By Bob Gaydos

Trump and Machado and their Nobel Peace Prize.

Dignity. Remember that? It was a pre-Trump concept that a lot of people used to think was an admirable trait in a person, particularly a person of prominence in, maybe not politics, but certainly foreign affairs.

Alas, it’s one more thing Trump has devalued as he has imposed his transactional “art of the deal” philosophy on foreign affairs. A rent-a-prison in El Salvador. A presidential plane from Qatar. A Nobel Peace Prize medal from Venezuela. All in a day’s work for the rapidly dissembling man who occupies the Oval Office.

The latter, of course, is the most, well, embarrassing. I feel personally embarrassed, although I know I shouldn’t, for Maria Corina Machado, who hand-delivered her Nobel Peace Prize, beautifully framed, to Trump in the Oval Office and smiled for the photographers recording the scene for posterity.

All in the name of, what? She says freedom and democracy for Venezuela. As she handed him the prize, which he has been lobbying for ever since Barack Obama was awarded one, Machado, the opposition leader to Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela, proclaimed, “We are on the threshold of victory and today, more than ever, we count on President Trump, the people of the United States, the peoples of Latin America, and the democratic nations of the world as our principal allies to achieve freedom and democracy.”

Translation: Since Trump followed up on his illegal campaign of killing Venezuelan fishermen in the Caribbean under the guise of fighting drug smuggling by illegally kidnaping the unpopular president of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, and accusing him on drug charges, Machado has been calculating that maybe Trump could do for her what winning a Nobel Peace Prize could not — make her president of Venezuela.

Ah, yes, but she forgets. This is Trump. There must be more in the deal than merely saving a country from a dictator or even the cover of phony drug smuggling charges or even the distraction from the Epstein files. Did someone say oil?

Aha. Trump has already apparently cashed in $500 million from the sale of captured Venezuelan oil and it’s being held in U.S. bank accounts in Qatar and other countries, allegedly to be split among Venezuelans for social projects and infrastructure, U.S. companies and the U.S. government, “at the federal government’s discretion.” More sales are expected as the U.S. “runs Venezuela,“ as Trump said after kidnapping Maduro.

Where does this leave us? For the eager Machado, with a smile, a handshake and a photo with the smiling president of the United States, holding her Nobel Peace Prize. The U.S. turned the reins of Venezuela over to the vice president upon kidnapping Maduro, meaning the same oppressive government remains in charge. Trump, ever self-serving and never too proud to turn down an obviously undeserved award, has Machado‘s prize, framed and hanging somewhere in the Oval Office. The Nobel Committee and the people of Norway are embarrassed by this “unprecedented” turn of events. The committee was quick to point out that its prize is not transferable.

Nor is the dignity that traditionally accompanies it.

By Bob Gaydos

Donald Trump and Nicolas Maduro (kidnapped)

   Be careful what you wish for.

   After a few days of reminiscing about Christmases past and pondering the year to come, of musing about the choices and chances of survival of once seemingly stalwart Trumpers Elise Stefanik and Susie Wiles, I woke up on your regular Saturday, January 3, 2026, wondering what the man himself, the beneficiary of the first ever FIFA Peace Prize, would give me to write about.

     War.

      I should have known.

      This won’t take long. What you’re going to read here is likely to be pretty much what you read elsewhere because there’s only one way for rational, law-abiding citizens of our system of government with its separation of powers spelled out in a Constitution to look at it: Invading Venezuela and kidnapping its president and his wife/adviser with no legitimate provocation and without consulting Congress is an illegitimate act of war.

     The nonsense about Venezuela being a primary source of Fentanyl coming into this country is just that, nonsense. This is all about oil. Always has been. Gaining control of Venezuela’s vast oil reserves. Wait to see which of Trump’s wealthy backers benefit.

      That Nicolas Maduro was a much-hated dictator does not justify attacking Venezuela and looking to change the government with no request for intervention and the claim that he was in fact a major drug dealer himself for allowing the drug trade to continue is sheer nonsense when one considers the actual major drug dealers Trump has pardoned.

     Trump says we’re going to “run” Venezuela for a while. Why? They have a new president — the former Vice President. Trump says Maduro is going to be charged with drug charges in New York. There are international courts.

