Our Outlaw in the White House Plans a New World Order With Russia and China

Reporting Tuesday on Donald Trump’s plan to keep Venezuelan oil, the Daily Voice noted, “Officials have not provided a detailed timetable for Venezuela’s political transition or how oil assets would be managed under international law. Additional information is expected in the coming days.”

“Under international law” could be the most comically hyperbolic statement in many a year. Trump doesn’t abide by American law strictures so there is absolutely no reason to believe he would bow to international law. 

Who would make him? The United Nations? NATO? Russia? China? 

No, our Supreme Court has made Trump an outlaw, invulnerable to domestic constraints which translates into immunity from international pressure as well. As long as the secretary of defense and the military’s top officers do his bidding we and the world are stuck with a narcisstic megalomaniac who has the power to unleash nuclear weapons.  

As for picking a replacement for the captured and indicted Nicolas Maduro, Trump says the recent Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Corina Machado does not have the respect of her countrymen to merit consideration. Well, neither does he, as more than half of Americans disapprove of his presidency (https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-approval-rating-change-nicolas-maduro-capture-11319872). 

Whoever gets the presidential hot seat in Venezuela will be a modern day example of a feudal system vassal. Trump will strip Venezuela of all assets, mostly oil, without enabling the economically challenged populace to benefit from the petrodollars under their soil. His appointed president—surely you didn’t expect Trump to permit an independent, free, honest election to be held?—will be in charge of garbage collection and other essential but not critical services. Nothing that could pose a threat to the puppet state Trump will set up or the oilmen and women he will install to revive the country’s crude capacity. 

Experts believe it will take years to pump up Venezuela’s production. Do we really believe Trump is doing all this heavy lifting just so his successor, from any party, can benefit? Or is this just another plank in the platform many believe Trump is building for his continued stay in the White House after his constitutionally set length of tenure ends at noon on January 20, 2029? 

Meanwhile, Trump is presiding over the partitioning of the globe into three spheres of influence—the Americas controlled by Trump, EurAsia controlled by Vladimir Putin, and Asia-Pacific controlled by Xi Jinping. 

Western Europe will become shallow independent states, as will Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand. Africa and the Middle East will be exploited by all three superpowers. Only Israel has nuclear weapons but is not expected to deploy them as long as Iran and Moslem countries do not threaten it. 

Pity the freedom-loving Ukrainians and Taiwanese who will be among the first to endure Trump’s new world order.  

From the Bohemian Corporal to Draft Dodger Don

During Nazi Germany’s march and subsequent retreat through Europe, it was common to disparage Adolph Hitler by calling him the “Bohemian Corporal,” recognition of his rank in the German army during World War I and his non-Prussian heritage. 

Now that Donald Trump has tasted military success in Iran and Venezuela and is saber rattling potential new assaults in Colombia, Mexico, Cuba and Greenland, is it time to christen him with his own nickname from his experience during the Vietnam War? 

How about, “Draft Dodger Don”? 

Or, “Bone Spur Don”? 

Or, “4-F Donald”? 

Under his authority as commander in chief, is Trump’s fixation with flexing military might—in actual combat and through military parades—a manifestation of a latent insecurity complex from his repeated evasion of the Selective Service System draft during the height of the war in Vietnam?

Are these campaigns his way of demonstrating he has the “right stuff” to lead men in battle? (Women are not combat-qualified in Trump’s world.)

So far, Trump’s military excursions have not cost any American lives (though two servicemen were recently killed by ISIS in Syria, a posting he inherited, for which he ordered a retaliatory air strike). 

But if he orders troops on the ground and more air attacks, combat deaths are almost sure to result. How will Trump’s electoral base which supported his platform of no international military engagements, no nation building, react? 

Negative rumblings among the MAGA faithful are already airing.  

Trump: Teacher of the Year

I know we are only four days into the new year but Donald Trump has locked up my vote for Teacher of the Year for his unparalleled instruction that politicians once in office renege on campaign promises when they can flex their power over weaker forces or when confronted by equally strong, if not stronger, adversaries. 

Lesson #1: Trump has promoted an America First agenda, yet he has spent an inordinate amount of his non golfing time in a Quixotic quest for a Nobel Peace Prize. By his own count he has settled eight foreign wars, though none have been legitimized by treaty. Meanwhile, back in the U. S. A. he has done nothing to bridge the conflict between Democrats and Trumpsters. 

Lesson #2: Trump longs for the “good ol’ days” of American dominance. You know, the time when we orchestrated regime changes in Iran (1953), Guatemala (1954), South Vietnam (1963), Congo (1965), and Chile (1973), to name a handful. 

Back then we acted sometimes to contain the spread of Soviet or Chinese influence or to protect the economic interests of American companies, the latter similar to what Trump is now saying about his intent to return Venezuela’s oil fields to Chevon and Exxon Mobil. 

Trump asserts Venezuela wrongfully nationalized oil assets that belonged to American companies. The oil was ours, he says. I wonder if he sees the irony of denying Native American rights to land the tribes claim was forcibly and illegitimately taken from them by the U.S. government despite signed treaties? 

Lesson #3: A whole new generation of students will learn the meaning of “gunboat diplomacy.” 

With his testosterone level peaking after blowing up unarmed speedboats, crippling Iran’s nuclear program, and taking pajama-clad Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro and his wife to New York for prosecution, Trump can be expected to lean heavily on Mexico to shut down drug cartel activity or else American forces will attack them, with or without Mexico’s consent.    

Trump even has suggested he would interfere in internal Iranian affairs if protestors there are harmed. 

More worrisome is Trump’s fixation with wanting to take control of Greenland. He claims America needs Greenland for our security and strategic defense.  

Greenland and mother country Denmark are not on board with his plan. 

Now that he has invaded Venezuela, a land of 30 million, it is not hard to imagine Trump salivating over an island with just 60,000 residents that already harbors a U. S. military base. 

Lesson #4: Saved from prosecution and possible conviction in federal court by the Supreme Court, Trump has exerted sympathy and empathy for foreign and domestic politicians accused and in some cases convicted. 

He has lobbied Israel’s president to pardon Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of corruption charges that have yet to go to trial; he sought a pardon for Brazil’s convicted ex-president Jair Bolsonaro for his role in an attempted coup; he pardoned former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernandez, an odd move considering Hernandez was convicted in an American court of drug trafficking and sentenced to 45 years in prison even as Trump was hyping the prosecution of Maduro for drug trafficking. Well, consistency has never been one of Trump’s favorable attributes.

Lesson #5: Neither has Trump been successful in large stake confrontations with superpowers. Despite his claim of friendship with Vladimir Putin, Trump has yet to get the Russian dictator to back off his illegal invasion of Ukraine. Indeed, Trump’s regime change assault on Venezuela reduces any moral leverage America might have had in discussions with Russia. 

Trump also has had to make a swift about face in his attempt to control China through tariffs. China’s dominance in rare earth metals, its cheaper manufacturing base, and its emerging dominance in alternative energy production, even as Trump guts America’s similar projects, have foiled Trump’s gamble. Remember, Trump’s history of bankrupting four casinos shows he can lose on even a sure thing. And, as with Russia, China now can point to Trump’s Venezuela escapade when it embarks on its long-stated goal of incorporating Taiwan into mainland China.

Lesson #6: Trump cannot be trusted to follow through on what he says. He campaigned on not reducing medical coverage and vaccination schedules. He said he would not demolish any part of the White House complex to build his big, beautiful ballroom. He signed a bill to release all material on Jeffrey Epstein by December 19. On none of those issues and more has he fulfilled his word. He is teaching us all he is never to be trusted.

In ancient civilizations, even extending to the 21st century, monarchs, authoritarians, tyrants and despots placed their names and visages on coins, paper money and buildings. Trump is following suit. His ego does not allow him glorification after death. He wants it all, NOW, while he is alive and cognizant enough to savor it.  

Pay attention, America. Cutting class will not get you detention. It will result in loss of most, if not all, of your rights guaranteed in the Constitution.  

Kudos to U.S. Military But Questions Remain

Kudos to the U. S. military for its successful extraction of Nicolas Maduro and his wife from the Venezuelan capital of Caracas. 

But if Donald Trump’s gunboat diplomacy to stave the flow of drugs into our country is to have any ongoing impact, American troops on the ground for a protracted period will be needed to secure the democratic freedom of Venezuelans and stop the shipment of cocaine to our country and Europe. Trump might covet the country’s oil reserves, but securing a peaceful host country will be a challenge. 

Moreover, if Trump is serious about stopping fentanyl from coming to America he will have to authorize similar surgical strikes against drug cartel facilities in Mexico and other countries that turn the raw material of fentanyl supplied by China into the finished pills that have killed tens of thousands of our fellow citizens. 

Trump’s America First program is taking on a decidedly militaristic tone, both at home and abroad. But his self-proclaimed positive relationships with the leaders of Russia and China have so far failed to end Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and stop China from exporting fentanyl starter kits. 

