blog

It’s a Family Affair – Venezuela’s Second Largest Newspaper Serves U.S. Empire

The Art of Annihilation 

January 7, 2026

By Cory Morningstar

 

Government supporters hold photographs of Venezuela’s late President Hugo Chavez and President Nicolas Maduro, after U.S. President Donald Trump said the U.S. has struck Venezuela and captured Maduro, in Caracas, Venezuela January 3, 2026. REUTERS/Maxwell Briceno

“The plan now on the table is for Delcy Rodríguez to stabilize the country with U.S. backing and then call for general elections. This is not framed as an endorsement of the regime, but as a containment and transition strategy. Washington is explicit about one thing: this is not a partnership of equals. The United States is running the process, the lines are being managed through Rubio, and the leverage is entirely asymmetric. Delcy is the instrument, not the center of gravity.”

 

– January 3, 2026, Francisco Poleo, former Executive Vice President of El Nuevo País and Zeta; son of  Venezuelan media mogul and politician Rafael Poleo

Germ Warfare: Germania Poleo

ABOVE: January 6, 2026, “Fox and Friends” with one million followers on Instagram. Screenshot reads: “SHE IS EVEN MORE RADICAL THAN MADURO.” Venezuelan?American journalist @iamGermania sounds the alarm on interim president Delcy Rodríguez — and sends a message to President Trump.” [Source

On January 6, 2026, Al Arabiya English published a fifty minute debate on its Youtube Channel. The debate was titled STOP Talking About Oil’: Was The Capture Of Maduro Legal & Does It Set A Dangerous Precedent?” The panel featured Venezuelan American journalist Germania Rodríguez Poleo, Curt Mills, Executive Director of The American Conservative, and Bruno Maçães, former Portuguese minister and author of World Builders: Technology and the New Geopolitics.

It’s worth watching, if only to observe the talking points and framing being laid out by media serving both corporate interests and empire.

When not taking selfies to post on her numerous social media platforms, under the guise of journalism, Germania Poleo serves as sycophant for the Venezuelan ruling class while simultaneously grandstanding full subservience to Donald Trump. Consider that while she thanks Trump for giving Venezuelans “a glance of justice for the first time”, (directly following the bombing and murder of Venezuelan and Cuban citizens by the Trump regime), she lives a life of luxury and privilege in the United States. The Daily Mail UK cites Germania as “a journalist with a decade of experience covering breaking news in Miami and New York City. She specializes in national politics and crime as well as Latin American affairs. She is also the host of DailyMail’s podcast, Welcome to Magaland: Inside Trump’s Second 100 Days.” In October 2025, she left UK Daily Mail to focus on ” I am Germania“.

Born in Miami Florida, Germania Poleo is the granddaughter of Venezuelan media mogul and politician Rafael Poleo.

Venezuelan Media Mogul and Politician Rafael Poleo

Having established the political magazine Zeta in 1973, in 1988 Rafael Poleo founded the newspaper El Nuevo País. According to the numbers of the newspaper’s distributor El Universal, El Nuevo Pais is the second largest paper in circulation in Venezuela.

A straightforward Google AI overview informs that “El Nuevo País is widely considered a right-wing or opposition-leaning newspaper that is highly critical of the socialist government in power” and that “El Nuevo País is known for its strong anti-government stance, frequently publishing articles and opinion pieces that are critical of the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) and its leaders, Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro. The paper is generally aligned with the broader Venezuelan political opposition, which is often characterized as right-wing or centre-right by both the government and some analysts.”

On October 13, 2008, charges were brought against Rafael Poleo when, on the show Aló Ciudadano, he said “I am concerned that Hugo (Chávez) may end his days like Mussolini did: hanging heels over head.” The remark was considered a solicitation to assassinate Chavez.

Rafael Poleo’s daughter (and Germania Poleo’s mother) is Patricia Poleo, also a Venezuelan journalist and former director of her father’s newspaper, El Nuevo País. She is well-known for her decades long opposition to both the Chavez and Maduro governments. Rafael Poleo’s daughter Helena Poleo is the founder of Influence Communications based in Miami, Florida, while serving as

May 23, 2024: Photo: US Congressman Carlos Gimenez honours Francisco Poleo with a Congressional Record, while City of Miami Commissioner Manolo Reyes awards Poleo and Zeta Magazine each with Certificates for Appreciation. Additionally, Miami-Dade County Commissioner Eileen Higgins declared April 25, 2024, Rafael Poleo Day.  From left to right: Maggie Fernandez from the office of Miami-Dade Commissioner Eileen Higgins, City of Miami Commissioner Miguel Gabela, Claudia Gonzalez from the office of Miami-Dade Commissioner Eileen Higgins, Rafael Poleo, Helena Poleo, Andre Rodriguez from the office of US Congressman Carlos Gimenez, and Francisco Poleo. [Source]

Francisco Poleo – Executive Vice President of El Nuevo País and Zeta

“The role of the OAS as nothing more than a tool of U.S. imperialism has not changed since its founding as the Pan American Union more than a century ago.”

 

Dec 9, 2021, The Imperialist Agenda of the Organization of American States (OAS)

Francisco Poleo, Rafael Poleo’s son, served as Executive Vice President of El Nuevo País and Zeta (2018-2024). In addition he is a contributor to El Espanol. Most if not all of the Poleo family, claiming exile status, appear to be situated in Florida and New York, with both Francisco and Germania being born in Miami.