      Then there’s the fact that China and Russia both get a lot of oil from Venezuela and our seizing the country to make up for losing control of its oil fields when they were nationalized seems to give China an argument for taking back Taiwan and its wealth and Russia invading Ukraine for its. Same authoritarian playbook.

    Illegal. Dangerous. Foolhardy. Unwanted and unwarranted. If you believe what we tell the world, unAmerican.

   Americans don’t want this. Congress must step in. Republicans must finally find the courage to do their job. He is out of control.

    The Epstein files are still out there. Trump’s name is all over them. War is a powerful distraction. Frightened and unchecked, he will only get worse. It’s only January 3rd.

Footnote: The plane carrying Maduro and his wife apparently landed at Stewart Airport in Orange County, my neighborhood and a short ride to New York City. When the hostages from Iran landed there, it was a much more joyous event,

By Patrick Gallagher

Downtown Beijing, not on a good day.

Today on the radio, some coal industry hack stated that the proposed new regulations aimed at slashing greenhouse gas emissions “would make electricity much more expensive …  if we can even get it.”

I’d be embarrassed if I ever said something that absurd. If we can even get it? Nature and modern electronics allow us to get all the electricity we want, clean, just for the cost of building the collector.

Investing in a smart grid would revolutionize efficiency and create demand for large pools of skilled workers. Fewer people are employed in mining and fracking every year. Those that do keep jobs are treated as badly as our veterans and once they’re used up they get tossed aside as liabilities.

Even Thomas Edison, who was no paragon of green capitalism, and who was deeply invested in mining and other extractive polluting industries, knew that the wisest and cheapest way to get inexpensive energy was going to be from the sun. Okay, so ignore the science that even Edison knew was out there over a hundred years ago. He understood natural capitalism. He was a hero of science and industry to many because he innovated until he succeeded. But the fossil fuel industry is as stagnant as the air over Beijing.

Let’s forget that there is a foolish discussion over whether climate change is real. Even if we are not changing the climate, we are fouling the nest. Can’t deny that! And yet we can get all the clean energy we want. Do we want it or not? is the only real question. For most people, it’s not difficult to answer.

Whoever you are making these statements on the radio, have a little respect for yourself and withdraw that comment from the public record. Stop publicly humiliating your family and future descendants. Do you breathe air and drink water? Do you have a TV? You must if you’re considered worthy of radio air time. Can you see pictures of China’s smog-choked cities? We sell them a lot of that coal. Can you see any of the photos of thermal inversions made from noxious clouds of toxic emissions whose contents and effects are often unpronounceable and unconscionable?

You can’t even see the cities through the smog. That’s not any holy smoke there! That’s not good for jobs or health care costs or kids or anything but Peabody coal and their lobbyists in our government. It’s real good for those revolving-door guys who write our laws that allow this to keep going on. Everybody knows it’s good for them.

Well, that air comes here. Just like the radiation from the Fukashima nuclear plant in Japan and the smokestack emissions from the states in the Midwest that make acid rain in the East. It’s not just the foreign polluters, because we make much more than our share; so let’s not lay it off on some foreign source. That stuff all goes around and around and it ends right up in your kids, but it’s not like musical chairs.

The coal/tar sands/oil/gas/pipeline industry never seems to stop singing to our political system and everybody working for them is always getting a seat. You may have to sit down because you have emphysema or too much mercury in your kidneys. You may not be able to stand up because you live too close to a Frack pad and your ground water’s polluted or you have a nosebleed or a migraine, but you can have a seat as long as you don’t complain and get in the way of corporate profits.

Don’t get sidetracked; it’s not just coal. It’s filthy fuels we have been trained to depend on battling for dominance in a fight to our death. I’m still using my lungs every day; so is my family. And I want to breathe with my lungs and with my family and with my neighbors and with the people I love.

One thing I’ve noticed is that these sorts of unconscious, uninformed statements like the one by the guy on the radio are rarely made by women. Across the country, mothers seem to be coming to the forefront of the environmental movement because the kids are clearly impacted more and more as population grows and increases in worldwide emissions continue. Why do we let a guy like that speak for anyone? Listen, but use your lungs while you can and say something civil and sensible back to these folks. He and his friends just can’t go unanswered anymore.All cultures have always understood that it’s called Mother Earth. What would she say?

Patrick Gallagher lives in Warwick.