Despite Trump’s relentless demand to win the Nobel Peace Prize, he did not. He says he ended 6 or 8 wars in his few months in office. Just days ago, he brokered a ceasefire in Gaza.
But consider the criteria:
- He united the opposition; check.
- He resisted the militarization of his society. Fail.
- He has promoted democracy. Fail.
They say there’s always next year. But if you fail to meet the criteria, no way.
Bloomberg News reported:
Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 2025 for her efforts to promote democracy at a time when an increasing number of countries slide into authoritarianism.
She receives the prize worth 11 million Swedish kronor ($1.2 million) “for her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy,” the Oslo-based Norwegian Nobel Committee said in a statement Friday.
Machado, 58, “has led the struggle for democracy in the face of ever-expanding authoritarianism in Venezuela,” the Committee said. She leads the Vente Venezuela opposition party and has worked to unite pro-democracy forces in the country.
In her life before politics, she studied engineering and finance and had a short career in business before establishing a foundation that helps street children in Caracas.
Machado “meets all three criteria stated in Alfred Nobel’s will for the selection of a Peace Prize laureate,” the Committee said. “She has brought her country’s opposition together. She has never wavered in resisting the militarization of Venezuelan society. She has been steadfast in her support for a peaceful transition to democracy.”
María Corina Machado at a rally in Guanare, Venezuela, in 2024.Credit…Adriana Loureiro Fernandez for The New York Times
No contest!
Diane Ravitch's blog 
And in the same SPIRIT we hear from Chicago School Teachers fighting the military invasion of their neighborhoods.
Jason, a teacher in a predominantly Latin-American community who declined to share his last name for safety reasons, turned out for Wednesday’s march and said he personally knows U.S. citizens who ICE agents have detained.
“In my community where I teach, there’s kids not coming to school for a month at a time because they’re scared of what can happen to them,” he said. “I’m overwhelmed with blinding anger and depression for the people who are being affected.”
Jason said he also attended a protest at the ICE facility in suburban Broadview and knows several people who federal agents brutalized there.
“They shot my friend in the face,” he said, referring to the non-lethal rounds and chemical agents that have regularly been used by immigration authorities in Broadview. “Luckily, they were wearing goggles — but I can’t imagine what would’ve happened if they weren’t. I’ve never seen anything like this.”
https://blockclubchicago.org/2025/10/08/hundreds-protest-ice-national-guard-deployment-in-chicago-area/
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Sure would like to know what’s peaceful about advocating the overthrow of a duly elected government. Seems like Francesca Albanese or Greta Thunberg or the flotilla members collectively would have been better choices.
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Wow! You Go Girl! Machado sounds like a really wonderful choice –and MUCH more humane and deserving than our cruel contender… (Also gotta love those Scandinavians!)
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Look who nominated Machado:
Rick Scott, GOP Senator of FL and former governor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Scott
Together with Rick Scott, the legislators who signed the nomination include Marco Rubio, Mario Díaz-Balart, María Elvira Salazar, Michael Waltz, Neal Dunn, Byron Donalds and Carlos A. Giménez.
As well as: Led by Marcel Felipe, chair of Inspira América Foundation, the nomination also includes the support of the university presidents: Madeline Pumariega of Miami Dade College (MDC), Kenneth A. Jessell of Florida International University (FIU), David A. Armstrong of St. Thomas University and Mike Allen of Barry University.
That’s got to really frustrate and infuriate the malignant narcissist!
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Huge congratulations to Maria Corina Machado who has won the Nobel Imperialism Prize for steadfastly supporting Israel’s genocide and calling on the US to invade her own country so she can be installed as puppet leader while Trump takes Venezuela’s oil!
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one question . Does she clearly oppose Trumps murderous attacks on Venuzuelan boats and his threats to outright threats to invade Venuzuela?
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I don’t know. Google it.
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Anyone else her Googling & only getting AI responses? (w/their disclaimer that the AI info might not be totally accurate!), I tried to return to regular response, but w/no success. Anyone here know how to do that on Google? TIA!
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https://www.normalisland.co.uk/p/venezuelan-woman-who-begged-trump?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1407757&post_id=175814240&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=b728d&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
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Oh, no! More Venezuelan fishing boats are going to get blown to hell! Venezuela is going to be put on the Don’t Fly List. Trump is going to send ICE agents there to deport all of the gang members … to Chicago!
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She is on Trump’s side. She supports Trump’s threatened invasion of Venezuela and has even called on Nutandyahoo to join in.
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Steve–
I like your comment but also don’t like it (if you know what I mean).
Jimmy Kimmel has been showing clips that viewers send him from Portland & Chicago in which they’re walking in “warzone” areas (they would be hilarious if the situation wasn’t so sad). The best one was J.B. Pritzker “reporting” from downtown Chicago, wearing a Kevlar vest! (If someone can find a link & post it, thanks; I had been looking on YouTube & all over the internet yesterday, but haven’t found it. (It’s a must-see!)
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Retirebutmissthekids: Here you go (Thanks for mentioning it –I think it’s a hoot!)
https://blockclubchicago.org/2025/10/10/jb-pritzker-reports-from-war-torn-chicago-on-jimmy-kimmel/
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ECE: That’s hilarious! Thank you for sending.
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Ironic that some on the left seem very angry with Maria Corina Machado and defend the “duly elected” leader Nicolás Maduro the way they defend Putin.