Our long nightmare in Vietnam included a coup to install a friendlier leader. A similar interference in Iran heralded intense animosity toward America. Are we headed toward a similar outcome in Venezuela?

Trump has railed against America being the policeman of the world. But he has definitively assumed that role with his action in Venezuela even as he has cut back and eliminated humanitarian and healthcare aid to many struggling Third World nations. 

 

Penalty Box in the Classroom

As we sink further and further back into 19th and early 20th century precepts—when a woman’s place was in the home, cooking food and making babies, when children learned trades and received corporal punishment for misbehavior at home or in school—it is not surprising that examples of outmoded standards pop up. 

In upstate New York, in a school district with a student enrollment of some 60 percent Native American children, several classrooms have been found to have time-out boxes to discipline children years after such punishment was declared illegal 

(https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/20/nyregion/school-timeout-box-discipline-new-york.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share).

Reading that story brought back memories of my third grade experience at Yeshiva Rambam in Brooklyn. My school in the mid 1950s-early 1960s was Modern Orthodox, providing a strong secular education to complement religious instruction curriculum. But it was not without its complement of corporal punishment meted out by male and female teachers.

Mrs. Schlesinger educated her third grade students into the tribulations of solitary confinement. Her version of the modern day “time out” in the corner was to isolate an offender in a dark wardrobe closet in our classroom. Usually your term of sentence was 10 to 20 minutes standing in the dark, but one spring day Mrs. Schlesinger lost track of one of her inmates. So did the rest of the class. He was left inside his cell when dismissal came. His parents were not amused when he failed to show up at home when the school bus made its normal stop at their door. Mrs. Schlesinger reluctantly agreed to more benign punishments after that incident.

My classmates and I were not as lucky when we complained about our second grade teacher, Mrs. Mare. Mrs. Nightmare, as we surreptitiously called her, had a unique way of dealing with misbehaving children. She would tightly pinch your nostrils for 10 seconds or longer. If you were really deserving of re-education, she would stand behind you, grab hold of your arms just above your elbows, then pull them back towards her while sticking a knee into your back.

Of course we complained to our parents. But as they were mostly immigrant or first generation parents, they sided with her, believing if we were disciplined we surely must have done something egregious to warrant corporal punishment.

Our seventh grade Hebrew teacher, Mr. Kulik, was real old school. That means he saw nothing untoward in some physical contact with students. He took a particular interest in Walter, a chubby, not overly ambitious or attentive student. His patience finally exhausted one day, Mr. Kulik decided to eject Walter from the classroom. Physically eject him. He literally decided to throw Walter out the door. Trouble was, the door was closed. Walter, being round and pudgy, bounced off the door right back into Mr. Kulik’s arms. Only after two or three repeat tossings and rebounds did Mr. Kulik finally realize it was not Walter being insubordinate that kept him coming back time and again. I should note that throughout this ordeal Walter was laughing.

Elementary school trauma sadly seems to be unavoidable no matter the best intentions of legislators and administrators.

Is Authoritarianism Our Future?

If you were schooled during the age when civics was routinely taught in elementary and high school you would have learned the American government is an intricate system of checks and balances designed to restrain any of its three branches—the executive, the legislative and the judicial—from controlling all affairs of state. 

Here’s the way our government is supposed to work: The president cannot issue taxes, or impose indiscriminate tariffs. That’s the job of Congress. Congress declares war, not the president. The president nominates cabinet secretaries and federal judges but it is Congress that formalizes each appointment. Congress passes laws but a president may veto the legislation; to become law two-thirds of both the Senate and House of Representatives must vote to override a veto. Federal courts up to the Supreme Court adjudicate any disagreement between Congress and a president, as well as disputes between private entities and those between the government and the private sector. In addition, to limit the influence of the central government, the Constitution gave states control over any power not specifically assigned to the federal government. For example, each state has the authority to determine election criteria for its own office holders. 

The system has mostly worked out well for the last 249 years. Sure there have been cries of overreach, even injustice, especially when the justices of the Supreme Court voted to permit slavery (Dred Scott decision, 1857), desegregate schools (Brown v. Board of Education, 1954), and stop the counting of votes for president in Florida (Bush v. Gore, 2000). By and large, however, the system the Framers gave us has stood the test of time. 

In its 250th year, however, the foundational fabric of our country has frayed. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/21/us/politics/trump-imperial-presidency.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

It is tempting to ascribe blame for our predicament to Donald Trump. He does deserve our scorn. This predicament of unbridled executive power will be Trump’s imprint on America. Once out of the bottle the genie of orgasmic presidential power most probably cannot be re-corked. 

