Open Thread

What’s on your mind?

Comments

[Dr. Ed 2]

A second Iranian Revolution?

Picture the U.S. circa 1967 and how the youth culture changed this culture. How people like Hillary Clinton went from the Goldwater Girl of 1964 to the bra-burner of 1969. Iran has a lot of teenagers who want to be French. To be secular and no longer afraid of the church police.

[OpinionsVary]

The spike in Iranians reporting being Zoroastrian always interested me. They're not *actually* followers of Zoroastrianism of course (that's a very small group still) but they're using it as a Iranian nationalist signifier separate from Islam.

[Kazinski]

The real Zoroastrians are the Parsi's who were driven out of Iran to India about 10 centuries ago.

[Frank Drackman]

They want to be French?
Well they’ve got the smoking/not bathing part down.
Seriously, have you ever been within 5,000 miles of Iran?

Frank

[Kazinski]

I don't hear something is happening in Venezuela tonight.

I can't say that I think Trump has any legal justification for military action in Venezuela, but I won't be sorry if Maduro gets toppled. He stopped being the legally elected President about a decade ago.

[Dr. Ed 2]

J Post has pictures….

It’s about time we did something about that twit.

[Kazinski]

I saw this one on X, and I do not see a legitimate military target.

https://x.com/i/status/2007352842403885463

[Commenter_XY]

That is a problem = I can't say that I think Trump has any legal justification for military action in Venezuela...

The ball is in Congress' court.

[myself]

Congress can't legalize something that's illegal under international law.

[Frank Drackman]

That still smells from your ass, from where you pulled that piece of (Redacted)

[Kazinski]

He wasn't fooling around:

"What to know about the U.S. military strikes on Venezuela
President Trump ordered strikes on sites inside Venezuela, including military facilities, U.S. officials told CBS News, as the administration early Saturday ratcheted up its campaign against the regime of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

Mr. Trump later said Maduro and his wife had been "captured and flown out of the Country" during the "large scale strike" by the U.S."

https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/venezuela-us-military-strikes-maduro-trump/

[Commenter_XY]

Kaz, Maduro did say he was ready for talks over drugs, and sanctioned oil. The Donald is bringing him in for that discussion, and putting him up in Club Fed for the duration. /sarc

Agree with Senator Lee. The Congress must address this, even if only to say, "Same old, same old....been there, done that with Noriega (another drug dealing leader)"

[not guilty]

Of course Donald Trump maintains a principled opposition to drug trafficking dictators. Just ask Juan Orlando Hernández of Honduras.

[jb]

Trump heard you could get the Nobel Peace Prize by opposing the Maduro regime, so he decided to start a war to get it.

[Frank Drackman]

Somewhere James Monroe is smiling

[Dr. Ed 2]

And Thomas Jefferson.

[Kazinski]

I fully agree with Senator Mike Lee:

"I look forward to learning what, if anything, might constitutionally justify this action in the absence of a declaration of war or authorization for the use of military force."

I mean other than the fact that Maduro was wearing a very short dress, which is not enumerated in the constitution.

[bloocow2]

The justification is "I'm president Trump and I can do what I want."

The question is whether your Congress remains chickenshit in regards to actually doing anything about it. Not in a "gee, this seems illegal, wish you wouldn't do that" kind of way, but actually asserting leverage.

[Kazinski]

"The question is whether your Congress remains chickenshit in regards to actually doing anything about it."

That's a good point, from what I can see this morning our intervention in Venezuela is most similar to the Panama invasion under Bush1, and the Libyan intervention under Obama.

It is much closer to the Panama invasion, than the Libyan intervention, which was a NATO operation, but of course that means mostly US. In Libya there were 110 cruise missiles fired, and ~1000 military targets destroyed.

In Panama Wikipedia reports US 23 killed,325 wounded.
And Panamanian forces 314 killed, 1,908 captured.

