President Donald Trump last week ordered a “complete blockade” of all sanctioned oil tankers entering or leaving Venezuela — a giant escalation in his pressure campaign against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. The idea appears to be to cripple the country’s economy dependent on oil exports, although no official sanctions have been imposed.
Over the weekend, the Trump administration seized two oil tankers.
On Saturday, US forces boarded a Panamanian-flagged merchant ship owned by Hong Kong-based Centuries Shipping off the coast of Venezuela. They didn’t have a seizure warrant, which doesn’t seem to have gotten in their way. “The United States will continue to pursue the illegal movement of sanctioned oil that is used to fund narco-terrorism in the region,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem told X, along with images of the raid. “We will find you and stop you.”
On Sunday, US forces reportedly intercepted another tanker – “a sanctioned dark fleet vessel that is part of illegal Venezuelan sanctions evasion” that is “flying a false flag” – according to the unnamed officials. US officials argued that the ship, named Bella 1, was not flying a valid national flag and that international law dictated that it could be boarded as a result. (“U.S. officials obtained a seizure warrant for the Bella 1 based on its previous involvement in the Iranian oil trade, but officials said the ship refused to comply and left,” it reports. The New York Times. “The cargo he was scheduled to pick up had been bought by a Panamanian businessman recently sanctioned by the United States for ties to the Maduro family, according to data from Venezuela’s state oil company.”
These two captures followed an earlier interception. On December 10, before Trump announced the blockade, another oil tanker was boarded off the coast of Venezuela. “The U.S. Attorney’s Office in the District of Columbia issued the arrest warrant for Skipper, alleging that he was used in an ‘oil transportation network’ that supports the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps” The Washington Post.
“Look, at any given time, there are 20, 30 governments around the world that we don’t like, that are either socialist, or communist, or have human rights abuses … but it’s not the job of the American soldier to be the policeman of the world,” Sen. Rand Paul said on ABC. This weekcalling the US government’s actions “a provocation” and “a prelude to war.”
“I’m not for seizing these ships. I’m not for blowing up these boats of unarmed people who are suspected of being drug dealers. I’m not for any of that,” Paul continued yesterday. “And neither was Donald Trump.”
An estimated 20 percent of tankers worldwide “move oil from Iran, Venezuela and Russia in violation of U.S. sanctions,” the publication reports. Times. “These ships often hide their location and file false documents. The Bella 1, for example, falsified its location signal on a previous voyage. US officials say they have identified other tankers carrying Venezuelan oil whose previous involvement in the Iranian oil trade makes them subject to US sanctions.”
Scenes from New York: A school district in upstate New York, on the Canadian border, has come under fire for its apparent use of a wooden “timeout box” in elementary schools. (Government schools are not OK.)
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A 60 minutes The segment on CECOT, El Salvador’s notoriously brutal prison, was scheduled to run over the weekend but was shelved. “Our story was reviewed five times and approved by both CBS lawyers and Standards and Practices,” said correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi, who reported the story, according to The New York Times. “It’s factually correct. In my view, to pull it now, after every rigorous internal review has been met, is not an editorial decision, it’s a political one.” (Alfonsi’s full statement here.) Bari Weiss, CBS News’ new editor-in-chief, said in a statement last night: “My job is to make sure all the stories we publish are the best. To keep stories that aren’t ready for whatever reason — that they lack enough context, say, or that they’re missing these critical voices every day. The piece when it’s ready.” Until more information comes out, it’s impossible to know for sure what’s going on; So far, it seems that Weiss has at least hinted that the segment will be enhanced by getting an interview with Trump official Stephen Miller so he can respond to the claims made in the story. But this dynamic — where any decision Weiss makes becomes a New York Times story and a Twitter scandal — will surely continue. (“For those people who think they are close to the new owners of CBS, please understand that 60 Minutes has treated me far worse since the so-called ‘takeover’ than they have ever treated me,” Trump said on Truth Social just days ago. “If they’re friends, I’d like to see my enemies!”)
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Republican Elise Stefanik is dropping out of the New York governor’s race and has also declined to run for re-election to the US House of Representatives next year.
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“Chinese President Xi Jinping has installed new military leadership for his central and eastern regions amid an unprecedented purge of the upper echelons of defense,” it reports. Bloomberg. “General Yang Zhibin became the commander of the Eastern Theater Command, responsible for operations in Taiwan, according to the official Xinhua news agency. The report also named General Han Shengyan as the new commander of the Central Theater Command, which is in charge of defense forces in the capital Beijing, Tianjin and five other provinces.”
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Are the rich propping up the entire economy with consumer spending as the rest feel the pinch this year? That’s a popular narrative, but Amanda Mull questions it Bloomberg Businessweek.
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