Some More News - Some More News: Trump's War On Venezuela Is Also A War On America

Episode Date: December 3, 2025

Hi. Are we at war with Venezuela yet? Because from our vantage point (several weeks ago) it sure looks like the Trump administration wants to do a war. Let's look at those "drug boats," the administration's lack of any legal justification for attacking them, and why inflicting violence abroad is a harbinger of violence to come at home. Get the world's news at https://ground.news/SMN to compare coverage and see through biased coverage. Subscribe for 40% off unlimited access through our link.Hosted by Cody JohnstonExecutive Producer - Katy StollDirected by Will GordhWritten by Marco Siler-GonzalesProduced by Jonathan HarrisEdited by Gregg MellerPost-Production Supervisor / Motion Graphics & VFX - John ConwayResearcher - Marco Siler-GonzalesGraphics by Clint DeNiscoHead Writer - David Christopher BellPATREON: https://patreon.com/somemorenewsMERCH: https://shop.somemorenews.comYOUTUBE MEMBERSHIP: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvlj0IzjSnNoduQF0l3VGng/join#somemorenews #PeteHegseth #VenezuelaFor a limited time, save on the perfect gift by visiting http://auraframes.com to get 35 dollars off Aura’s best-selling Carver Mat frames – named #1 by Wirecutter – by using promo code MORENEWS at checkout. Calm your mind, change your life. Calm has an exclusive offer just for listeners of our show–get 40% off a Calm Premium Subscription at http://calm.com/MORENEWS. This is an amazingvalue.CovePure is giving you a special $250 holiday discount with our link https://CovePure.com/SMN. Hurry before the sale ends!Pluto TV. Stream Now. Pay Never.Treat yourself to gear that looks good, feels good, and doesn’t break the bank with Fabletics. Go to https://fabletics.com/SMN to sign up as a VIP and get 80% off everything.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey Ontario, come on down to BetMGM Casino and check out our newest exclusive. The Price is Right Fortune Pick. Don't miss out. Play exciting casino games based on the iconic game show. Only at BetMGM. Access to the Price is right fortune pick is only available at BetMGM Casino. BetMGM and GameSense remind you to play responsibly. 19 plus to wager, Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you,

please contact Connix Ontario at 1866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. What's that? Oh, sorry, just watching these Star Wars films? Never seen him before. It's wild stuff. The dude from Night Watch is in it. Anyway, that's so cool. Here's some news. We're at war? Are we at war? With Venezuela? What's going on there? Better consult our peace president Donald Trump. He'll know.

Kill him. Kill him now. Do it. Oh, sorry. Still got Star Wars open. It's like nine freaking tabs. Okay, here's the real clip. Well, I don't think we're gonna necessarily ask for a declaration of war. I think we're just gonna kill people that are bringing drugs into our country.

Okay, we're gonna kill them, you know? They're gonna be like dead. Oh, shoot, sorry. I think that's still Star Wars? The cantina scene, maybe? No. No. That's the real clip.

Well, he looks like a space puppet. And coming to think of it, I don't control the clips on this phone, because we do that in post. And I've seen Star Wars a lot. I'm not sure why I pretended it was new to me. Anyway, Trump's a murderer. He kills people like dead, maybe not on Fifth Avenue with a gun, but he does. And while that's not actually new for a president, there's a reason I invoked Star Wars, a series I never talk about and have never seen, because there are a lot of wars. That's why it's called Star Wars.

But I want to talk about one particular Star War that perhaps reflects our current situation. And sadly, it's not the one with all the fluffy Muppets doing predator traps. We've recently begun using the supreme power of the United States military to destroy Venezuela, Paris, and we have no choice. Please be warned that we will blow you out of existence. Trump's Clone War on Venezuela. Venezuela. I mean, there is a predator involved, but not the kind I was referring to.

So, as I mentioned, the U.S. is ramping up increasingly aggressive military operations around Venezuela. In fact, since this episode is being filmed before Thanksgiving and airing after Thanksgiving, we're going to leave a little bit of space here in case we need to update that we invaded a country or RFK Jr.'s brainworm is the new Secretary of Education. Okay, so after we filmed this, Hegeseth did what seemed to be like more war, war crimes, Trump said Venezuela airspace was closed. On Thanksgiving, he said that land attacks will start very soon. And later on in this episode, we talk about former Honduran president Juan Hernandez, who is generously a narco-terrorist. And Trump's pardoning him, apparently, so nothing means anything.

I'm sure there's more, but back to the episode. Okay. Most notably, we can't. Keep blowing up those darn boats. As of recording this, more than 20 boats off the Caribbean and Pacific coasts of Venezuela and Colombia have been attacked by U.S. military, killing at least 80 people, and counting. Probably more by the time you're watching this. It really seems like we're going to invade Venezuela, which the Venezuelan military seems more than prepared for, which in turn will drag us into a who knows how long war for what seems to be no good reason.