I believe it is inconsiderate to believe Trump’s actions are part of a pattern based on a philosophy that rejects liberal democracy in favor of a unitary executive. Trump may be paralleling these ideas but he is not channeling them, for to believe so would imply that Trump actually sat down and read a book or treatise on government. In his more than a decade on the national scene Trump has never revealed any hint that he has read any books, even his own, in furtherance of a political philosophy and agenda. 

Trump’s motivation is as visible as his skin tone—he is obsessed with anything golden. He wants to be surrounded by gold. To possess as much as he can. To deplete his adversaries, even his worshippers, of as much lucre as possible to add to his fortune. He also is motivated by revenge, to punish anyone who has ever challenged his authority.

Trump has been the vessel for the abuse of checks and balances. But the reality is, it could have been anyone. Joe Biden tried to exert power never before thought to be presidential. The Supreme Court shut him down. 

John Roberts and his reactionary colleagues on the Supreme Court were simply waiting for the right vessel to install the autocratic president.

So, it is Trump 24 hours a day  The true programmers of our national and international nightmare are the six black-robed Supreme Court justices who legitimized his absolutism after Mitch McConnell circumvented Senate norms to secure the appointment of the conservative majority.

Will Trump’s successor be saddled with his actions and executive appointments, or will a tit-for-tat appointment process be the norm whenever a new president is sworn in, or whenever a federal appointee fails to satisfy a president?

Russell Riley, a presidential historian at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center, is quoted in The New York Times as saying history “strongly suggests that what we are seeing today will not, in fact, endure.” 

Perhaps, but a return to normalcy requires a Supreme Court that admits it made a mistake in granting sweeping powers and immunity to a president. Given the highly partisan bent of the six conservative justices on the court, it would not be surprising if they would reverse themselves if it reigned in a Democratic president. But if a Democrat fails to win the presidency, our authoritarian future, sadly, is assured. 

Trump Vents Grudges While America Suffers

As a journalist, albeit a retired scribe, I felt a professional obligation required my viewing a Wednesday night special address from the White House promoted by its current occupant. 

After all, big news can transpire. Lyndon Johnson announced he would not seek reelection in one of his addresses. Richard Nixon announced his resignation as president. Barack Obama announced the killing of Osama bin Laden. 

Perhaps Donald Trump would provide news of national import to the American public, many of whom were eagerly tuned into the three hour finale of “Survivor,” only to be disappointed he interrupted it (https://mol.im/a/15393819).

They might have been assuaged by dramatic news. Perhaps America had invaded Venezuela, or convinced its president Maduro to abdicate. Or maybe Trump had convinced his handler Putin to throw him a bone and accept a cease fire in Ukraine, or at the very least stop bombing civilians. 

Instead, those who watched were subjected to a rerun of Trumpian blow-hardiness, a campaign stump speech without humor, long on attacking Democrats, full of imaginative statistics about his accomplishments. 

It is difficult to believe anyone other than a Trump acolyte could believe the cult leader. Trump has had ample opportunity to sound and appear presidential, but his New York gutter combativeness always gets the better of him. 

Pre-Internet Trump had to call reporters, often using a pseudonym, to vent his outrages. No longer. Now, the unrestrained near-octogenarian can type away in the dead of night his malevolent thoughts, disparaging anyone, like the tragically deceased Rob Reiner, who disagreed with him. 

Chief of staff Susie Wiles advised him to stop his retribution campaign after three months, according to Vanity Fair. But Trump didn’t. He is a protégée of Roy Cohn who taught him to counterpunch his detractors harder and longer.  

Trump’s behavior has become standard operating procedure throughout his administration.  Here are three examples from today’s New York Times concerning climate study, the military and healthcare: 

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/17/climate/national-center-for-atmospheric-research-trump.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share;

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/17/us/politics/mark-kelly-defense-department-inquiry.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share;

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/17/us/politics/american-academy-of-pediatrics-hhs-funding-rfk-jr-vaccines.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share.

Trump proclaimed he has made the United States into the most respected country in the world. Actually, he has turned America into a laughing stock, a country no longer to be trusted to support allies, a country that bullies friends, a nation that extends the divide between the haves and have-nots, a government where the rule of law is tossed aside to favor the elite—as long as they proffer coins to his causes, a government that focuses on revenge and retribution at the expense of comfort and compassion for the unfortunate.