Plain and simple my politics is that nobody should be wealthy enough to make their insecurities my problem.

Pork was the glue keeping it all together.

Just digging up the sentiment that academia is a meritocracy, popping that coffin open, and driving a stake through its heart before lighting it on fire.

Another fantastic reaction image captured from one of @jamellebouie.net's video content. The man is a treasure and these past 24 hours' videos have been a gold mine.

The thing is that he does not retain any options regarding this. Even if you accept that there was legal precedent to rendition Maduro—there is no possible AUMF that covers the military occupation of Venezuela. There is straightforwardly no legal authorization for the President to do any of this.

Renata is one of the best historians I know on Latin America’s turbulent history with the US, particularly in the Cold War and beyond, so this thread will be useful for folks that want a longer term perspective and context on the recent events.

I am again tapping the classic movie clip: youtu.be/PDBiLT3LASk?...

If laws only apply to "good" people they aren't laws. That's as true for international laws as it is for domestic.

Nothing in the constitution says the executive needs congressional authority to kidnap a head of state and coerce the remaining government’s actions on threat of bombing.

that's right, Erik

Ah, the Americo-Venezuelan Condominium.

"Political science and military history tell us it's impossible to achieve strategic results through air power alone. What this project presupposes is, what if it wasn't?"

Compare this to Biden leaving Afghanistan & think about what the incentives are for every American politician

Feel the amount of qualifiers you had to put on that statement says something

I feel like I’m going insane, there is, like, an actual Venezuelan government that still exists

FARA enforcement on steroids won't be sufficient but it will be necessary

Just incredible meme potential #2: "You are barely smart enough to breathe"

“Why has the development and execution of American national security policy declined?”

Wait a minute, if I’m reading this correctly, the US didn’t do regime change in Venezuela, but instead, we helped the army-connected VP stage a coup???

I literally blame Paradox for all of this

Hard to watch US TV media discussing how the US might occupy and run a foreign country as if it’s a perfectly normal political development.

I am certain that threatening to court martial a senator who is a member of the opposition, thus making him a political star for his military service and his opposition, won't have any knock on effects in the near future... so when does that CR run out again?

I am sure that bald-faced lying to senators of the opposition about military action won't have any knock on effects in the near future... so when does that CR run out again?

The dismantling of DoS, USAID, and VOA surely won’t matter in the very near future.

I beg Americans to imagine an EU strike force -- stop laughing! -- abducts Trump only, and the next day Brussels is talking about how JD Vance will have to comply and an A350 full of CEOs from windmill, non-GMO cheese, and metric ruler firms is headed for Manhattan to discuss terms

okay, I laughed.

How? The Venezuelan Vp just told you’ll to fuck off?

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

you know your scif sciffin when the curtain doesn’t close all the way

Rep. Seth Moulton comes on CNN and starts by saying: "Is anyone going to just stop for a second and be honest? This is insane. What the hell are we doing? We've got a lot of problems in America today, and invading / occupying / running Venezuela does not solve any of them."

The same editorial board described Seattle’s mayor raising taxes to pay for childcare as a totalitarian power grab

The mentions under Ken Martins statement aree full of ppl both deriding him for not calling for impeachment as well as ppl deriding him for sending out "yet another strongly worded letter" & this site really needs to decide whether it likes or dislikes performative actions w/o material consequence

Cool.

So this is an interesting outgrowth of the Zimmerman/Rittenhouse precedents of taking only the proximate events into mind when determining “self defense.” Sure the agent in question sought out confrontation and when confronted escalated into lethal force, but we can only talk about the immediate act

kinda miss the times when people asked me why the study of colonialism / imperialism was relevant tbh

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."

DID HE JUST SAY THE OIL WILL PAY FOR THE OCCUPATION

Operationally flawless, strategically ridiculous. Thanks Huntington.

Like none of this actually adds up? They're announcing that Maduro was arrested based on a 1934 law? There's no troops there? The military regime is still in place and will have time to dig in? None of this is going to work at all.

Temu Coalition Provisional Authority

Among the many reasons you don’t kidnap a foreign head of state at gunpoint even if you have the capability, is that it sparks consequences you can neither control nor anticipate.

Happy Birthday to the late, great Sergio Leone, born 97 years ago today

New: Trump administration officials are internally pointing to a 1989 legal opinion and the subsequent US invasion of Panama as precedent to justify the operation that was carried out in Venezuela on Friday night without US congressional authorization, per 3 sources.

The House Armed Services Committee also was not briefed, I've confirmed.

The US is going to “run” Venezuela? How? It is a country of 30M people, comparable to Iraqi population in 2003, and the one thing Trump hasn’t done is build up large-scale ground forces in the region needed for occupation.

Wake up babe, Sohrab Ahmari has changed ideologies again. I swear this man has 4 people living in his brain; and they are all stupid.