They don't even have WMDs this time. Well, they didn't last time. either actually. The Trump administration has claimed, without evidence, that the people killed on those boats were narco-terrorist drug smugglers. I guess we have to just trust him on that. I mean, would he lie to us? And so to hear the administration tell it, these killings are legal because the United States is in armed conflict with drug cartels, which we aren't. But their reasoning is that since the drugs they traffic, like fentanyl, are killing Americans, that counts. Which it doesn't. There are a few snags here, starting with the fact that fentanyl doesn't

really come from Venezuela or Colombia. I mean, Colombia, we know which drug they are famous for, and it doesn't make you sleepy. Similarly, recent estimates by U.S. law enforcement show that Venezuela is, at worst, a small hub for cocaine trafficking that isn't even produced there, and not much else. And yet, in 2020, Trump's Justice Department charged the leader of Venezuela, and his allies with counts of narco-terrorism and drug trafficking, and later set up a $50 million reward for his capture. This is despite, can't stress it enough, our own US intelligence agencies saying there is no link

between Venezuela's government and powerful gangs like Trendaaragua. But to be clear, even if they were trafficking fentanyl, that still doesn't give you the right to declare war. And even if it did give you the right to declare war, you still couldn't just blow up random boats as you see fit. That's illegal. Like a gross crime you do in war, otherwise known as a Guar. So what do you suppose is actually happening here?

Why are we so focused on Venezuela? Well, the first reason is as American is writing apple pie on a bomb and then dropping that bomb on Iraq. President Trump confirmed moments ago authorizing a covert CIA operation in Venezuela. amid stepped up U.S. military activity against accused drug boats near that country. The president also said, somewhat ominously, that he was looking at U.S. military actions on land to fight drug cartels. Indeed, we love getting all up in other countries, either by CIA-led regime changes

in South America or forcing our military freedom on the Middle East. We're so good at that, especially in Latin America, where the U.S. has either directly or indirectly participated in regime change 40 separate times in the last century. That's not even counting the times we were unsuccessful. We've ousted democratically elected leaders in Chile, Brazil, Nicaragua, and Guatemala to name a few. Most often, this happened between the 1950s and 80s due to our power struggle with the Soviet Union, as well as for the purposes of satisfying the business interests of American capitalists looking to exploit resources. Most often, the U.S. would support pro-American military leaders,

in these countries, who in return would open up their extractive industries to American capital. That's pretty much the game, which was no different when it came to Venezuela. Back in 1999, Hugo Chavez became their president and then proceeded to increase state control over the country's nationalized oil structure and other extractive industries, diverting some of those revenues towards social programs like universal health care and education. He then made closer relations with U.S. adversaries like Russia, China, Cuba, and the Middle East. In 2005, Chavez described his populist movement as 21st century socialism. Quote, it's impossible for capitalism to achieve our goals,

nor is it possible to search for an intermediate way. I invite all Venezuelans to march together on the path of socialism of the new century. So yeah, Uncle Sam is not a fan. In 2002, when the Bush administration learned that some disgruntled Venezuelan military leaders were planning to forcefully remove Hugo Chavez from power, they immediately endorsed the new rival government. The coup d'etat was short-lived, as Chavez returned to power just 48 hours later. Then in 2015, the Obama administration declared the Venezuelan government a national security

threat, placing sanctions on several high-ranking Venezuelan officials. Because, yes, this is a bipartisan effort. Like, remember that $50 million reward Trump has for Venezuela's president? Well, that was only $15 million during Trump's first term, and then it was up to $25 million under Biden. Democrats and Republicans just, yes, and in each other's bloodlust. Anyway, Obama officials cited state-sanctioned human rights violations and an effort to undermine democratic institutions as their reason to go after the country. Which is odd, because just six years earlier, the Obama administration supported a coup in Honduras,

and then later boosted the right-wing authoritarian Juan Hernandez, who proceeded to do the kind of atrocities they were so concerned about with Venezuela. So again, we just love doing this stuff. Most presidents can't come unless they use the military and or CIA to overthrow a South or Central American government. Which brings us to now. President Trump following in the footsteps of the leaders before him, doing the thing we love to do.

I can't stress this enough. These guards he's doing are, for the most part, something his party, and let's be honest, some Democrats absolutely love and want. To put it in simpler terms, I feel good about where we're going as a nation. We're killing all the right people and we're cutting your taxes.

Trump is my favorite president. We've run out of bombs. We didn't run out of bombs in World War II. Funny stuff. Look at them up there. So giddy, a churlish little cherub he is. Although, cherubs are in heaven, and I don't think that'll ever be the case for this guy. Imp!

That's the word. Little imp. Anyway, what I'm getting at is that while a lot of this news is very horrifying, it's not like, new. And we will get into that a little more, a bit later. A lot more, actually. But that isn't to say that there isn't something different with Trump's tactics. Call it a fun twist on the same old thing. A little retro, a little mime.

modern, like that new Fantastic Four. So we're gonna talk about what makes this potential regime change, war slash coup or something special. All right? After the break, of course. So you get an ad, you get an ad break. That's neat, right? It's neat.

