Trump's War on Drugs: Hypocrisy With Hair on It
Plus: A feculent week in review.
We’re digging out from a major snowstorm today, so snow blowing is in my future. But before I venture out into the frozen tundra, let’s catch-up on some extraordinary stories you should not miss:
Let’s start with Trump’s phony drug war.
Even as he prepares to invade a country because its leader is allegedly a drug trafficker, he is pardoning the Honduran ex-president who partnered with cocaine traffickers.
He once boasted that he would “stuff the drugs up the gringos’ noses.” He accepted a $1 million bribe from El Chapo to allow cocaine shipments to pass through Honduras. A man was killed in prison to protect him.
A headline in the NYT tells us that “ In Announcing Pardon of Drug Trafficker While Threatening Venezuela, Trump Displays Contradictions.”
But I don’t think “contradictions” is the right word here; how about "flaming hypocrisy with hair on it?”
President Trump and his top aides have said that drug cartels present one of the most pressing dangers to the United States, and have promised to eradicate them from the Western Hemisphere.
As part of that effort, Mr. Trump signaled on Saturday that he was ratcheting up his campaign against drug cartels, saying in a social media post that airspace above and surrounding Venezuela should be considered “CLOSED IN ITS ENTIRETY.”
Less than 24 hours earlier, Mr. Trump had announced on social media that he was granting a full pardon to Juan Orlando Hernández, a former president of Honduras who had been convicted in the United States of drug trafficking charges in what was seen as a major victory for authorities in a case against a former head of state….
The two posts displayed a remarkable dissonance in the president’s strategy, as he moved to escalate a military campaign against drug trafficking while ordering the release of a man prosecutors said had taken “cocaine-fueled bribes” from cartels and “protected their drugs with the full power and strength of the state — military, police and justice system.” In fact, prosecutors said that Mr. Hernández, for years, allowed bricks of cocaine from Venezuela to flow through Honduras en route to the United States.
So, for those of you keeping track at home:
Trump declares war on drug kingpins.
Trump’s uses the war on drugs as the justification for extrajudicial murders on the high seas; and calls for the execution of six Democratic members of Congress who tell members of the military they do not need to follow illegal orders.
As part of Trump’s war against drug kingpins, SecDef Pete Hegseth orders Seal Team 6 to “kill everybody,” including unarmed survivors.
We are inching toward the invasion of Venezuela, because its president is allegedly a drug kingpin.
Trump pardons notorious drug kingpin.
Feel free to share this with a MAGA friend, relative, or coworker.
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A second story, you should not miss:
The Wall Street Journal’s blockbuster account of the grubby grift behind Trump’s “peace plan“: Make Money Not War: Trump’s Real Plan for Peace in Ukraine. TL;DR: The WSJ documents the deal to betray Ukraine in exchange for lavish business benefits for Trump insiders.
The key section focuses on the talks between Trump crony Steve Witkoff, Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner, and Russian sovereign-wealth fund head Kirill Dmitriev:
Dmitriev was pushing a plan for U.S. companies to tap the roughly $300 billion of Russian central bank assets, frozen in Europe, for U.S.-Russian investment projects and a U.S.-led reconstruction of Ukraine. U.S. and Russian companies could join to exploit the vast mineral wealth in the Arctic….
For the Kremlin, the Miami talks were the culmination of a strategy, hatched before Trump’s inauguration, to bypass the traditional U.S. national security apparatus and convince the administration to view Russia not as a military threat but as a land of bountiful opportunity, according to Western security officials. By dangling multibillion-dollar rare-earth and energy deals, Moscow could reshape the economic map of Europe—while driving a wedge between America and its traditional allies.
Exit take: Jay in Kyiv sums up the story: “Stunning level of corruption from the Trump admin on the Russia-Ukraine deal… EVERYONE around Trump is getting something from Putin in exchange for forcing Ukraine to surrender.”
Happy Sunday.
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Sunday dogs
Auggie loves snow, especially when he can eat it. (Note: You’ll find more snow-dog pictures over on my wife’s Substack this morning.)
The “hypocrisy” feels more like corruption to me. The mind of Trump is unfathomable—there’s no logic or factual information involved. The only
“constant” is, he will do anything, and
I mean anything, for money. It’s what
he lives for, it’s his only motivation.
The war on drugs has always been a false flag for a war on poor and non-white folks.