24 July—Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar Palacios Ponte y Blanco, commonly known simply as Simón Bolívar, was born (obviously to an aristocratic family) on this day in 1783 in Caracas, Venezuela, which was back then essentially a colony of Spain (a so-called captaincy general), although it was known as the Kingdom of Venezuela. He led what are currently the countries of Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, Peru, and of course Venezuela to independence from Spain and is therefore popularly known as El Libertador, the Liberator.

Bolívar’s birthday is naturally celebrated in the six countries he liberated from Spain. But it’s a formal public holiday (like Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday in the United States) only in Bolivia, which is named after him, and Venezuela, which, thanks to Amerigo Vespucci, is named after Venice. (America, of course, is named after Vespucci, whom many of us learned about by his Latinized name, Americus Vespuccius. Consider that we could be living in the United States of Vespuccia.)

Since Simón Bolívar’s birthday is an important holiday in Venezuela and is celebrated by Venezuelans in the United States, one wonders whether it’s being celebrated by Nicolás and Cilia Maduro, Venezuela’s corrupt and evil former first couple, who are currently incarcerated in a Brooklyn dungeon awaiting trial on whatever charges, having been illegally kidnapped on corrupt and evil Donald Trump’s say-so.

One also wonders why, having relieved Venezuela of corrupt dictator Maduro, corrupt dictator Trump has allowed Venezuela’s former corrupt vice dictatrix Delcy Rodríguez to take over as interim corrupt dictatrix-in-chief rather than installing presumably uncorrupt opposition leader and 2025 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Machado. Does one really wonder?

One may recall that Sra. Machado gave Trump her Nobel medal ostensibly to recognize his commitment to freeing Venezuela of the Maduro dictatorship. But it was obvious that she was sucking up to him and seeking his active help in overthrowing the Maduro regime. All she did, however, was embarrass herself.

So even though Maduro is out, Sra. Machado is still in exile and things in Venezuela haven’t improved much democratically or economically. But so far this year, since taking over the country’s oil exports the U.S. has collected some $13 billion in sales of Venezuelan oil, some $13 billion more than last year. And that’s what counts to Trump.

The oil profit is supposed to benefit the Venezuelan people, but very, very little has been released from Trump’s executively ordered custodial control. On the other hand, Trump has boasted that the U.S. was “making a lot of money” from Venezuelan oil.

And one wonders who else is making a lot of money from Venezuelan oil . . .