Yes, it says it's neat. Ad break. Ever since I moved to the mountains, can you guys know that I did that, right? You know that I recently moved to the mountains? Well, ever since I did that, It has been harder to keep in touch with some of my beloved city friends. I always used to go a Carolyn with my buds this time of year,

and I desperately miss going door to door, pulling out classics like Jingle Bell Rock, old Christmas tree, and it's beginning to smell a lot like Blitzen. But now my friends and I can keep all our cherished memories closer with an aura frame. A digital picture frame that's easy to set up and plays live photos and videos up to 30 seconds long. Aura frames have meticulously calibrated high-resolution displays. So unless you're really staring at it like some kind of creepy wise man all hopped up on myrrh, you'd never know it's a screen.

Plus, you can give these to a friend and preload them with photos before they ship. That way, my friends won't have a choice, but to remember, Remember, my stirring solo performance of Must Be Santa. This year, my sister-in-law, who is a teacher, actually asked for one of these so that she can put it in her classroom and have all the kids' pictures from the year displayed. And that's a lovely idea, and she's getting it for me. And I can tell you that because she doesn't watch this show. Anyway, for a limited time, save on the perfect gift by visitingoraframes.com to get $35 off.

Aura's best-selling Carver Matt Frames, named number one by Wirecutter, by using promo code more news at checkout. That's A-U-R-A-Frames.com promo code, more news. This deal is exclusive to our audience and frames sell up fast. So, orders yours now to get it in time for the holidays. Okay, support the show by mentioning us at checkout. Terms and conditions may apply. Oh, finest gifts we bring pa-rumpa-pum-pum-pum.

Still got it. Yeah. Apple TV's slow horses. It's literally the only thing I want to be paying attention to right now. But that pesky news keeps getting in the way. Fortunately, I have a way of staying up-to-date on the news and keeping all the stories straight along with crucial context, and that's ground news.

It's a website and app, which you can visit using that QR code over there, that organizes news stories and aggregates articles from across the political spectrum so I can see not only what the news is, but how it's being covered. It allows me to quickly and efficiently drill down to the real story so I can get back to seeing that curmudgeon Jackson Lamb slag off the rastabouts over at Slough House. Or Sluff House, I don't know how it's pronounced. I don't watch the show. For example, because of Ground News, I found out about this KFF poll conducted right before

the government shutdown, showing that a majority of Americans wanted those ACA subsidies extended. Brown News gave me a succinct summary of the news. The exact number of outlets covering it and with their bias distribution feature made it easy to see that right-laying outlets, for whatever reason, aren't really covering that story. What's the reason? Why would they not want to cover that information? A bunch of scheming Diana Taverners over there, am I right? That's probably a reference to slow horses. Again, I have not seen it and I know nothing about it.

So get yourself over to ground.news slash SMN. Using our link, you can get 40% off unlimited access, which also gets you a factuality analysis of each source. I've been working with ground news for a long time, and when you check them out, you will see why. That's ground.com news slash SMN for 40% off. The link is in the description. The horses are slow.

I assume that's what that shows about. I don't know. Do I care? No. Friends, I hate to break it to you, but 2026 is right around the corner and I know the pressure to make most of the final months of the year is real. If you're spending every day thinking of what you should be doing,

please stop shudding on yourself and let me lift that weight off you right now and let you in on a little secret. The tool I use when I'm shitting all over the place is calm. That's right, calm is the number one app for sleep and meditation and it is here to help you feel better. Their guided meditations help me work through anxiety and stress and they leave me feeling relaxed and with a renewed sense of focus. Genuinely, I genuinely love this app. I relish that feeling of being grounded and tranquil, and my embarrassing shoulding problem is almost completely alleviated.

And it's not just meditation either. They've got grounding exercises, sleep stories, and calming music to help keep your bedtime serene and stress-free. No more uncomfortable should, stuck in there, which can make it really tough to even lie down. I know, I know. So, calm your mind and change your life. Calm has an exclusive offer just for our listeners.

Get 40% off a Calm premium subscription at Calm.com slash Some More News. This is an amazing value. Just go to C-A-L-M dot com slash more news for 4.com. 40% off unlimited access to Calm's entire library. Stop shitting on yourself and go to calm.com slash more news. And tell Calm, you heard about them from me. Okay? Thank you. Holy friend.

Hey friend. Welcome back to the arms of Cody. I hope you weren't too scared without me. So before the break, we were talking about Trump's little war on Venezuela and how it reflects a lot of past American effort. against the country and countries of that region in general. Which brings the timeline to now. Over the last few months, the US military

has deployed some 15,000 troops to the Caribbean, including 12 warships, and counting. Write in the comments how big the war is now. And it sure appears that this is less about drug cartels and much more about removing Venezuela's current president Nicholas Maduro, aka the former protege of Hugo Chavez, When Maduro came into power in 2013, the relationship between Venezuela and the U.S. only got worse. Now, to be clear, I'm not here to advocate for Maduro.

