Trump Is Seizing Oil and Freezing Child Care…Corruption Unchecked

This episode looks at what it means when the United States moves fast to seize oil abroad while freezing child care funding at home.

The focus isn’t on policy debates or legal fine print. It’s on how power gets exercised quickly for resources and slowly, if at all, for people.

Donald Trump’s role in these decisions is front and center, along with the broader pattern of authority being used without restraint or consequences.

The reaction, or lack of one, matters just as much as the actions themselves. Exhaustion, silence, and distraction are doing a lot of heavy lifting right now.

This episode connects foreign force with domestic punishment and asks why both are being treated as normal, manageable, and temporary when they clearly aren’t.

What’s laid out here isn’t theory or abstraction. It’s a straight look at power being exercised, pressure being applied, and the dangerous precedent being set in real time.

Thank you very much for listening to my podcast. 

A WORLD GONE MAD

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I’ve included a GoFundMe link for anyone who wants it. 

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AWorldGoneMadPodcast@gmail.com

Chapters

• 0:00 Framing A Year Of Unchecked Power
• 0:54 From Maduro To Maritime Muscle
• 2:01 Imagine The Headline Flipped
• 3:33 Oil Seized Abroad, Childcare Frozen At Home
• 5:30 Power Up, Pressure Down
• 6:43 Outrage Fatigue And Normalization
• 8:17 Escalations, Impunity, And Fear
• 10:11 A Direct Plea For Listener Feedback
• 12:07 Platform Shift And Live Show Schedule
• 14:22 What This Show Stands For
• 15:54 Stay Alert, Preserve Democracy