That also seems like a larger scale than what has happened at least so far in Venezuela.

But your point is well taken, here is a helpful AI summary of Congress's response then:
"Following the 1989 U.S. invasion of Panama (Operation Just Cause) to oust General Noriega, Congress generally supported the action with bipartisan approval, commending the troops and President Bush for restoring democracy, while also authorizing significant economic aid for the new government and condemning Noriega's threats, although some criticized the intervention as violating international law. Congress quickly approved emergency funding and lifted sanctions, expressing a sense that the intervention was necessary after diplomatic failures, though it also voiced sadness over U.S. casualties and hoped for a quick democratic transition. "

Which is pretty much how I remember it.

As for International response to the Venezuelan Intervention, I just saw a live shot on SkyNews UK of a large crowd in Spain celebrating the end of the Maduro Regime.

[Magister]

As I recall, the United States still had a significant interest in the Panama Canal Zone, and there was plenty of controversy over previously giving it up, which does not correspond with any previous US interest in Venezuela.

[Kazinski]

Honestly this should justify impeachment, and even conviction this time.

I can not see any constitutional justification.

But, Congress should sit on its hands for at least 6 weeks to two months and let things shake out first.

Two important reasons for that:

Iran might be teetering on the edge, and this Venezuelan action may paralyze authorities there.

BBC: Trump warns US will intervene if Iran kills protesters
17 hours ago
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0q4z33pnnyo

Second: With Venezuela and possibly Iran toppled that will leave Russia increasingly isolated, and the recent momentum in negotiations on ending the Ukraine war, and the loss of Venezuela and Iran as Petro-criminal allies may push Russia to take its gains and go home.

And the loss of significant discounted oil supplies for China should keep them quiet.

Then when its all stabilized we can all happily Impeach and convict Trump and send him home to Mar a lago with the nations heartfelt thanks.

[Brett Bellmore]

"Honestly this should justify impeachment, and even conviction this time."

Absolutely. Should have the last 23 odd times Presidents did it, too.

I'd gladly throw Trump to the wolves to restore constitutional government, if I didn't have every reason to believe the wolves would be put down the moment they finished him off.

[Malika la Maize]

This is a big part of the reason this kind of thing keeps happening: partisanship keeps people from standing by principle (sure, what my guy did was wrong, but if he’s corrected the other side’s guy will do something worse).

[DDHarriman]

You guys stand up to your side first.

[Malika la Maize]

That’s what I’m doing.

[Riva]

"partisanship keeps people from standing by principle" Spit up my coffee, thanks, I needed a good laugh. Self-reflection is not a core strength of the average leftist troll. Of course, a third string troll is a little below average.

[Malika la Maize]

Robot makes my point, not self-aware enough to know it, while citing self-awareness. This is like that time Kirk tricked the robot, I’m worried for Riva-bot.

[Riva]

Of course, it also depends on how a third string parrot troll would define "principle." Maybe he (she or whatever) does stand by the deranged standards that guide his (her or whatever's) trolling?

[Malika la Maize]

Robot can’t compute not all anti-Trumpers are leftists. Bad programming.

[Riva]

Your deranged comments pretty much reflect unhinged leftist views little third string parrot troll, but feel free to identify yourself as a deranged libertarian if that makes you feel better. The important thing to understand is that deranged is still there.

[Randal]

I wish the Russians would upgrade Rivabot. It's getting so stale. I've seen hundreds of versions of this comment by now.

[Riva]

Hundreds? Bit too much, next time choose a more realistic number, less is more.

But, on the other hand, there's just a shitload of trolls out there out there parroting the same tired insults. Not being rugged individualists, trolls seem to prefer the warmth of collectivism. Not a pretty mental picture, so many fat, listless trolls drooling on each other in some troll orgy.

[Randal]

No, it makes this comment multiple times per day, and has been doing so for at least a year. Soon "thousands" will be accurate.