Besides U.S. sanctions, which absolutely have a devastating effect, Maduro's government has poorly managed its country's resources and finances, leading to hyperinflation and horrifyingly low living standards for many Venezuelans. There's also some evidence that Maduro has rigged recent elections to ensure his victory over the opposition, while hunting down and jailing his political opponents in the process. Two things can be true. Venezuela can be poorly run by a corrupt leader and the United States wants to overthrow that leader

for their own selfish reasons and interests, as we do. And the person currently in charge of that, until Trump fires him, is Marco Rubio, also known as... I call him Little Marco. That's what he is. He's little Marco. But, you know, he's a very nasty guy. Michael Marco is now the Secretary of State, which is easy to forget because we haven't really talked about him too much recently. He's sort of the hawk-eye of these ghouls, you know?

He's always like, there. But Rubio has made some pretty influential strides within the administration's foreign policy decisions over the last few months, and he's notably spent his entire political career advocating for regime change in Cuba. See, while he's never stepped foot there, Rubio is the son of Cuban immigrants who settled in Miami and now are a part of a major Cuban-American voting block that opposes the communist government of their country of origin. Though I assume Trump would call them illegal criminal immigrant terrorists. And as I mentioned, one of Cuba's most reliable allies is Nicholas Maduro.

This is all to say that Rubio's obsession with Cuba easily transfers over to Venezuela, because toppling that leadership will also destabilize Cuba's government. So in this case, Rubio has backed a conservative opposition leader named Maria Karina Machado. Machado is a pro-American capitalist who has spent the last year courting the Trump administration through flattery and promises of opening up Venezuela's oil industry to the United States, as well as appearing on triggered the Donald Jr. podcast. Forget about Saudi Arabia. Forget about the Saudis. I mean, we have more oil. I mean, infinite potential. and we're going to open markets.

We're going to kick off the government from the old sector. We are going to privatize all our industry. Venezuela has huge resources, oil, gas, minerals, land, technology. And as you said before, we have a strategic location, you know, ours from the United States. Oh, my God, he's on cocaine. I know we all know it, but like, look at him. I mean, I know she was the one talking, too, but damn, he's all sniffling and bleary-eyed? How is he not super concerned about all the supposed cartel boats being exploded?

That is your supply being vaporized. Don, come on, get it together. Anyway, you can clearly see why they want Machado, who is very clearly sucking up to Trump in order to gain power. Like, she's the one that made headlines by dedicating her Nobel Peace Prize to Trump. Do we have a clip of Trump responding to that news? Okay, we're going to kill them, you know, they're going to be like dead. Thank you, sir.

So naturally, Machado is just parroting everything Trump says, including the lie that Maduro facilitates a drug cartel out of Venezuela, and even publicly supporting the bombings of these alleged drugboats. So what do we get for putting her in power? Well, here's a clip of Trump speaking last year that might give it away. Watch closely, or you'll miss it. How about we're buying oil from Venezuela? When I left, Venezuela was ready to collapse.

We would have taken it over. We would have gotten all that oil. It would have been right next door. Did you, uh, catch it? Right. It's that thing we always want. If you've been wondering why no one seems to be pushing back much on Trump's murder rampage on boats, this is probably why.

As it stands, Venezuela controls the largest oil reserves in the world and oversees the largest gold reserves in Latin America. Trump, like America, is a business. obsessed with extorting natural resources from other countries. He threatened to abandon Ukraine unless they forked over access to their pool of mineral reserves like cobalt, lithium, and titanium. Remember when he threatened to invade Greenland? That's likely because he and his cronies have a financial interest in mining rare earth

minerals in that territory. This isn't new either. Back when Trump was just a vlogger, he talked about how America should just take Libya's oil as payment for helping them with a humanitarian crisis. Do we have a clip? Rick Perry, watch him. He's a comer. Oh, it looks like we only had time for one clip from Trump's old vlog,

and it was that one. We'll put the Libya oil quote on screen for you instead. Point is, that's probably one of the reasons we want to do a war with Venezuela. The big quotes, normal reason America wants to do wars. But there's also a not normal reason why Trump personally wants this to happen. The Clone War reason. Remember Star Wars? I don't. And to explain this second motivation, we have to note a certain poetic irony in the way Venezuela is currently falling apart. As I said before, Maduro is running his country into the ground while using the law to attack his political opponents. His government has overseen some of the largest drop-offs in living standards over the last decade, widespread shortages of food and medicine, and hyperinflation that has forced over 80% of

the population into poverty. People are unhappy to say the least. And so Maduro did what any shitty leader would do, which is to buddy up with the military. Maduro has integrated high-ranking military officials within Venezuela's economy, almost guaranteeing that they will be rewarded so long as they remain loyal to him. As several former members of Venezuela's National Guard put it, if the regime falls, the officers stop receiving money. There is nothing ideological, everything is business. And loyalty to the Maduro regime is to make a profit. That's loyalty. That's why they don't betray. It's authoritarianism 101. Governing a functioning society doesn't matter when you have the military in your pocket.

