How does launching air strikes and a commando raid fall under the remit of self defense for an arrest operation

1/2 Remember that the great disruptions of past 11 1/2 months are from the WHIM OF ONE MAN: —Upheaval of world economy via tariffs —Effective dissolution of longest-standing Western alliances (NATO, North Amer partners, cultural-scientific-educ-aid institutions, US "soft power" overall.) —Now this.

looks like someone is about to win the “fell for it again” award

FIFA Peace Prize Winner displaces Nobel Peace Prize Winner

This is what happens when you recklessly extend BRICS right up to America’s borders and ignore America’s legitimate security concerns.

This is the situation room and there is one big screen up that shows a browser window with three tabs open, all of them on Twitter

i do think the fact that the situation room is tweets is fascinating, because it suggests an administration that is a) still struggling to "go around" its own institutions and b) an administration fucking *obsessed* with spectacle over substance

there is no constituency that needs you to fall all over yourself to call Maduro illegitimate before you dare criticize Trump. Voters have been down this road before. No one thought Saddam Hussein was a nice guy. Criticism of Maduro at this stage correctly reads as a defense of Trump to most people.

the photographer was definitely like, "ok everybody, look tough!" but we know they're all just reading tweets with their arms crossed in a country club dining room divided up by bedsheets tacked to the beams

Q: Is it possible that the US ends up administering Venezuela for years? TRUMP: Well, you know, it won't cost us anything because the money coming out of the ground is very substantial

can't believe the guy whose entire political philosophy revolves around domination would turn out to be a hawk

And there ya have it… Officials from top Wall Street firms will be traveling to Venezuela to investigate “investment prospects” of the country. “The trip will feature about 20 officials from the finance, energy and defense sectors.”

at least part of everything this government does is to impress a handful of psychos on twitter

There are still several jobs in Russia that woman are not allowed to do. Some of the restrictions getting lifted or at least getting considered, seem to be driven by the lack of available male work force. Like some jobs in mining.

If accurate, then the plan is just “Chavismo but Trump gets a cut.” Which seems about right.

Obviously, the job of being a Republican Congressperson is to horse trade for stock tips, but if you believe in even the basic outline of public service, “do not egg on another 9/11-style event” should be Priority No. 1. And we’re barreling towards that outcome without impeachment and removal.

The oil is barely worth extracting in the first place at current market prices. This administration is not just evil and stupid, they’re not even good at being greedy

Democracy and fair elections is never the point.

"Well, he's a dictator whose people don't actually want him in charge" is an interesting precedent for this guy to set

CIA Orchestrates Coup D’État To Replace Entire Population Of Venezuela theonion.com/cia-orchestr...

Also if anyone is interested in the history of the United States' attempts to topple leaders in South America and install more friendly dictators then you can - and I'm not joking here - download the files from the CIA website.

Asked by the NY Post if “US troops [will] be on the ground helping run the country,” Trump said: “No, if Maduro’s vice president — if the vice president does what we want, we won’t have to do that.” nypost.com/2026/01/03/u...

Caine is proud of the operation. The US military is good at stuff like this. Put everything on one objective. But that's not the whole story.

Also, there’s no way he installs Machado as Maduro’s replacement. She won the Peace Prize that he thinks “ought to have been” his, and you know he’s still salty about that.

So much that needs to be said, done, fixed, torn out and rebuilt. It's overwhelming but it's the work of a lifetime and we need to build momentum & energy toward something better. Sometimes that means leading w/ hope and optimism, but yeah sometimes you really just have to throw a political shitfit

The president unilaterally decided to attack a sovereign nation and kidnap its leader, and now he says he's just going to run that county himself for a while too. Call your representatives now and demand they impeach him.

To do what, exactly? The House will be back on Tuesday. You, as in literally you as an individual member of the House all on your own, could force a privileged vote on impeachment (among a variety of other possible measures) and it would then get a vote no later than Thursday.

Asked if the US has "boots on the ground" in Venezuela, Trump doesn't answer directly, but uses the past tense: "We had boots on the ground last night. We’re not afraid of it, we don’t mind saying it.”

Trump says he will designate people to run Venezuela, and says the people standing behind him on stage will be "largely" running the country. That appears to be Secretaries Hegseth and Rubio and Gen. Caine.

Just as a practical matter, how is the United States going to “run Venezuela” after the overnight abduction raid. Do US forces currently control an airport? A television station? A major road?

Trump just said the United States is "going to run" Venezuela until there's a transition of power — raising immediate questions as to whether he will order U.S. military deployments.

The US has absolutely incredible power to make the world a better place, but the best levers it has to achieve that are mainly not its hard power, but folks are addicted to the spectacle that only hard power produces, so we keep deploying them in ways that make the US and world worse

all these fucks are like bro you don't understand how precise this operation was bro no one's ever done this bro it was epic, expecting us to be like oh well in that case

AP: No sign in the Venezuelan capital that the U.S. had taken over. apnews.com/live/trump-u...

Today an illegal coup in Venezuela, but where next? Donald Trump talks peace but he is a man of war | Simon Tisdall www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Yikes, the amount of health misinformation peddled during the pandemic by the current NIH Director is eye-watering (the US did NOT have “herd immunity” just before Delta; in fact, during Delta we continued to lag peer countries in COVID & excess all-cause mortality: jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...)

Smedley Butler would have some thoughts.

Cancer research costs too much but we have the money to run Venezuela

“Remove justice and what are states but gangs of bandits on a large scale?” Augustine of Hippo, The City of God (Book IV, Chapter 4)

Unconfirmed reports have appeared that Delcy Rodríguez, Vice President of Venezuela, is in Russia. Russian foreign ministry denies that.

There is no plan, gang

House rejected constraint on Trump’s war powers to invade Venezuela back in Dec

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.

I did warn us. www.greatpower.us/p/the-war-on...

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. If they were, he wouldn’t hide them from Congress.

Maduro was unquestionably a bad actor, but no President has the authority to unilaterally decide to use force to topple a government, thrusting us and the region into uncertainty without justification, a defined end-state or a real plan for preventing the instability that could come next.

Trump's actions continue putting American troops, personnel and citizens at risk both in the region and around the globe. None of that serves our nation’s interests.

Trump on Sheinbaum: "The cartels are running Mexico. She's not running Mexico. We could be politically correct & nice and say, 'Oh, yes, she is.' No no. And I've asked her number times, 'Would you like us to take out the cartels?' ... something is gonna have to be done with Mexico."

“I have an Article II where I can do whatever I want as President.” —Remarks by President Trump at Turning Point USA’s Teen Student Action Summit 2019

Venezuela nationalized its oil industry in 1976. That's 50 years ago. Marco Rubio was 4 years old.