In case you missed the announcements in December but are now having to get up to speed again on REF2029.

“I think mayors around the world have started to realise that we have a new role, one that didn’t exist before,” said Jaume Collboni, the mayor of Barcelona. “We’ve realised that the global problems we’re all facing require local solutions.”

.@PabloReports: What do you make of the White House blaming the police for what happened on January 6th? Lieu: The White House’s statement is batshit crazy.

'A recent report by the University of Bristol found that schools had become the biggest provider of foodbanks across England, with 4,000 across the country.'

Now of course invading Greenland is illegal and unconstitutional *today* but what passing such a motion would do is remove any doubt, particularly for the officers who might receive such an order that they would be committing treason by obeying it.

To expand on this in a 'what should we do' sort of way, I think the prudent course here is for Dems to see if they can get the handful of GOP votes to force a discharge petition on a bill that affirmatively declares that military action against Denmark or Greenland would be illegal.

People who fancy quoting the Melian Dialogue ("the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must") ignore the fact that Thucydides was clearly portraying this as the kind of hubris that squandered Athens' primacy and paved the way for a devastating peer war that it ultimately lost.

A decade long transatlantic panic about the civilizational threat of left-wing cancel culture and we now have an "anti-woke" censorship campaign taking out Plato at a major American university. Absolutely pathetic.

Thank you Eugene Goodman for saving Democracy during the Capitol insurrection #January6th

DELL EXEC: Consumers are “not buying based on AI. In fact I think AI probably confuses them more than it helps them understand a specific outcome." @pcgamer.com #CES www.pcgamer.com/hardware/del...

Germany's Chancellor Friedrich Merz: "Germany will accept responsibility for the security of Ukraine and for the continent as a whole."

Good to see a Cabinet Minister call the unlawful sexual harassment on X "appalling": She backs Ofcom "to take any enforcement action it deems necessary". Ofcom asked X to urgently advise on how it is protecting users from its own production of unlawful content at scale www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Isn't the answer some EU troops and tech on the ground on Greenland, soon? Donald Trump’s Greenland claim leaves Europe struggling for an answer - giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/... via @FT

Meanwhile around the world, all politics is (also) local.

Its almost as if this is a causative relation and not just a correlation. As if great inequality and imperialism go hand in hand and cannot be separated. They are part and parcel.

Mayor taking on bigger roles? Sounds like how the Carolingian dynasty started. This may be a sign of increasing fragmentation as traditionally national roles are increasingly assumed/usurped at a local level.

True The real work is on the local level.

I'm afraid there *is* an obvious answer: it can't.

Yet another huge contract, awarded without any competitive bidding process, to Wes Streeting's favourite NHS supplier, the Hard Right US surveillance tech specialists Palantir, for military decision making capability.

At least we've got this going for us, which is nice

Convinced the best prism for understanding this admin is if you've worked for a real narcissist boss where you have to chart a course between doing enough insane things to satisfy their ego and not doing too many insane things.

Buddy, hope left the building, went to lunch, had 4 margaritas and a bloody mary, got into a fight with the server, was tossed through a window, severed an artery, had its leg amputated, spent three nights in ICU, got divorced, defaulted on the mortgage, and is living in a van down by the river

Either it was a limited operation merely to arrest Maduro and move on, or, it is an ongoing major regime change committment that will open up a transition including international and private sector partners. It really can't be both

Their messaging is so fucking incoherent. Maduro was an illegitimate leader who lost in 2024, which is why we're replacing him with his VP instead of the person who won in 2024. We did this to stop fentanyl, which is why he's indicted for cocaine. We're also occupying Venezuela via Zoom call.

some thoughts on all of this madness from earlier in the morning youtu.be/-yUi-0vNlDA

The last time I remember immediate reaction protests (not organized well in advance) was BLM and similar. An immediate reaction protest for a foreign policy act like this seems meaningful.

This might be the only Democratic response I’ve seen that is appropriate

out of my depth on any foreign policy thing but seems clear that at least some real part of this is fueled out of, if not a kind of boredom, a very real desire to entertain themselves because they are absolutely not interested in governing beyond shows of force they can post about online

FOX NEWS: What are your expectations when you get briefings from senior Trump administration officials in the coming days? GALLEGO: Well, they're just gonna lie

🚨 HAPPENING NOW! Jan 3, 2025 Protesters have gathered in Times Square, joining 75+ cities around the country in protest to say NO WAR ON VENEZUELA! “Money for jobs & education, not for war & occupation!”

So what is happening? Is the US setting up a puppet government? Extorting compliance from the remaining Venezuelan government? Setting up an occupation and Generalgouvernement? Honestly I’m really perplexed by what they think happens next. 1. Attack Venezuela 2. ???? 3. PROFIT!

Whatever Hegseth and Rubio and Miller and the rest had in mind would come next, and who the hell knows they probably were never on the same page about that, but it very obviously wasn't *any* preparation for the notion we'd immediately and delusionally announce we're in charge of Venezuela now.

It genuinely seems the plan, such as it was, was only the Maduro raid, accepting the regime wouldn't otherwise change. That's what Rubio was telling a very gullible Mike Lee, at least. And then Trump had his presser and went completely off the rails pronouncing himself the new Emperor of Venezuela.

This image is real btw. It looks like a photoshopped joke but it’s real.

Entering our Too Lazy to Manufacture Consent era

Trump just posted this photo of the sharpest minds in our intelligence community hard at work during the Venezuelan operation.

“'You would have no command and control over the military and no police force,' he said. 'You’d have looting and chaos.' Any U.S. military deployment meant to stabilize the country would probably require tens of thousands of troops, he said."

Chairman JCOS: “Months of planning…” soooo not an imminent threat justifying self-defense

To me, this sounds like the first tangible sign of things going wrong for Trump’s (non) plan. But I’m a former intelligence analyst and this a glass half empty kind of guy.

The fatal flaw in American foreign policy is not understanding that other nations also have a sense of national pride and have no wish to be US vassal states.

Moulton: "When we had briefings on Venezuela, we asked, 'Are you going to invade the country?' We were told no. 'Do you plan to put troops on the ground?' We were told no. 'Do you intend regime change in VZ?' We were told no. So in a sense, we have been briefed, we've just been completely lied to"

He does that a lot TRUMP: They're fully on board THEM: Uh, no we're not MEDIA STENOGRAPHERS: [dutifully scribbles down, "they're fully on board"]

The kidnapping of Maduro inaugurates a highly dangerous era of U.S. empire that for perhaps the first time in an era of mass media is not pretending to be anything other than a violent, extractive enterprise of domination.

BREAKING: Protest in Times Square after U.S. attacks Venezuela and captures Maduro. www.ms.now/news/trump-a...

This is a weird story. We do not have military control over any of the country. Why would they be allowed in? Why would they be allowed their freedom?

Times Square now NYC