9/2/2026
My Dear Friend & POTUS, DJT,
Cady & Mott are busy chewing on some cardboard so I can concentrate on writing to you.
I need all the concentration I can muster to sort through the logic of your deal with Alejandro Betancourt López & Delcy Rodriguez to give the the US “majority” control over 65bn barrels of Venezuela’s oil reserves.
Please help me understand the following:
1) how did we get this deal without investing tax payer money?
2) what’s the plan for dealing with the Venezuelan crude which our Strategic Petroleum Reserve caverns are not set up to store?
3) how is this going to affect the price of gas at the pump when it’s going to take at least a year & a half to remediate the existing Venezuelan extraction infrastructure & more than 5 years to develop new wells?
4) How can you be sure that Venezuela won’t seize the development once it’s under way? Don’t they have a right to the resources that sit under their territory?
5) Is it really wise to be investing in petroleum development when the world is turning toward renewables?
6) Are you sure Alejandro Betancourt López is trustworthy? The money laundering investigation of him & his family involving $1.2 billion gives me pause.
Suffice it to say, I have a hard time getting excited about this deal when it raises so many doubts in my mind. What doubts do you have about this deal?
Perhaps a trip to the Sanctuary of Truth (SoT) in Thailand could help us gain some insight. Have you heard of this place? I hadn’t until this morning when it popped up in the ABC story, “Pattaya, once Thailand's 'Sin City,' beckons weary sailors from USS Abraham Lincoln.” The biggest wooden castle in the world has various chambers that are supposed to wake us from our delusions by provoking us to discover the 7 truths of life.
I hope the weary sailors choose to go to the SoT rather than the brothels on Walking Street.
As usual I close with the request that you keep an eye on Burma. Today’s Irrawaddy has a lengthy opinion piece arguing that “The true measure of this revolution … will be whether it removes the idea, older than the generals” of whether the Rohingya are given the rights of full citizenship.
BYBS,