And if that all feels a little familiar to you, that's because it is. In U.S. News, America's troops will receive their paychecks today. According to an official with the White House, Office of Management and Budget, the Trump administration plans to pay military members by using a mix of legislative and defense department funds. Despite the shutdown stalling things like SNAP benefits, air traffic controller salaries, and health care subsidies, Trump went above and beyond to keep one establishment very happy. Now, if it was any other president or any other time, this would probably be seen as good

and patriotic. But it's not the only thing Trump and Pete Hegseth have done recently in relation to our military. There was, of course, this. If the words I'm speaking today are making your heart sink, then you should do the honorable thing and resign. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegsteth gathered hundreds of top U.S. military leaders today to tell them there's a new sheriff in town. San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles. They're very unsafe places, and we're going to straighten them out one by one. And this is going to be a major part for some of the people in this room. That's a war, too. It's a war from within.

That was our Secretary of Defense, sorry, uh, war, and the president telling our top military generals to resign if they don't feel up to the task of invading American cities and using military force against civilians, which, you know, a bit of a red flag. This comes after Hegsseth had spent the last few months stripping away civilian oversight from the military ranks, including the firing or transferring of almost all of the judge-advocate generals. Those are the people that advise the military if the president's orders are breaking the law. Hmm. Hegsef also fired the top lawyers for the Navy, Air Force, and Army. Hegseth wasn't even trying to hide his intention behind the firings either, calling those lawyers, quote, roadblocks to orders that are given by a commander-in-chief. Pizza, war crimes guy, you see, he loves them. He was a war crimes guy at Fox.

He ran multiple segments where he brought a war criminal on his show to absolve him and eventually convinced Trump to reinstate his rank. That was despite this guy being accused by his own platoon of firing on civilians and stabbing a prisoner of war. So you have this war crimes guy as the secretary of formerly known as defense, and our president telling the military that war crimes are back on the military, menu while deploying troops in American cities. And if they don't like it, they will be ousted.

And at the same time, they are making sure they are paid during the shutdown and holding these military events that look indistinguishable from campaign rallies. All champions. U.S.S.A., U.S.S.A., U.S.A., U.S.S. He might not be wearing the MAGA hat, but that is 100% a MAGA rally. Trump and HegS. are effectively grooming the military and law enforcement. While he lets the rest of the country twist in the wind,

he's creating incredible incentives for any dirtbag off the street to join up with their masked kidnapping force. In other words, he's pulling from the same playbook as leaders like Maduro. This is how authoritarian have tightened their grip of power forever. The first steps are always purging the military of naysayers and rewarding loyalty over pragmatism.

Hegeseth has already fired or pushed out over two dozen high-ranking generals and military officials who have raised questions around his agenda. In early October, the Pentagon announced the sudden retirement of Admiral Alvin Holsey, who led the U.S. Southern Command. Holsey had raised concerns to the Pentagon about striking suspected drugboats off the coast of Venezuela without warning, all of which reportedly led to a tense meeting between Holsey and Pete Hegeseth. Those missile strikes against alleged drugboats have only rammed. up since Holsey's departure.

And it's not just high-ranking officials, but Hegeseth has fired pretty much everyone on his staff, shrinking his own support team to his wife, personal lawyer, and two former military buddies. Hegeseth is clearly paranoid that someone will let something slip when he tries to inevitably do something super illegal. That's probably why he tried to strong arm the media

into signing an agreement that would bar them from reporting on material that wasn't pretty approved by the Pentagon, which means it would need to be approved by Heggseth himself. Obviously, no self-respecting outlet actually agreed to those rules, including Hegseth's former employer Fox News. Turns out that there's still a little journalistic integrity left, which means that the integrity left. What I mean is that while I'm glad that most reporters, even the bad ones, didn't agree to these conditions. Well, that means that this the only people who did stay are the most gutless, propagandist, lie-hungry, bottom of the barrel,

premature ejaculating. You know what? Let's just show a clip of Tim Pool. I got to be honest. A lot of it is just parking. I'm not kidding. Press parking. Parking the Pentagon reservation is restricted to vehicles for a minute. And I'm reading through this and I'm like, oh, I just really don't care. I'm not going to park there. We'll get dropped off. We'll drop our equipment off, whatever. Perfect, Tim. I just really don't care. You should embroider that on the beanie. Also, it's not just or even mostly about the parking, obviously. That was a page that you focused on. Tim scrolls past the section that considers a reporter a security risk based on whether or not they report on classified or unclassified information