Do they embrace everything Madura does, or just believe it’s a good thing for a country to be ruled by “the lesser of 2 evils” — except when the lesser of 2 evils actually supports the Constitution, democracy and the means by which citizens can vote her out if they want?
I don’t necessarily believe the NYT, but they are reporting that Madura wanted to bend the knee to Trump and “offered to open up all existing and future oil and gold projects to American companies, give preferential contracts to American businesses, reverse the flow of Venezuelan oil exports from China to the United States, and slash his country’s energy and mining contracts with Chinese, Iranian and Russian firms.”
There is some valid criticism of the conservative Machado, and there may have been more deserving candidates, but after reading the coverage in AlJazeera, I can understand why the committee chose her.
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You might want to actually research this woman before making claims. She actually dedicated her prize to Trump. https://x.com/Slicesouth/status/1976696474533519503
She literally called for Trump and Nutandyahoo to invade her country, which would lead to millions of her people killed. https://x.com/RedPichacosa/status/1976660796844417389
https://x.com/BenjaminNorton/status/1976652345779093752
https://x.com/Picrocrocin/status/1976681288330617084
This is not the hill I would die on, but you do you.
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BTW, Maduro is the one standing up to Trump. You may be thinking of Juan Guaido.
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Who gets to nominate candidates for the Nobel Peace Prize:
“The authority to nominate candidates for the Nobel Peace Prize rests with a specific group of eligible nominators, not the general public. This group includes members of national assemblies, governments, and international courts, as well as university professors, past Nobel Peace Prize laureates, and current and former members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee. Individuals cannot nominate themselves. ”
“President Donald Trump has been publicly backed for the Nobel Peace Prize by the leaders of multiple countries following a series of high-profile diplomatic engagements hosted at the White House and elsewhere, while his allies in Washington and abroad submit nominations on his behalf.
“… several of the governments backing Trump’s nomination—including Rwanda, Israel, Gabon, Azerbaijan, and Cambodia—are led by authoritarian figures, military juntas, or leaders facing international arrest warrants.”
https://www.newsweek.com/map-which-countries-trump-nobel-peace-prize-nomination-support-2112798
Those who nominate don’t award the Nobel Peace Prize.
“The Nobel Peace Prize is decided by the Norwegian Nobel Committee, a five-member committee appointed by the Norwegian Parliament. The committee members are selected to reflect the political balance in the Norwegian Parliament but are not members of the parliament themselves. They deliberate in secret for months before announcing the winner.”
For the convicted rapist, fraud, felon; mastermind and instigator of the failed violent coup attempt in Washington DC on January 6, 2021, to win the Nobel Peace Prize, he’d have to invade Norway and conquer that nation so Trump’s MAGA hate cult Gestapo would be in position to terrorize the committee and their families with death threats, which is how the Toxic T took over the Republican Party and won the 2024 election.
https://rollcall.com/2022/01/20/rise-in-violent-rhetoric-lawmakers-in-both-parties-report-spike-in-death-threats/
A report from the Bipartisan Policy Center found that 41% of local officials who administered the 2020 presidential election had left their jobs before the 2024 election cycle. This was the highest turnover rate in at least 25 years. A May 2024 survey showed that 38% of local election officials had experienced harassment, abuse, or threats because of their job, an 8% increase from the year before.
In the 11 Western states, roughly 40% of chief local election officials left their positions between 2020 and 2023.
Pennsylvania, a battleground state, saw nearly 70 county election directors or assistants leave their jobs between January 2020 and late 2023.
The entire election staff in Gillespie County, Texas, resigned in 2022, with one employee explicitly citing threats in her resignation letter.
The Department of Justice has created an Election Threats Task Force, which received over 2,000 referrals for election worker threats and opened 100 investigations as of October 2024. Trump is in charge now.
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/timeline-trump-administrations-efforts-undermine-elections
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Not mentioned is that she wants to privatize the Oil industry (,creating Super profits for the already rich and powerful ). And supports the sanctions against her country . And internationally she backs thé thé Argentinan semi dictator , backs Bukele in EL Salvador , backs thé slaughter in Gaza , and in general has nothing but praise for Trump !
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I was rooting for the January 6th Committee to win and it was rather suspicious that it was GOP Floridians who nominated Machado, but if that’s what it took to prevent the malignant narcissist/chief divider of our nation from getting an undeserved peace prize, then I’m all for it.
Sure, he may ultimately benefit financially from this in the long run (just like he’ll probably get his longed for Trump Mediterranean at Gaza, due to the recent peace deal), but I’m very glad it was his peeps who effectively jumped ship to accomplish this, so that he’s sure to feel the sting of his own brand of mafia disloyalty that he imposes on others coming back to bite him today…
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#TodaysAcronym ☞ #PPPOOPPPPP
Putin’s Puppet, Passed Over On Peace Prize,
Pouts & Pouts & Pouts
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Jon, excellent! You are a master of acronyms!
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#MOA
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!!
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ECE Professional: thanks for the J.B. link. One thing to love about the Gov is that he has a great sense of humor (& can also poke fun at himself).
Unlike some others we know…
Don’t know if the Instagram can get you the actual video (I don’t do Instagram, X or Meta {hasn’t anyone else seen The Social Network-?!}). If not, maybe someone has access to a link–it’s fun to watch.
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He united the opposition overseas, but hasn’t even attempted to unite the opposition in his own country or administration. If anything, he’s pushed the sides further apart. What happened to “America First”?
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