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:00

It's 2026 in America, and power is still being exercised without responsibility. Not understanding the lives of everyday people, not accountable to consequences, just power protecting itself and money being siphoned upward while the rest of the country absorbs the stress. People are being crushed every day. Nobody in power gives a damn. And if this looks like stupidity running the country, it's because that's what corruption looks like when it doesn't even bother pretending anymore. And today, that reality shows up in what just happened and why it matters. I'm Jeff Fallon Wolf. This is a world gone mad. So if you listened to the last episode, you already know I crossed a line. I didn't tiptoe up to it, I didn't debate it, I pole vaulted over it, planted a flag, knowing exactly what that meant. I talked about the United States grabbing Nicolas Maduro, dropping him into an American courtroom, and then casually talking about running Venezuela like it was a busted radio shack we just acquired. Government, infrastructure, oil, all of it. No whispering, no hesitation, just vibes. And at the time I said the most dangerous part wasn't the act. It was how calm everyone was about it. Well, congratulations, because in the last 48 hours, Donald Trump and MAGA leadership looked at the moment and said, Cool, let's keep going. Because now we've moved from taking a control to physically enforcing it. Venezuelan oil tankers seized. Actual ships, actual oil, actual muscle. This isn't a think tank white paper. This is the United States going full maritime repo man. And I want you to imagine that headline flipped. Just for fun. Picture China seizing American oil shipments and saying, Don't worry, we've decided to manage your energy exports now. Totally legal, very normal, please remain calm. You'd be watching emergency sessions of Congress on every channel. You'd hear words like act of war, global crisis, existential threat. People would be screaming into microphones so hard they'd pass out on camera. But when we do it, it's framed as decisiveness, strength, leadership. You know, the three words we use whenever we don't feel like explaining ourselves. And here's the moment where you either laugh or you lose your mind. We're told this is about rules, sanctions, law, order. Meanwhile, the actual move is we took it because we could. That's the rule, that's the law. The rest is paperwork shuffling. This is what empire behavior looks like when it stops pretending it's embarrassed. And if you think this is just about Venezuela, you haven't been paying attention to what happened five minutes later back home. Because while we're out there grabbing oil tankers like it's a Black Friday sale in geopolitics, the federal government turns around and freezes billions of dollars in child care and family support funding to democratic-led states. Childcare. Not missiles, not yachts, not defense contractors. Child care. And the excuse is the same old song fraud concerns, reviews, investigations, the greatest hits album of political justifications. Here's the fun part. If fraud were actually the priority, the response would be precise. It would be boring. It would target bad actors and leave families alone. This isn't what happened. What happened was a freeze so broad it might as well have come with a note that says, this will hurt people, but we're calling a discipline so it sounds respectable. Parents didn't commit fraud, kids didn't commit fraud, childcare workers didn't commit fraud. But they're the ones now playing financial Jenga with their lives while politicians congratulate themselves for being tough. So let's put these two stories next to each other. Because that's where the comedy turns into horror. Abroad, we seize oil with confidence and speed. At home, we freeze childcare with confidence and speed. Different targets, same instinct. Power up, pressure down. Because think about the message being sent. Oil gets taken care of immediately. Families get told to wait. Resources get protected, people get squeezed. And then we're all supposed to nod along like this makes sense. And nobody at the top in power is sweating, nobody's scrambling, nobody's worried about rent or coverage gaps or whether they'll have to quit their job because childcare just vanished. That stress gets outsourced to regular people like it's a cost of doing business. And the wildest part is how quiet the reaction has been. Not from Twitter, Twitter doesn't count. I mean real institutional resistance, hearings, red lines, someone saying, hey, uh, maybe we don't just do this without explaining ourselves. Instead, we get a shrug and a pivot. Because here's the secret nobody wants to say out loud. This only works if people are too tired to stay mad. And people are exhausted. They're broke, they're overwhelmed, they're managing a thousand tiny crises. So power moves fast, trusts that outrage has a short shelf life. And that's the trick. You don't need approval, you just need people to move on. That's how we normalize anything. Not with one giant leap, but with a series of steps that each feel survivable on their own. Seize a leader, control the oil, freeze the funding, call it necessary. Wait for the next distraction. And suddenly you're living in a country where this is just how things work. This is why I said last episode that this isn't about one man or one nation. It's about precedent. We're only one full week into 2026, and we're starting it the exact same way we ended 2025. No accountability for Donald the delusional one and his Republican enablers. And his Looney Tunes MAGA supporters still love Trump. We're just going to apparently let Donald do whatever the fuck he wants to do? Really? That's where we are now? Add in that ICE just shot a woman in the head in Minnesota. Tragic. Right now there should be outrage. Not waiting for the outrage, outrage. Actual outrage. Are there any Republican senators or Republicans in Congress besides Democrat Gavin Newsom and two or three other people who are actually willing to speak out and do something about all of this? Is this what we've become? A third rate country led by a con artist? I know what some of you are thinking, Jeff, you keep saying the same shit over and over again. Yeah, I am. Because the same shit keeps happening over and over again, with no change in direction. Does anyone honestly believe the midterms are going to fix all this? I hope I'm wrong, but I don't see it. Right now we have an unchecked dictator in charge, making moves left and right, and nobody seems to give a damn. Hell, they just cut Senator Mark Kelly's pay as punishment because he spoke out about soldiers disobeying illegal orders from a military superior. They seize another country's oil, they seize the country itself, now they're seizing the ships. What's next? Do they decide to start rounding up people like myself and others who speak out against Donald, the delusional one? You, me, everyone else should be screaming at the top of our lungs about the fiasco sitting in the White House right now. And I shouldn't be getting silence. I shouldn't be getting crickets. I know people are burned out. I know people need mental breaks. I know people are listening. I see my download numbers for the podcast. But the lack of response, people, where are you? If you're upset, tell me. If you agree with what I'm saying, tell me. If you disagree with me, tell me. Tell me to go screw myself if you want. But silence and apathy are not what's needed right now. Yes, this is another one of my ramps, but this isn't about support for my podcast. I truly appreciate you listening. This is about commentary from you, the listener. You have multiple ways to reach me, text me, email me, leave a comment on whatever app you're using, leave a voicemail. I can't mold this podcast into anything better without feedback from you, from the Wolfpack listeners. You can take 60 seconds out of your day. I'm not Rachel Manno, I'm not Lawrence O'Donnell, I'm not Jon Stewart, I'm not John Oliver. But at least they hear back from their listeners. So I'm asking respectfully, can I hear from you? Because it's been silent for way too long while absolute garbage keeps coming out of Trump and his MAGA leadership and enablers. I'm not mad at anyone listening to my podcast. It's very much appreciated, like I said. I'm asking for your feedback. I'm asking for your thoughts. Pretend I'm a Facebook page where a lot of you post multiple times a week your thoughts on your own page or on other people's pages. How about throwing a little love my way by texting me or emailing me or phoning me and letting me know what you think about what I've said on this episode or any previous episodes? That truly would be wonderful. I'm doing this podcast to be the spokesperson for a lot of people who don't have the energy or time to speak up. I'm glad to do this. I'm almost at 200 episodes and going on my third year. Many of you used to text me or write me or phone me, and that's dropped off a lot. My downloads are still there, you're still listening, I'm being heard everywhere, but the communication level has narrowed down to a tiny funnel. WolfpackTalks at gmail.com is the email. On the apps you're using, some of you can text me directly in the middle of the episode and let me know your thoughts. And if you do leave me a text through the app, could you please give me your first name, the city, state, andor country you're texting me from? I got a lot of texts before, but the majority of those texts failed to leave a first name and where you're listening from. 833-399-9653 is the 24-7 toll-free anywhere in America and Canada. It's free, I said. It's a voicemail box. No one's going to bite you, no one's going to abuse your voicemail, but it would be nice to hear from some of you. I enjoy doing a world gone mad. And I hope all of you who listen listen to the end of each episode, not just skip through it and fast forward. The episodes are not long. I'm not asking you to invest hours each time. 25 minutes or less for each episode. Here's an update for the Wolfpack listeners for all of you. I'm officially done with TikTok for a lot of reasons. A lot of people don't like TikTok. I don't like TikTok. I tried it there with the live show. I was successful, but it didn't fit me. The podcast of me did not belong there. Update, I'm now on YouTube. I hear some applause. Tuesday nights at 9 p.m. Thursday nights at 9 p.m. This is Mountain Time, Arizona. Sundays in the morning. I'll let you know the official time for Sunday mornings when I figure it out. Would love to have you there. And by the way, here's something cool, everyone. Because it's YouTube, you don't have to be there live unless you want to participate. You can click on the replay. That's one difference between TikTok and YouTube. Each live show is actually saved, and you can listen to the live stream stream anytime you want, just like you do in my podcast. Come on, Wolfpack listeners, let's get re-energized. 2026 is a crucial year before the midterms. And I need each and every one of you with your support. I said this last episode. You want in your face with the issues, that's me. You want the truth up front, that's me. If you want podcasts that fake sincerity, chase outrage, and throw sensational headlines at you without doing their homework, you should probably listen somewhere else. But if you want honesty, if you want facts without fiction, if you want someone willing to call people out, whether they're Republicans or Democrats creating bullshit, that's me. Hopefully you stay for the ride because I'm not slowing down and I'm not backing off. I'm Jeff Allen Wolf. This is a World Gone Man, and I'm taking names and I'm holding these people accountable. Everyone, lock in, keep alert, remain skeptical, but most of all, stay hopeful.

SPEAKER_00: 15:54

There is chaos in the world. And we need to stand up and preserve our democracy. This is a world time.