WSJ investigation: In the past 6 months ICE agents have fired at vehicles 13 times, leading to: * 8 people shot * 5 of which were U.S. citizens * 2 died * no victims drew a weapon The playbook: Agents box in a vehicle, block attempts to flee, then fire www.wsj.com/us-news/vide...

Buried lede: “The improved budgetary picture cannot undo the damage that the Trump administration’s frenzy of budget cutting and administrative chaos brought to the nation’s scientific establishment… the cycles of cuts and reinstatements as taking a toll that in some cases may require years to mend”

Great piece from 2017 about why our ongoing transition to competitive authoritarianism has come with a whimper, not a bang. www.vox.com/the-big-idea...

This is pretty good.

The recent ICE confrontations are eerily similar to Boston Massacre (1770) in which 9 British soldiers fired into a crowd of several hundred colonists who were harassing them verbally & throwing snowballs. John Adams later wrote “on that night, the foundation of American independence was laid.”

One way to tell if you’re “The Baddies” is if you’re the guy in helmet and body armor firing tear gas at high school students AT THEIR OWN SCHOOL. CBP and ICE are a terrible mix of aggro and poorly trained, supercharged by feeling totally unaccountable.

I mean, the headline premise - that Willow is the "world's most powerful computer" is wrong. We ran a special report on the state of quantum computing last year that is still essentially correct - this piece gives you an overview www.newscientist.com/article/2467...

Might be a good time to re-up this @lawfaremedia.org piece by @bgodar.bsky.social www.lawfaremedia.org/article/are-...

Video from Minneapolis shooting x.com/CollinRugg/s...

Just say slush fund, Jack, this is taking all day

Every country needs to be following Finland's lead here. Media literary skills are going to be crucially important in the age of AI, where knowing what's real and what's not is going to be increasingly difficult apnews.com/article/fake...

1/Quick thoughts on Venezuela oil and what it means for world politics. Rather than a simple story of corporate oligarchy, more about Trump putting himself at the center of spoils that can be used to consolidate power i.e neo-royalism. www.cnbc.com/2026/01/06/t...

Today in things I have said a million times before, but are now sanctified by appearing against a salmon-colored backdrop, here is an LTE about how America's real problem is not trade but its inability to fix its most problematic nontradeable sectors. www.ft.com/content/5959...

Entertainment break: Rumor on social media is that the final episode of Stranger Things was a fake...they main characters are actually trapped in Vecna's mind. And that the real finale will drop tomorrow Jan 7. That would be a brilliant move! Hope it's true. 🍿🍿🍿

Agreed! International relations during the 21st century may look more like the 17th. IR & IPE scholars should consider modelling accordingly.

My own spin: Trump's TOP priorities have always been: attention-seeking, looking tough, & the adulation of others. Which r also his top priorities for the US. Taking Greenland would wreck NATO and make the US the global center-of-attention, tough guy, demanding adulation (and tribute) from others.

Good thread!

I'll take it 😎

This could be big... if Trump would follow the law.

The Left is avoiding an important question implicitly posed by the “Jesus & John Wayne” conservatives: what is the value of democracy and law if it allows dictators & thugs like Maduro, Noriega, Kim, Diaz-Canel to endure, even thrive?

What did those guys standing alongside Trump remind of you of yesterday? I had some thoughts... open.substack.com/pub/davidrot...

🧵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/

Trump’s super PAC brought in over $100 million in the second half of 2025. The co-founder of OpenAI and his wife gave $25 million. One crypto company gave over $20 million. Oligarchs broadly, and tech oligarchs specifically, are backing Trump to the hilt.

Six months ago @profmichaelross.bsky.social and I wrote in Foreign Affairs that the US is increasingly behaving like a petrostate. Seems relevant today

New: Trump admin officials tell Zeteo that Trump is “very interested” in secret plans drawn up last year to send US Special Forces into Mexico. One official even says Trump recently asked for updates on preparations for a possible operation.

FWIW, I also think VZ is a flex by Trump to Putin & Xi. He's saying "Look what I can successfully accomplish *and* get away with without repercussions, but you cannot!"

I think maybe Trump succeeds in VZ. Why? Trump is NOT attempting regime change but HAS demonstrated US will & ability to impose force AND the complicity of some inside the regime. Also no foreign power is pushing back (other than protest) to defend VZ against further US predation. Therefore...

So the emerging picture seems to be: Trump Admin imagines it struck a deal with elements of Maduro's regime to hand him over and stay in power, in exchange (presumably) for inviting US oil companies back and stopping oil supplies to Cuba ....

During Fiona Hill's testimony to Congress on Oct 14, 2019, she described how Trump and Putin discussed exchanging Ukraine for Venezuela. The quid pro quo was if Trump refuses to help Ukraine fight off a Russian invasion, Putin would not help Venezuela (a Russian ally) resist a US takeover.

My piece for @goodauth.bsky.social on what Trump's actions in Venezuela means. For Venezuela, research shows regime change and occupation can be catastrophic. Trump's ad-libbed takeover may be worse. For the world, Trumpian Overstretch leads to Trumpian Anarchy. goodauthority.org/news/what-ha...

This is very good, for reasons that may strike many as irritating but I think are important. The admin is going to invoke a string of executive branch interpretations of law. It's useful to know what those are. This post describes w/out endorsing them or suggesting they make everything legal.

DOJ's Politically Illegitimate Basis for Political Illegitimacy in Nicolás Maduro Indictment www.emptywheel.net/2026/01/04/d...

Just keeping track of the contradictions...seems like foreign policy by whim and entertainment purposes rather than coherent strategy: 1) Maduro was an illegitimate leader who lost in 2024 BUT we're leaving his VP in power instead of the candidate who actually won in 2024... 1/n

Hmmm, but if VZ can increase its oil output, then doesn’t Russia lose? Or is VZ’s oil too heavy/sour to compete?

Why Haven’t Trump’s Tariffs Had a Bigger Impact? www.nytimes.com/2026/01/03/b...

This Is What Venezuelans Really Want www.nytimes.com/2026/01/04/o...

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.

From Reuters

7/10 Removing Maduro beheads the autocracy but doesn’t dismantle it. The coercive apparatus—and its ties to organized crime—doesn’t evaporate. The risk ranges from just a coup to even "warlordism." It remains unclear who will rule in a fractured, armed landscape.

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.

Increasing wafts of neo-royalism. This is not about spheres of influence but extraction for insider elite cliques. Pay attention to mineral and oil resources. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Some thoughts on what Trump has done in Venezuela and what it might mean for US national security. Caveat: not a Latin America scholar so this is focused on US policy. Clearly huge consequences for Venezuela that others can address. First, despite the buildup, I didn't think Trump would do it. 1/

Ridiculous analogy sure but if an EU commando team were to kidnap Trump and Melania out of the WH to Brussels, the result would not be for Kamala Harris, AOC, and the Atlantic Council to take over US policy

A guide from @goodauth.bsky.social on war powers: in short, presidential evasions of constraint and congressional evasions of Article I authority. goodauthority.org/news/good-to...

This person went on a buying spree over the past 24 hours. Fresh wallet. Only existed since Dec 27th and has only bet on Venezuela-related markets. polymarket.com/@0x31a56e9E6...

Shared Prosperity in a Fractured World by Dani Rodrik: Health plan for a fractured world

i think that people really underestimate reality that 1) administration has no doctrine, it is really about a single, mercurial, and half-awake man 2) the administration is a constantly churning system with factions that rise and fall contextually 3) might not have happened if trump tower caracas

Launching a sizable war with little effort to build public support and w/o Congressional approval is politically unwise. Also a violation of the Constitution.