[Riva]

An idiot parroting the same thing as every other troll accuses me of repeating the same comment multiple times a day? Projection doesn't cover this gaslighting bullshit. F-off.

[Armchair]

"Should have the last 23 odd times Presidents did it, too"

But it won't. Congress wants the President to have this sort of power.

Panama, Libya, Sudan, Grenada you name it...

[TwelveInchPianist]

Our system works largely by precedent, and precedent says that Presidents can do this sort of thing. This may or may not be the time for precedent to begin to evolve, we'll see.

[Malika la Maize]

So much for textualism (among other principles), I guess.

[TwelveInchPianist]

What does textualism have to do with anything? The text certainly doesn't say anything clear about Trump's power to do this, other than make him CiC.

[Malika la Maize]

Only Congress can declare war.

[Armchair]

This was a police action.

[Sarcastr0]

What a great precedent that is you invoke.

[Armchair]

Not my precedent. These types of actions have been before.

[thesafesurfer]

An indicted criminal conspirator with a $50 million apprehension reward arrested by American law enforcement officials under military protection. A clear, concise description of what happened devoid of the auto penned Trump Derangement Syndrome.

[not guilty]

The War Powers Act of 1973 grew out of presidential abuses of "a police action," doofus.

[Randal]

Oh Armchair, oh Surfer, how naïve you are. This wasn't about drugs, or Maduro. It's about OIL. It's closer to Iraq than Panama, except without any "coalition." We're gonna be there for years trying to reshape the country to our advantage, and the Venezuelans aren't going to be happy about it.

[Kazinski]

Don't be naive Randal, its not about oil because there is an oil glut now, and increasing Venezuelan production is going to drive down prices and US oil companies are going to start idling drilling rigs and shutting down marginal wells in response.

Hobie has complained low oil prices are already having an impact.

[Randal]

https://time.com/7342937/venezuela-trump-maduro-oil/

I mean... tell it to Trump. I agree it's a bad idea, but that's never stopped Trump before.

[Armchair]

"The War Powers Act of 1973 grew out of presidential abuses of "a police action," doofus."

And Obama blew any reasonable restriction on the War Powers Act out of the water in 2011.

[Kazinski]

Josh, you seem to be confused about Machado's actual status, from Wikipedia:

"Although Machado was not the presidential candidate in the 2024 Venezuelan presidential election, she remained the leader of the opposition to Chavismo during the electoral process.[94][95] The majority support that candidate Edmundo González received in various polls was due to the boost given to him by Machado's support.[96][97][98] Regarding the role that Machado would play in a González Urrutia government, The Telegraph commented: "Should the opposition win, Ms Machado is widely expected to be the de facto leader of a government formally led by Mr González."

I don't think it makes sense to put her in charge of a Maduro loyalist administration. There would be nothing but obstruction, perhaps eventually, but Machado was not a candidate in the last election so its not like she should be the default choice.

[Josh R]

We don't want a Maduro-loyalist regime. It's not legitimate, a major driver of why we took out Maduro (*). It could easily anger Venezuelans against us.

Machado was not permitted to run for office. A vote for Gonzalez was a vote for Machado. But, either would do fine.

(*) Except that Trump said the reason was to control oil. Yet another reason for Venezuelans to be pissed off.

[TwelveInchPianist]

1. Where does the text say only?
2. Did Trump prevent Congress from declaring war?
3. Did Trump declare war?

Other than that, great textualist argument.

[Kazinski]

Not to mention there is no war, from what I can see every thing is peaceful now.

And Maduro's VP says she will cooperate with the US.

Last nights action was an act of war, but there won't be a war.

[Randal]

See my comment above. You can't possibly believe this, Kaz. What does the VP have to do with anything? We're not leaving the VP in charge, we're taking over the country. All of Venezuela isn't going to just lie down for us.