In 2016 Rafael Poleo, Francisco Poleo, and Henry Ramos Allup met at the office of the Organization of American States (OAS) Secretary General in Washington, D.C. On this day, the OAS labeled the Venezuelan government a dictatorship. According to the Google AI overview, “Henry Ramos Allup is a prominent Venezuelan opposition politician who is often described as right-wing or a conservative figure by critics and some analysts, despite his party’s official social democratic affiliation”. His political positions and history, especially his defense of the neoliberal policies of the 1990s, have led to this characterization.” In a 2017 article titled “It’s Okay to Hate Him Again, Allup is referred to as “one of the most despised politicians in Venezuela.” In 2016, as the new Venezuelan National Assembly President, the opposition leader abruptly shut off the microphones of socialist legislators, removed the paintings of Simon Bolivar and Hugo Chavez from the National Assembly grounds indicating that his main objective was to oust President Maduro within the next six months. [Source]

“Under this hegemony, [] the US intervened directly in Central American states with overwhelming military force, and, in South American states via massive increases in indirect support (i.e. counter-insurgency and paramilitary forces, financial support, and political advisors). This finding was consistent with Che’s own prediction that, ‘despite its lack of credibility’, the OAS was a ‘convenient mask’ for US intervention ‘anywhere in Latin America where a change in the established order endangers their interests’ (Guevara, April 1967). Che would continue to highlight this contradictory role of the OAS and its use by the US as perpetrators of ‘exploitation and oppression’.” [Source]

Above screenshot: Francisco Poleo Instagram Post, October 18, 2025. It reads: “Washington, 2016. With Rafael Poleo and Henry Ramos Allup, at the office of the OAS Secretary General. That day, the OAS condemned the Venezuelan dictatorship for the first time.”

ABOVE: Jan. 15, 2016: “Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro, left, speaks with Henry Ramos, head of Venezuela’s new opposition congress, prior to delivering his annual state of the nation report in Caracas, Venezuela. Ramos was then second in the line of succession after Maduro’s vice president.” (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)

Sovereign States & Self-Determination Be Damned

“The mainstream media covered Venezuela non-stop yesterday. They many times mentioned Delcy Rodríguez, Vice President, because Trump stated she is now in charge. They never mentioned that 2026 marks the 50th anniversary of the torture to death of her father, socialist activist Jorge Rodríguez, by the CIA-backed security services of the US-aligned Pérez regime in Venezuela.”

 

–January 4, 2026, Venezuela and the Truth 

On Saturday Jan 3, 2026, the same day that Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores were kidnapped by US military forces (murdering approximately eighty Cubans and Venezuelans in the process), Francisco Poleo shared a post on his Instagram account with a photo that features the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Addressing his 3,390 followers he explains that what has transpired “is not a sudden pivot”. He goes on to explain that Delcy Rodríguez is to stabilize Venezuela with U.S. backing, later calling for general elections. He clarifies that this is not an endorsement of the current “regime” by the Trump administration, rather, it is a “containment and transition strategy” and further stresses that “this is not a partnership of equals. The United States is running the process, the lines are being managed through Rubio, and the leverage is entirely asymmetric. Delcy is the instrument, not the center of gravity.”

Francisco Poleo ends his post by assuring his followers that U.S. officials assessed that Delcy’s harsh public rhetoric on this same day “was aimed inward, at the chavista base, not outward” and that her messaging is understood by U.S. officials as domestic signaling.

He writes:

Delcy Rodríguez and the core of the regime’s leadership are negotiating with the United States as we speak. This is not a sudden pivot. It is the result of a conclusion reached in Washington over months: the U.S. does not believe that María Corina Machado and the opposition have the operational capacity to seize power in Venezuela because they do not control, or meaningfully fracture, the military. If they did, power would have shifted immediately after the 2024 presidential election. It did not.

 

For a long period, U.S. officials, including Marco Rubio, were in constant communication with Machado and her team. They were asked repeatedly for proof of a concrete plan, not just to win power symbolically, but to retain it in practice: chain of command, military alignment, institutional control, day-after governance. The answers were consistently evasive, justified by security concerns, but never substantiated. At that point, from the U.S. government’s perspective, the opposition ceased to look like a viable transition mechanism and began to look like a political wager with no enforcement arm.

 

The plan now on the table is for Delcy Rodríguez to stabilize the country with U.S. backing and then call for general elections. This is not framed as an endorsement of the regime, but as a containment and transition strategy. Washington is explicit about one thing: this is not a partnership of equals. The United States is running the process, the lines are being managed through Rubio, and the leverage is entirely asymmetric. Delcy is the instrument, not the center of gravity.

 

U.S. officials also assess that Delcy’s harsh public rhetoric today was aimed inward, at the chavista base, not outward. That messaging is understood as domestic signaling. Nevertheless, as of now, negotiations with the United States are ongoing as we speak.” [Emphasis added]

There can be little doubt that the ruling class intends to keep Rodríguez in place only until she and the PSUV leadership can be replaced, knowing that to forcibly replace the party at this time would result in full scale blow back from the Venezuelan people. On January 4, 2026 Francisco writes:

However, once a negotiated transition is sealed—and that negotiation is currently happening—that situation changes. What could happen (not that it will, but it could) is a call for general elections. In those elections, I have no doubt that María Corina—not EGU, María Corina—would be elected president of Venezuela.[Emphasis added]

U.S. Imperialism Seeks More Blood

“The Brutes” – The Trump regime is the epitome of white supremacy coupled with US imperialism on full display. 

On December 23, 2025, Burkina Faso President Captain Ibrahim Traore spoke at the Summit of the Confederation of Sahel States (AES) in Bamako, Africa. He warned:

“The imperialists are doing everything they can to set West Africa ablaze… they [will] be there exploiting our riches, imposing their will. And those who survive this tragedy will have only two choices. Either unite forever against imperialism – or be reduced to being slaves until [we] disappear.”

***

Exterminate the Brutes.

Trackback URL: https://www.wrongkindofgreen.org/2026/01/12/its-a-family-affair-venezuelas-second-largest-newspaper-serves-u-s-empire/trackback/