Each day this continues is a signal to the rest of the world that we were okay with it

Cassidy should have thought about that before he voted to confirm the deadly menace known as RFK Jr.

The international order eroded gradually and then suddenly.

OUT: Helping you pay for health care. IN: Helping oil companies pay for their infrastructure in a foreign country.

Greenland isn’t part of the United States. We created a post-World War II order to try to prevent the powerful from taking territory militarily. We did it to avoid living in the kind of world folks at the time had been living in before. And don’t be so sure people will just accept being conquered.

Putin’s thinking: it’s not fair, this is what I was trying to do!

News: A recent classified CIA assessment concluded Maduro loyalists were more likely to maintain near-term stability than opposition figures if Maduro was removed from power. Trump was briefed on the findings, which motivated posture against Machado. www.wsj.com/politics/nat...

Just got this in the mail and eager to dig in. Jervis would have a lot to say right now! Delighted to have a piece in the volume with @profsaunders.bsky.social

Even if the US doesn’t attack, Trump is already killing the old international order. Why does that matter? @twqgw.bsky.social not only has my new piece up with @bdtaylor-su.bsky.social but my 2018 piece on “the Misunderstood Roots of International Order” twq.elliott.gwu.edu. Please check out both.

I again wish to point out that it is utterly catastrophic that RFK Jr. has unilaterally ended CDC recommendations for many childhood vaccines. It’s a betrayal of science, ethics, compassion, and the people of the United States. And it was also a specific goal of Project 2025 (page 254).

Since ousting Maduro, Trump has focused on getting "total access" to Venezuela's oil. That has been key to his thinking on Venezuela all along. Here's a gift link to the @nytimes.com story that @julianbarnes.bsky.social and I did last month on how it drove him: www.nytimes.com/2025/12/16/u...

Since Trump isn't interested in the Venezuelan opposition that won the 2024 elections, his choices seem to be cutting a "deal" with the interim president (for what purpose or what that would look like, I have no idea) or tiring of her and taking action that makes an even bigger mess or walking away.

Jonathan Kirshner's piece on the administration's "decision" to rename the Department of Defense is well worth reading right now blueblaze.substack.com/p/whats-in-a...

In competitive authoritarian regimes, the government deters and undermines opposition by using its powers to inflict costs on those who challenge it rather than recognizing their legitimacy as democratic opponents

This fictional victimhood is a defining feature of our times.

Newest book in the @oxfordunipress.bsky.social @bridgingthegap.bsky.social series available for pre-order: @mmgarrity.bsky.social Mass Expulsion: The Politics of Forced Population Removal global.oup.com/academic/pro...

Article with @jimgoldgeier.bsky.social "NATO Did Not Cause Putin’s Imperial War” is now available for free @twqgw.bsky.social website: twq.elliott.gwu.edu See 🧵below for preview.

Almost unbelievable and yet.

One of the most lopsided results you'll ever see in a poll, from our weekend Washington Post poll www.washingtonpost.com/politics/int...

🧵Day 3 and we have a new meaning for "running Venezuela," courtesy of Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the nation's top diplomat, who is in charge of Venezuela as well as the National Archives. We're going to insist they do what's in the US national interest. Time for some principal-agent theory. 1/

Wow, they must have a lot of indictments.

Ironic that our celebration of the 250th anniversary of our Declaration of Independence will be led by a mad king.

“The democratic will of the Venezuelan people” is not even remotely a consideration of the Trump Admin. It is completely irrelevant to Trump.

And a valued ally that has shed blood on our behalf. It’s disgusting.

I have not seen a single official — not Trump, not Rubio — even use the word democracy with regard to Venezuela. They don’t even pretend to care about it. It is 19th century tactics to grab 20th century fuel.

1/ Vladimir Putin's heavy investment in the regime of Venezuelan former President Nicolás Maduro has been a costly and disastrous failure, according to Russian commentators. They admit that Russia is too weak to stop its allies from being picked off one by one by the West. ⬇️

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), run by Oz and his boss, RFK Jr., will no longer require physicians to report vaccination rates. Instead, they plan to start having doctors report if they’ve discussed “alternative” vaccine schedules.

And none of them are talking about the opposition that won the Venezuelan election in 2024

Reading the new Mark Twain biography with its litany of diseases that were so devastating back then and that RFK Jr thinks it’s so cool to bring back into our lives.

It's wild that the PM of a NATO member feels compelled to put out a statement like this vis-à-vis the US government.

What century are we living in?

And yet we are sidelining the opposition the Venezuelan people voted for in 2024.

Pro tip: there is no plan

Bananas

1/As @nytimes.com reports, Venezuela/Honduras comparison shows this is not about drugs. It is about personal interests and those of the inner circle around Trump. Trump wants Venezuelan resources. Brologarchy wants to protect network city in Honduras. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/03/w...

Canada and Denmark have been incredible allies of ours, including shedding blood on our behalf in our mission in Afghanistan. Snarky MAGA posts warning Canada and Greenland about being next after Venezuela are just disgusting.

"You have to think of [the capture of Maduro] in the context of today, the decline of American democracy, the weakening of guardrails. ..This is playing with fire in a totally different setting than previous precedents," says @profsaunders.bsky.social.

Risk indeed. How exactly are we going to “run” Venezuela?

Always a good idea to read @profsaunders.bsky.social goodauthority.org/news/what-ha...

@seva.bsky.social on how Trump’s vision for this hemisphere lines up with Putin hopes for Russia in Europe. All part of Trump’s goal to make the US more like Russia at home and abroad. open.substack.com/pub/hegemon/...

Indeed

My quick take on the legality of the Venezuela invasion. open.substack.com/pub/executiv...

I've just updated my previous post on the military intervention in Venezuela. I was right to be sceptical of Trump's claims that VP Delcy Rodríguez was prepared to hand over the country and its oil field to US - as she has now made clear. (£/free trial), samf.substack.com/p/trump-madu...

sums it up

THREAD: I'll fact-check all the viral misinformation about the US military operation in Venezuela in this thread This image, purporting to show the US military arresting Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, is AI-generated. According to Google's SynthID detector, it was created using Google AI.

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"

2003 vibes

Guess they’re going to keep doing this until we get black hawk down

Expect to see a lot of this classic Onion headline, from 23 years ago, over the coming weeks.

Paul Wolfowitz 2003: "The oil revenue of that country could bring between 50 and 100 billion dollars over the course of the next two or three years We're dealing with a country that could really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon."