela by Jan. 31, Polymarket data shows. The person ramped up bets over the next week, sticking to a handful of similar contracts, as tensions mounted between Washington and Caracas.

The trader focused bets on contracts that would pay out if Maduro would no longer be Venezuela’s leader by Jan. 31, when that still seemed like a long shot.
The trader’s final bet came at 9:58 p.m. ET on Friday, shortly before President Trump ordered the military to move forward. Such contracts were priced at just 8 cents apiece, implying that Polymarket users saw only an 8% probability of the Venezuelan strongman losing power this month, the platform’s data shows.

Several hours later, news broke of the U.S. operation to capture Maduro and the contracts shot up in value. In the end, the trader earned nearly $410,000 in profit on about $34,000 worth of wagers. More than half the value of the total wager was placed the evening before the attack.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Or maybe not...

Why Polymarket Is Not Paying Bets On The U.S. Invading Venezuela

Will the U.S. invade Venezuela by...?

$14,152,915 has traded on "Will the U.S. invade Venezuela by...?" as of May 1, 2026. View real-time odds or trade on The World's Largest Prediction Market™

polymarket.com

 

[Jopsy Pendragon]

There should be a split track heading off screen coming around where it says "Repugs run on cutting taxes" that says "Route to a functioning country."

Misread the first go around... and thought it said "Deficit Ballrooms", which seemed funnier honestly. =)

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

Nobel peace price winner 2025, Maria Machado, is willing to hand over her price to Trump now.

As she puts it: "I certainly would love to be able to personally tell him that we believe — the Venezuelan people, because this is a prize of the Venezuelan people, want to give it to him and share it with him."

It could happen in the White House.

https://thehill.com/homenews/5674262-machado-nobel-peace-prize-trump-venezuela/

 

[Chalice Yao]

Oh. Sure. Give the orange man even more of a narcissistic complex by confirming him after he pretty much just did it for the oil.

I mean, I get it that she's happy that Maduro is gone, but *please*, think at least about what that price *actually stands for*, not about what somebody did as a lucky side-effect. Christ.

 

[Katheryne Helendale]

If the Carrot Caligula gets his hands on a Nobel Peace Prize, I'm going to vomit.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

Problem is that each nobel price medal has the name and year of the laureate engraved.

So I doubt this will be enough to satisfy Dumb's trumped ego, because it is not his name on it.

And just getting the hand on a nobel price medal is not so hard as some think, because sometimes they are auctioned off.

Just like here the medal of the 2021 peace nobel price winner Dmitry Muratov to collect donations for UNICEF.

https://www.ha.com/information/dmitry-muratov-nobel-peace-prize-medal.s

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Financial Times: US oil giant ExxonMobil tells Donald Trump Venezuela is ‘uninvestable’ (Evernote link because FT £wall).

ExxonMobil has warned that Venezuela remains “uninvestable” without “significant changes” in a rebuke to Donald Trump’s call for oil companies to pour billions of dollars into revitalising its oil industry.

Darren Woods, chief executive of the biggest US oil major, struck a sceptical tone at a televised White House gathering of energy bosses on Friday — even as some other companies expressed optimism about the potential to tap the world’s biggest oil reserves.

“If we look at the legal and commercial constructs, frameworks in place today in Venezuela, today it’s uninvestable,” Woods told Trump in a meeting that included many of America’s most prominent energy executives and some of the president’s top lieutenants.

“Significant changes have to be made to those commercial frameworks, the legal system, there has to be durable investment protections, and there has to be change to the hydrocarbon laws in the country.”

Woods said the company’s assets in Venezuela had been seized twice since Exxon first entered the country in the 1940s.

 

[GoblinCampFollower]

Financial Times: US oil giant ExxonMobil tells Donald Trump Venezuela is ‘uninvestable’ (Evernote link because FT £wall).

Woods said the company’s assets in Venezuela had been seized twice since Exxon first entered the country in the 1940s.

Yeah... that's what I expected. They'd love the oil except that they don't trust the political stability well enough. Trump seems to be hoping they'll just write blank checks to develop it on his say so.

 

[Casey Pelous]

Yeah... that's what I expected. They'd love the oil except that they don't trust the political stability well enough. Trump seems to be hoping they'll just write blank checks to develop it on his say so.

But, but ...... He got it for them special! Now he just drove by and saw his super-special gift in the dumpster!

Anyone who ever raised a toddler knows what comes next from King Dozy; big tantrum.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

The thing with the oil in Venezuela, when that info is right, is that extracting it makes only economically sense with a price of >= $80/barrel.

At the moment though that price is around $60, so the investment in the plants and structures to do so does not make sense right now, because it would give no return of invest.

But putting your hand on it as USA still pushes the Chinese out, who are by far the biggest trade partner of Venezuela and for sure would love to develop it, if given the opportunity to do so.

 

[Cristiano]

 

[Free]

Nobel peace price winner 2025, Maria Machado, is willing to hand over her price to Trump now.

Womp!

Nobel Institute rejects María Corina Machado’s offer to share peace prize with Trump

The organisers of the Nobel peace prize have said it “cannot be revoked, shared or transferred” after Venezuela’s opposition leader, María Corina Machado, said she wanted to give her award to Donald Trump.

"We gave the prize to you. Now, you have to live with that."

 

[Casey Pelous]

Over and over, the GOP fails to anticipate that there will be a response to their actions. They're like a particularly deluded chess player who constantly forgets that the opponent gets to move their pieces, too.

GOP Brain Trust: "Ha! Check! I win! See? My bishop is attacking your king! My game!"

Opponent: *Knight takes bishop.*