By pure coincidence- a piece I wrote for @irishexaminer.bsky.social was published this morning www.irishexaminer.com/opinion/comm...

If this actually happens, there's gonna be some world-class opportunities for Trump-connected firms, family, and friends to extract rents.

The GWOT vets chat rn

PMCs with a hotline to MAGA rn

A side story is there’s a ton of insider trading on these prediction markets. New accounts making hundreds of thousands on their first and only trade, that maduro would be ousted. Seems like insider trading is legal if not encouraged on these platforms

JFC.

Marco Rubio? The Santa Fe Community College alumnus?

JD Vance: This is a law enforcement operation to bring a narco terrorist to Justice The President:

truly brain-breaking to watch a general describe the mechanics of a coup while the president struggles to stay awake in the background

Incredible. The Trump-Vance admin just posted a video promoting their bombing of Venezuela. …And it is set to the song “Fortunate Son” — which is explicitly about the rich and powerful starting wars under the flag of hollow patriotism, and then making the rest of America pay the consequences.

But if we export democracy, won't we end up with a trade deficit

Today's number is Twenty-five! AH AH AH!

i know this is a very serious situation but it is kind of funny watching rubio, hegseth, & the other boys in the background start to shift uncomfortably, darting their eyes around the room in silent growing panic as the president drifts from topic to topic instead of focusing on the war he started

if i was running a political party and every time my opponents held power they started illegal wars for oil and crashed the economy i would simply say that repeatedly

Hey so... how's the FBI vetting process going on the rest of those past-due Epstein Files

I distinctly remember in the first Trump years when people would be like “no, you can’t call them fascist”

Congratulations to Marco Rubio on his newest job

Trump just announces the US will be running Venezuela now, until the can do a "safe, proper, and judicious" transfer of power. Announcing an occupation before you've occupied a country is a new one.

There are chilling words and a telling comparison as we head towards elections in 2026 and 2028.

all I’ve got is that the idea that you can commit any act of violence and say you were just executing a warrant is chilling and also common to US police

Reading the Maduro “indictment” I’m suddenly reminded of WHY Gitmo existed and Obama didn’t shut it down. It’s because you can’t KIDNAP people, based on “evidence” you violated rights to obtain, and bring them to trial in U.S. courts.

I don't know what to call it. It's been bizarre listening to a decades-long parade of government officials telling lies about this that everyone immediately recognizes as lies, and it's bizarre that we've reached the point that the lies are no longer seen as necessary

Just got this email from our day care:

But what if Maduro’s involvement in the drug trade was an “official act”?

it's darkly humorous to listen to Trump and his cronies reference the fact that Maduro was indicted in SDNY as evidence he's a dictator and overall bad guy

It's illegal for the president to relieve student loan debt. It's completely fine for the president to unilaterally decide to have the head of a foreign nation black bagged on foreign soil.

Sure... but you know what CBS News says about experts

Thinking again about that anonymous whale who bet big on Maduro's removal on Polymarket just before the op happened... and about how Trump's been staying at his Mar-a-Lago resort through all of this

As the newsletter notes, Trump has been at Mar-a-Lago for two weeks and played golf on 10 of the last 14 days.

Best thing I’ve read this morning, from a human rights lawyer in Mexico. Translation is in the ALT-text.

One thing we can agree on: The new Pentagon press corps is covering every angle of this story. I feel very informed by all the news it's breaking.

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...

"I'm a peacemaker... I make the best deals"

Florida politics. Boy, I don't know.

Something I don't think folks have fully clocked is the degree to which just about everyone under the age of 45 in any natsecs adjacent space to the left of groypers is flatly saying "this is illegal as shit, that's all there is to it"

Listen, maybe all of you are just built different, but if *I* just found out I passed my latest cognitive exam, I'd like to blow off a little steam, too

I have the worst fucking War Powers Act

WEEEEEEEE I LOVE STATE COLLAPSE I LOVE POWER VACCUMS I LOVE ARMED GROUPS COMPETING TO CENTRALIZE THEIR POWER IN THE ABSENCE OF A LEGITIMATE MONOPOLY ON VIOLENCE I LOVE THE SPREAD OF REGIONAL INSTABILITY I T C A N O N L Y G O O D H A P P E N

I'm seriously starting to question the credibility of the FIFA Peace Prize.

If your position is that regime change should be forced on countries where the president does not respect democratic norms and regularly kidnaps opponents using an officially sanctioned paramiliatary, have I got news for you about your position on the United States

Hmm

Plato: A prisoner in the cave would assume the shadows on the cave walls are complete and accurate representations of our phenomenal world America: Reader, we elected him

fwiw it’s been about six weeks since Trump pardoned the former president of Honduras who had been convicted of trafficking drugs into the US

you don't need to add caveats agreeing that the head of state abducted is a bad guy before opposing abduction of a head of state by military force. If the rule was any head of government is fair game then the entire world would be a series of decapitation strikes and show trials in foreign courts.

I feel like I haven’t even been properly lied to about the purposes of this war

Entering our Too Lazy to Manufacture Consent era

People are going to try and lure you into debates about whether Maduro was a good guy or not and the thing is, it doesn’t matter for the purposes of discussing whether violent kidnappings and extrajudicial murders by the US government are ok. No, they aren’t! End of convo.

So I guess my first question is, if you had the plan to arrest and extradite Maduro all along... what was the point of killing all those people in boats for half a year, and how do you think they might impact your criminal case?