"Look, I will give you the full balance of my Robinhood account. Money is no object. Unless, of course, that money will be added to a pool of community funds that would then be used to pay for the services I’m currently requesting." #McSweeneysTop25of2025

donald trump announces venezuelan economy to become entirely dependent on gently used dvds of home alone 2: lost in new york

This Time Is Not Different (except there are even less competent people in charge, the international order is dead, and we have the foreign policy of a personalist dictatorship). goodauthority.org/news/what-ha...

Word of caution. Just because Trump claims that the USA controls things in Venezuela, it does not mean that it does or is anywhere close to doing so. All Trump has done so far is remove one dictator but leave a dictatorial system in place. Don't mistake his bluster for truth.

Sigh. I did not sign up to spend the last years/decades (if I'm lucky) of my life arguing with religious fanatics of any kind, whether old-fashioned or TESCREAL true believers. Nor did I sign up to live in a kakistocracy, but here we are (does Maduro have a defense GoFundMe yet?).

at least we've got plenty of RPGs to play when we're sitting round our campfires in the ashes of the old world

“.. There is no evidence that anyone on the Trump team has thought about what will happen tomorrow, or next week, or next year .. “.. we’re not even 24 hours into this .. Decades later, we’re still dealing with the aftermath in Afghanistan and Iraq.” fallows.substack.com/p/blind-into...

I know several oil barons, I’ve had the oil and gas industry as clients in a past life: none of them want the Venezuelan oil, it’s dog shit quality and getting the PDVSA fields up to modern standards would take 20 years! It’s just trump being stuck in 1987

I just want to say for the record that when the history books are written centuries from now, I believe the election of Donald Trump in a free and fair election in 2024 will go down as one of the most senseless and self-destructive own goals in human history

So this is sort of fascinating because on the one hand obviously the Roman imperial senate was a shadow of what, say, the Senate of the third and second centuries BC had been, but at the same time it was a pretty crucial component of imperial governance into the third century.

Trump is framing this as a law enforcement operation so he doesn’t need congressional authorization. He’s not defending our country. He’s defending his grip on power with endless wars. “American dominance in the Western Hemisphere will never be questioned again.”

GARY: So I wanted to close the loop. In addition to the other deliverables, I have one more. It’s this wedding ring. Cindy, will you marry me? CINDY: I will, Gary. You have been an absolute ninja. This moves the needle in a significant way. #McSweeneysTop25of2025

ICYMI: In 1922, the man who overthrew the Sultanate, led the Ottoman Empire into WWI and presided over the Armenian Genocide died in Central Asia, leading Muslim rebels in a cavalry charge against Soviet machine-guns. How on Earth did he end up there?

The more I see these photos, the more obviously unserious they become. 1) Twitter on the big screen has been mentioned many times. 2) The available computing power is a laptop. 3) The facial expressions are fake - as if the photographer told them to look serious >>

The casualties already coming in. Grandmothers in their apartments….

If Maduro is standing trial, what happens if he’s um found not guilty?

Becoming painfully obvious the Trump Regime has no clue what happens next. Not one clue. Delcy Rodriguez, Maduro's VP has been sworn in as President. Immediately declared Maduro the rightful President and vowed to defend Venezuela's resources.

Financial Times quoting experts: "Experts had warned that Venezuela's layered air-defence network could complicate US air operations. But it apparently presented little or no resistance to the US strike that captured President Nicolás Maduro."

NYT: At least 40 people were killed in the US attack on Venezuela, including military personnel and civilians.

the administration wants to frame this (bizarrely) as law enforcement. but if law enforcement conducted a raid for a suspect and killed 40 people, including an unknown number of unarmed civilians, it would be treated as a clear disaster like Waco.

Philip K Dick ass future we’ve got here

one wonders if it was someone in a decision making capacity making this bet www.axios.com/2026/01/03/m...

I’ve started moving towards magnetic bases, and am considering color coding my flight stands to have friendly (blue) versus enemy (red). What’s the consensus on the effect?

Director of the CIA is in the room but you have OSINTdefender's twitter page up on the screen

President Zelenskyy on Maduro: What can I say here? If this can be done to dictators, like that, then the United States of America know what they should do next.

You ever think about how the Roman Senate kept meeting centuries into the reigns of emperors. Hanging out, shooting the shit, giving speeches, and play-acting that their positions of privilege remained positions of power.

oh my god he posted so many action shots from the makeshift mar a lago situation room and they were just looking at tweets together on a gigantic screen

trump the type of messy bitch who could have the ideal internationally-accepted face for his wildly illegal imperial adventure and throw it away because she won the nobel prize and he didn't

Donaldus Venezuelarum Conquestor

Don’t be fooled: you can’t both claim this was simply the execution of an arrest warrant AND say the U.S. is now "running" Venezuela & grabbing its oil resources. Trump just admitted this was a clear regime-change play to enrich U.S. oil companies & his billionaire buddies.

Is our murdering people in the Caribbean related or unrelated to this law enforcement operation to take over the country?

From @djrothkopf.bsky.social “the U.S. does not have any right to grab any leader anywhere in the world for anything it deems a crime. If that were a right all countries had, for example, Trump would likely have to spend the rest of his life in hiding.” www.thedailybeast.com/trumps-illeg...

I'm running Mothership RPG today and my amazing 10 year old drew me some illustrations. #TTRPG

Vance’s use of quotes is deliberate, not illiterate like Trump’s. Here, it signifies that legality itself is a dubious or frivolous concept as applied to the actions of the regime. It conveys not just that it’s wrong to say the acts were illegal, but ridiculous to use law as a metric at all.

is there some way I can quickly unlearn all of history so as to feel better about recent events

So, let me see if I have this straight: foreign wars are actually domestic law enforcement against terrorism, and a simple accusation of terrorism has meant since 2001 that there are no strictures of due process or protection from extrajudicial killing, torture, or other lawless human rights abuse

this is just insane. I don’t have any other words for it

Q: You said the US is going to run Venezuela. So who's in power right now? TRUMP: Well, we're gonna be running it with a group. We're gonna make sure it's run properly. We're gonna rebuild the oil infrastructure which will cost billions of dollars.

Q: Will US troops be on the ground? TRUMP: We're not afraid of boots on the ground if we have to have it

Trump: "It's gonna make a lot of money"

Q: Who will run Venezuela? TRUMP: Well it's largely going to be for a period of time the people standing right behind me. We're gonna be running it.

Trump says "people in the military" will be involved in running Venezuela

Trump on the president of Colombia: "He does have to watch his ass"

Q: The US has something of a mixed record of ousting dictators without necessarily a plan for what comes after--- TRUMP: Not with me. That's when we had different presidents. With me, we've had a perfect track record of winning.

Trump: "We're gonna take a lot of money out so that we can take care of the country"

Q: China, Russia, and Iran have interests in Venezuela. How does this operation affect your relationships with them? TRUMP: In terms of other countries that want oil, we're in the oil business. We're gonna sell it to them. We'll be selling oil.

Trump: "I think Cuba is gonna be something we'll end up talking about, because Cuba is a failing nation. It's very similar"