without the Pentagon's prior approval. But the point here is that this is all very similar to what we're seeing in Venezuela. The authoritarian playbook is thin, which is why it's so easy to spot, and it's clear that Trump and his people are very much embedding themselves in the military. Over the last few months, several high-ranking cabinet officials have moved into military housing in the nation's capital. Homeland Security Secretary Christine Nome, nasty little Marco Rubio, even nastier and littler Stephen Miller, and several other officials have all sequestered themselves out of public life. They claim it's for their own safety, but like everyone in the government gets threats. It's part of the job, sadly. But to be fair and balanced and fair but

balanced, I would reckon that perhaps these officials are feeling a bit more threatened by the general population. You know, considering that they are deploying hundreds of masked federal agents to terrorize neighborhoods. So what choice do they have? You know, stop terrorizing people on the streets, give people health care and, you know, do stuff we want and like. That sounds very hard. It's much better to live behind a series of barred doors so the commoners don't come get you while you ruin their lives. But of course, this is all far more justifiable, the use of the military and invasion of your own country if you have an excuse for it. You know, like a war. Wars enable leaders to halt certain freedoms in the name of defense, a clone war perhaps. In order to

to ensure the security and continuing stability, the Republic will be reorganized into the first galactic empire. You heard about Star Wars? There were these prequels where we saw how the Empire took over, which largely involved a war against a scapegoat enemy in order to justify the increasing militarization of the government. There's actually another term for this that doesn't involve Star Wars,

so it sucks, but I guess we should explain that instead of the close. Clone Wars. So let's do that. After the break, we also desperately need for water and maybe a little whiskey, we will see what's in the fridge. You know that one person you always struggle to come up with a gift for? For me, it's Boo Barry, the seasonal cereal mascot who spends his winters in my broom closet. He's a minimalist and hates getting stuff that he doesn't need. But this year, I have got a great idea for my name. little boo buddy, a cove pure countertop water purifier. You see, a common misconception about translucent marketing apparitions is that they don't drink water or that they prefer water filled with contaminants. But Cove Pure is lab certified to remove up to 99.9% of contaminants

from your water. This includes stuff like Phafas, pharmaceuticals, less, arsenic spectral ectoplasm. Honestly, folks, it's the purest water you can get. Plus, it tastes great and also generates hot water instantly. I mean instantly. No more waiting several minutes for your gul long tea. Get it? Okay, so if you're looking for a gift that's good for your loved ones and one that they'll actually use, I highly recommend cove pure. And, because Because we have partnered with them, you're getting a special $250 holiday discount with our link, covepure.com slash SMN. That is C-O-V-E-P-U-R-E, C-U-R-E, C-U-R-E, CovePure.com slash SMN to get $250 off. Covepure.com slash SMN.

Hurry before the sales ends! or before your boo-berry leaves for his summer home in the Caymans. I've never been invited and it's so frustrating. Like, come on, boo. Oof, the holidays can be brutal. Brutally awesome, that is? Kapow! Bang! Bang! But also brutal in the original sense.

Fortunately, Pluto TV's free movies can help you survive the season. Escape the madness and fight the holiday stress with movies like Fast and Furious Six, Spider-Man, Into the Spider-Verse, The Spiratic Gardener, Exfoliate Me, My Darling, The Last Chinchilla of Chillicito, the expendables, sun-dried at sundown, No Diggity, the Black Street Chronicles, Part 2, Hannibal's Revenge, Bad Boys, the heaving chest of Cimarron, hop-on-pop-the-movie, three hours long, buckle up for Bubkiss,

Camp Town Ladies, too, Camp Up to the Streets, and Stepbrothers. Hit movies that will leave you in stitches, literally. No way, figuratively, obviously. Plus, they're all free, so you can brave the season with Pluto TV. Stream now, pay. Never! If you are like me and basically live in active wear,

you know how hard it can be, especially when you typically only wear clothes that have been worn by movie stars and major motion pictures. Sometimes it's just too difficult to exercise wearing the gray sweatsuit and red headband featured in Rocky. And I'm not talking replicas, I'm talking the actual Stallone-Worn threads. And honestly, the cost of memorabilia just keeps going up. And that is why I love fathletics. This is high-end active wear. But for a fraction of the prize, it would cost you to get Catmiss Everdean's tactical athletic wear from the Hunger Games. When I signed up as a new VIP, I got 80% off everything,

active wear that's durable in an intense workout, while soft and breathable enough to just hang out in. I was admittedly a little bit wary about joining a subscription service that doesn't offer any of the actual military outfits worn by G.I.J. But these high-quality leggings and tops are just too comfortable. to ignore. And their no-roll waistbands prevent bunching and twisting, leaving me feel like L. Woods and looking, blank, Laura, Croft, people, I am telling you, sincerely, every time I wear these outfits, I get complimented. I feel great. Feel good, look good, workout good? I don't know.

They're great quality. And Fabletics already has amazing deals, but right now they're running their biggest sale of the year on top of that. And I have got an exclusive offer just for you. 80% off everything when you sign up as a VIP. So head to fabletics.com slash SMN and sign up as a VIP to get 80% off everything. This is only available through our link. So go to fabletics.com slash SMN to sign up as a VIP and get 80% off. Fabletics.com slash SMN. It was just milk. The entire fridge is filled with milk. Not in bottles either.

