yep. i can identify any number of structural issues but at the end of the day the basic problem is the republican party. this has been apparent for at least 20 years. it is also an incredibly unpopular observation to make among “serious” people.

Agree or disagree with the merits of the operation, you can't help but be in awe of the Wehrmacht's Blitzkrieg of Poland

Around 40 people died in that New Year’s fire in Switzerland, and it led home pages around the country.

As you can see here, Trump has thought deeply about the subtle but important differences between Bush’s invasion of Iraq and his invasion of Venezuela. www.theatlantic.com/national-sec...

Like, it is sort of insane that they assumed the VP of Maduro, a technocrat who is seen as competent, would go along with a US coup. To the point that Trump publicly stated it and said he would not work with the political party who won the last election.

How one mafia state threatens another

Less popular than ousting Maduro. 1/4 "not sure." Maybe more popular than Trump himself, but big "not sure" makes hard to evaluate.

The latest from YouGov: "Do you think that U.S. foreign military interventions more often improve or worsen situations in the countries where they occur?" Improve - Worsen: All: -8 18-29: -3 30-44: -22 45-64: -4 65+: +0 today.yougov.com/topics/polit...

Great story on my big question: why’s Trump for Maduro VP and lifelong left-winger and totally dismissed conservative opposition leader Maria Corina Machado as “a nice woman, but doesn't have the respect.” Confirms my suspicion: he prefers a corrupt authoritarian deal-maker to a true democrat. 1/2

It’s all just creating more reality TV to him

This actually seems quite plausible. Dunno if it will work.

There are cabbages that aged better in ten years than this column

This poll was taken on the day of the intervention -- lots of "Don't Knows" and they skew Dem -- women, nonwhites, young, Dems & Indies more like to be "Don't Knows."

A lot of anti-anti-Trump types were willfully blind about the political impact of Biden getting no credit for grounding the drones and massive negative credit for ending the war in Afghanistan

If the Venezuelan regime survives we sure put a target on this source’s back

BREAKING: Elliot Abrams alive.

guys i'm not gonna lie but it will be so absurdly funny if the outcome of this is that the exact same regime, now lacking only the guy in charge, now has american support against the opposition

John Mueller has found that public belief in the justification for war outweighs number of casualties & shaping public opinion. Outside the GOP base, who believes that ***all this** is justified.

And longer run there are two likely public opinion effects. If everything goes well, everyone forgets about it and it has zero direct (and usually zero indirect effect) going forward. And if it goes badly, it can definitely hurt the president's popularity, sometimes severely.

The big variable is *not* success or failure of the military action; it's the out-party's reaction. Which in this case has started out pretty negative. That's short-run. Medium run, which typically comes quickly, is that rally effects don't last.

It's a fool's game to guess at immediate public opinion reactions, but we do know a couple of things. One is that not all military conflicts produce rally effects (president's approval rises temporarily); sometimes they produce nothing or even negative rallies. The other...

Honestly weird that a former Biden guy forgets that Obama had an AUMF

Mark Kelly puts out a statement saying "The President of the United States just overthrew a foreign ruler and explained to the American people that this is about taking control of the oil reserves of a foreign nation." This is probably the strongest statement alongside Gallego's I've read.

I suppose the notion they’re working towards is an American suzerainty over Venezuela administered by heretofore loyal members of the Chavez and Maduro regimes, and enforced by standoff weapons and occasional commando raids. Seems like a real long shot.

We don’t have the language to describe what the US is doing in Venezuela. An invasion? We flew in helicopters and left with the leader. An occupation? We didn’t leave troops but our ships are parked offshore. Regime change? Maduro is gone but his allies remain. What is it? We’re finding out.

Okay, I opted to spend the morning in sanity land. But alas I must return to here. So our we now acting as the sovereign power in Venezuela? I'm a little unclear what's happening here. I thought overnight that we kidnapped the head of state and left. But now we're running Venezuela?

Rep. Seth Moulton: "This is insane. What the hell are we doing? ... this is illegal."

Members of the corrupt regime we overthrew will be corrupt for us

"At least it's an ethos."

Giddy-up

By all reports, Maduro govt. (if not Maduro) is still "running" Venezuela. If we are going to "run" Venezuela, we are going to have to invade it.

US to "run" Venezuela until Maduro supplies Donald Jr. with "the really good shit."

A college sophomore at an Occupy rally could not have generated such a grotesque outsized caricature of US imperialism

Don't you usually have to traditionally...defeat and occupy a country before you announce that you're occupying that country?

Fox News: Poll after poll confirms that our viewers are the least informed. CBS: Hold our beers.

It's an old and obvious pattern. An unpopular president - failing on the economy and losing his grip on power at home - decides to launch a war for regime change abroad. The American people don’t want to “run” a foreign country while our leaders fail to improve life in this one.

Trump also said that there would be no additional strikes, which makes US rule rather hard to imagine. Either they need more military force, or really the US will not run VZ. Can’t have both.

This is a legitimate and important question since Trump was visibly toggling between semi-prepared text and...whatever popped into his head.

This is the most extreme, irresponsible, and un-Constitutional sentence Trump has yet uttered in office. "We're going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition." WE'RE GOING TO RUN THE COUNTRY.

What is this digression into (lies about) Washington DC??

One sure change in Venezuela. It has not been one of those countries polarized between a far right and a Marxist left. Since 1958, it mainly had a democratic left which after 2002 gave way to a revolutionary (and then authoritarian) left. Its right was moderate centrist Christian Democrats. Not now

Trump equating invading Venezuela with sending federal troops into US cities is a terrifying warning of how he hopes to use war powers. (also Grandpa going off the teleprompter. Rubio looks nervous)

… Amy Klobuchar calls for: “… a full briefing on how to avoid spiraling instability, and a vote to stop this unauthorized action from continuing.”

… From Tammy Duckworth statement: “Donald Trump’s reckless and unconstitutional operations in Venezuela—including this morning’s arrest of a foreign leader—are not about enforcing law and order because if they were, he wouldn’t hide them from Congress….”

I do wonder how much our Director of National Intelligence was in the loop on Venezuela.

Exactly one month ago.

4. Still, if you had told the Constitutional Convention that the president’s title as commander-in-chief would eventually supersede Congress’ enumerated power to declare war, the delegates would’ve been rushing for the exits. What’s happening now is a gruesome inversion of the constitutional design.

Yeah, but the original headline was going to be “Now that’s what we’d call an extraordinary rendition. Bravo Mr. President!”