I opened the fridge and milk spilled out like in the shining. Still drank it though. Where was I? Who was I? Venezuela! The tiny hat of South America, they call it. And the current scapegoat, or one of the current scapegoats for the Trump administration. Just to sum it all up, our country has a bit of a drug problem.

Not me, I can stop anytime I want. And Trump really wants everyone to think that not only is that drug problem coming from Venezuela, which it isn't, but also that the leader of that country is actively and purposefully facilitating the trafficking of drugs and gangs into the United States. He isn't. As we said, Maduro isn't like a great guy, but he'd be very stupid to be picking a fight with America. But this false narrative makes it really easy for the United States to declare war on Venezuela. or in Trump's case, likely just send in the military

without officially declaring war. They have oil, and perhaps Trump or his helpers deliberately chose a place with a lot of oil knowing that this would keep enough people happy. Because for Trump, a man who is increasingly militarizing our own country and trying to go after his political opponents, this entire war would give him the justification he needs to ramp up all the terrible stuff

he's already been doing, ice raids. Ice raids, sending troops into cities, criminalizing protests. Maduro, a person running his country similar to Trump, is ironically the exact excuse Trump needs. His Count Duku, from that movie, I forget the name. But this pattern wasn't invented by Star Wars. The film series I know and love, there's an actual term for what is happening.

It's called the boomerang effect or the imperial boomerang, which posits the governments that deploy social conditioning and violent force against colonial territories will eventually use those tools of repression against its own citizens. The concept was coined by French poet and political theorist Amy Seizier. In his book, Discourse on Colonialism, Seizier describes how Naziism was the returning imperial boomerang to Europe after centuries of violent colonialism perpetrated by European nations. To quote, people are surprised, they become indignant, they say, how strange, but never mind, it's Nazism. It will pass. And they wait, and they hope, and they hide the truth from

themselves. That it is barbarism, the supreme barbarism, the crowning barbarism that sums up all the daily barbarisms. That it is Nazism, yes, but that before they were its victims, they were its accomplices. That they tolerated that Nazism before it was inflicted on them, that they absolved it, shut their eyes to it, legitimized it, because, until then, it had been applied only to non-European peoples, that they have cultivated that Nazism, that they are responsible for it, and that before engulfing the whole edifice of Western Christian civilization in its reddened waters, it oozes, seeps, and trickles from every crack. This is not new news for a lot of people, especially black or brown or gay or trans people.

What we're talking about here is this slow creep of a country using brutal and dystopian tactics on other countries, inevitably deciding to use those same tactics on themselves. And it often starts with how we police minorities first. Jim Crow, for example, was a direct reflection of how we maintained control of places like Haiti at the time. After 9-11, we accepted somewhat willingly an increasing foreign intervention strategy in the Middle East, allowing our law enforcement and military to act with less oversight and more surveillance power.

But all that new equipment and power, where do you think it would inevitably end up? The defense industry has become a major player in the domestic Homeland Security market, estimated to be worth over $20 billion in goods and services. Blashbanks, tear gas, rubber bullets, helicopters, armored vehicles. Historically, going back to the 1960s and 70s, police had shields and riot truncheons and tear gas, but they didn't tend to drive armored vehicles down city streets. Like always, it started in lower class and minority communities until it eventually became the norm. Cops are just the military now.

All the tools have been here for a while. The next logical step was for someone to use them to go after their political opposition in order to maintain power. It probably could have been anyone. In another timeline, maybe we'd be talking about Supreme Leader Jared Leto, Supreme Leto. But in this timeline, it's Donald Trump

using the power of the government to attack his political opposition, and of course, whichever minorities he wants to scapegoat at the time. Take, for example, the administration's data surveillance strategy. Back in April, Wired reported that Doge was knitting together data from various government agencies like the Internal Revenue Service, Social Security Agency, and Department of Health and Human Services. The administration's stated goal at the time was to create a central database to better go after

undocumented people. However, that database also includes the information of tens of millions of U.S. citizens as well. Cody Vensky, a senior policy council at the American Civil Liberties Union, told Wired, the ultimate concern is a panopticon of a single federal database with everything that the government knows about every single person in this country. What we are seeing is likely the first step in creating that centralized dossier on everyone in this country. The Trump administration is now probing states to fork over information and access to data that is usually far more sensitive than what federal agencies already have at their disposal. They're pressuring state governments for that data under the guise that they need it to crack down on election fraud.

But we all kind of know what Trump considers election fraud in this country, a.k.a. any election where he loses. So there's some good news and there's some bad news here. The good news is that it really seems like Trump himself isn't going to last. As we learned in the last election, Democratic leaders are looking pretty good right now, at least relative to Republicans. Trump and the GOP were put in power,

and the country almost immediately began to fall apart. And everyone realized it. We got this pedophile president or pedophile protecting president, allowing Elon Musk to screech around with a chainsaw before firing everyone and tanking our economy and shutting down the government and all the planes crashed and so on. It's just so visibly bad, and even people within Trump's party seem ready to cast him off.

Assuming he doesn't die of old first, I just don't think Trump has the juice to declare himself God-King. The bad news, however, is this. Tonight, the breakthrough. After nearly six weeks, the federal government shutdown looks set to end. We have support from enough Democrats, and we're going to be opening up our country. God, Democrats suck so much. They're allergic to success. It burns their skin. See, here's the thing.

Let's say that Trump is exposed as the pedophile he appears to be, and then gets arrested and dies in jail, and every Republican is shamed and voted out of office, and Democrats take over in every nook of this government, despite them fighting victory every step of the way. Like, they're dragged, kicking and screaming into success. Well, even in that event, everything that's going on now is still a problem, all these horrifying tools and tactics,

Trump is using won't go away when he does. They've been here for a while and are considered normal. It's normal to go to war with the country for their oil. It's normal to militarize the police, to spy on people. We have created this big war machine, and so it's only a matter of time before a leader decides to use it on us. Fascism is colonialism and imperialism turned inward, and so on. If you look at the domestic Islamophobia after 9-11,

or our internal treatment of Japanese Americans during World War II, it's actually quite chilling to consider what a Trump war would look like, even if he doesn't officially declare war. If we think about the context of Trump labeling anyone and everyone criminals or terrorists or narco-terrorists or gang members with zero evidence, of indiscriminately bombing alleged terrorists with zero evidence, of masked federal agents invading an apartment building with a Black Hawk helicopter and terrorizing everyone there for seemingly one potentially confirmed member of Trende Aragua,

who they haven't even charged with anything, of how specifically innocent Venezuelans were unjustly rounded up during that raid. What happens during an actual war? When the president is carelessly conflating Latino, with criminal, with immigrant, with gang member, with Venezuelan, with socialist, with terrorist, with anyone he's mad at at the time, what would a war with Venezuela look like? What would it do, not just to that nation and its people, but to the people here? Trump is already waging a war on Americans, on anyone who doesn't look like they belong, on Stephen Miller's mortal enemies, the Latinos generally.

Add war powers and even more justification to call them narco-terrorist gang members, and what do you think ICE will be doing to who they're told are potential enemy combatants? Because they already have the tools to do it. They're already mixing and conflating law enforcement with the military, giving speeches about turning that military machine inward. And as the great Admiral Adama once said, There's a reason where you separate military on the police. One fights the enemy, the state, the other serves and protects the people.

When the military becomes both, then the enemies of the state tend to become the people. Yeah. Wait, that's not from Star Wars! Get out of here! We built the Clone Army already, is my point. All someone has to do is execute Order 66. Boy, he was right about everything. The do-nothing Senate filled with unqualified dildos

running this cushy society and sending special elite spies and troops to inflict their agenda on everyone. The weird quasi-underground crime ring of wealthy freaks harboring sex slaves. Has anyone checked the logs on Jabba's barge? It's almost like movies are about things. So, that sounds a little woke, honestly. Anyway, I'm gonna check out the rest of these Star Wars films. You can stick around if you want,

but I'm not gonna talk anymore. So. But then, but if he's, but then I thought, but if open. we want is and so and then Vader but then he's the sisters I'm watching the Christmas special Vader is like it's like father he's a dark father Wow, what a piece of art. Okay, thanks for watching.

And thanks for watching Star Wars if you have. And if you haven't, that's okay. We're still cool, I guess. Check out our podcast called Even More News. You can watch it on this channel twice a week, or you can listen to it. We've got this show as a podcast. If you don't want to see me in the clips and stuff,

we've got Patreon.com slash Some More News. we've got merch at a merch store and that is on the screen as well, I assume. Yep, ow! I hurt my, because it's there, it's real. Um, may the, et cetera be, what's the line from Star Wars?

So say we all, thank you. So say we all. This ad is brought to you by VIV Health Care, the makers of Appritude, cabotegrivir. You never skip your SPF and you carry hand sanitizer like an accessory. But what are you doing for HIV prevention? One way to help protect yourself from HIV is Appritude, a prescription medicine used to reduce the risk of getting HIV in adults and adolescents weighing at least 77 pounds. You must be HIV negative to receive Apprude and get tested before each injection.

If you think you were exposed to HIV or have flu-like symptoms, tell your doctor right away. More HIV testing may be needed. Appritude does not prevent other sexually transmitted infections. Practice safer sex to reduce your risk. Get Appritude as scheduled. Missing doses increases your HIV risk. Don't take Appritude if allergic to it or taking certain medicines that may interact. Tell your doctor about your medical conditions, liver problems, and mental health.

Serious side effects include allergic reactions or rash, liver problems, and depression. If these occur, get medical help right away. The most common side effect is injection site reaction. Bring your A-game and talk to your doctor. Learn more at Appritude.com or call 1-888-24030-4-0-3-0.0.