[Kazinski]

I believe this Reuters report from Caracas, which shows calm streets, and even some celebration and dancing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3D0c0I0twPA2Q

Are you seeing anything different, or just hoping?

[Randal]

Oh, how quickly you forget (Iraq) (and Afghanistan) (...).

What're you smokin up there, Kaz, that you think the entirety of Venezuela is gonna be just fine with "temporary" US governance?

[Kazinski]

When it happens then you are entitled to an I told you so, but until it happens you are off base.

[Josh R]

With Trump rejecting Machado, agreeing to Rodriguez (sort of) and saying we will be in charge at first, we are off to a bad start. I fear we don't have a plan and the people won't accept the regime (Rodriguez) staying in place and won't have much patience for a gringo occupation.

[not guilty]

"What does textualism have to do with anything? The text certainly doesn't say anything clear about Trump's power to do this, other than make him CiC."

TwelveInchPinhead, have you even read Article I, § 8? It empowers the Congress to declare war, to make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces, and to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof.

The text of the Necessary and Proper Clause specifically applies to the President and his exercise of authority as commander-in-chief. In the exercise of this authority, Congress in 1973 enacted the War Powers Act, which Trump has brazenly refused to comply with.

The Congress should grow a spine, impeach Trump and remove him from office.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"The Congress should grow a spine, impeach Trump and remove him from office."

That's certainly one remedy, if this was illegal.

[Harvey Mosley]

"...which Trump has brazenly refused to comply with."

If your comment hadn't ignored every time another president has done this it would seem reasonable. Demanding Trump should be impeached and convicted with no mention of similar previous actions by former presidents just shows your TDS.

[not guilty]

"If your comment hadn't ignored every time another president has done this it would seem reasonable. Demanding Trump should be impeached and convicted with no mention of similar previous actions by former presidents just shows your TDS."

A resort to whataboutism is invariably a concession that the original comment is accurate and has struck an exposed nerve. After all, a hit dog will holler. https://linguaholic.com/linguablog/a-hit-dog-will-holler/

And as the noted philosopher Ernest Tubb observed, Two Wrongs Don't Make a Right. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwNvQTe96pk&list=RDFwNvQTe96pk&start_radio=1

[Harvey Mosley]

You misunderstand. I wouldn't be against an impeachment here. But ignoring the previous abuses from earlier presidents just makes it about Trump. It should be about holding all presidents to the law regardless of part or popularity. Your concern appears to be "But Trump!" hence my comment.

[Harvey Mosley]

And the cry of "Whataboutism" is the refuge of the hypocrite.

[not guilty]

In addition, the President's constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, Article II, § 3, includes faithful execution of the War Powers Act of 1973.

As SCOTUS has opined:

[W]hen “the President takes measures incompatible with the expressed or implied will of Congress . . . he can rely only upon his own constitutional powers minus any constitutional powers of Congress over the matter.” Ibid. To succeed in this third category, the President’s asserted power must be both “exclusive” and “conclusive” on the issue.

Zivotofsky v. Kerry, 576 U.S. 1, 10 (2015), [ellipsis in original,] quoting Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579, 637–638 (1952) (Jackson, J., concurring).

[JohnSmith97]

Can anyone point me to any posts by the VC TDS crowd calling for Obama's impeachment for his "kinetic military action"?

Or did history just start with Trump's 2nd inauguration?

Just the usual performative outrage when an (R) does anything a (D) has already done?

[Armchair]

I'd guess Trump will use many of the same authorizations that Bush used for his invasion of Panama. The two operations looks very similar, in many respects.

[Randal]

Except that Panama didn't have any oil. The whole anti-drug-trafficking facade never made sense except as a pretext for regime change. And the purpose of regime change, unlike in Panama, is to pave the way for oil theft. Trump's not even being coy, he's explicitly spelled out what we're truly up to. This is just the beginning.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

I fully agree with Senator Mike Lee

How about now? [Statement on X]

Just got off the phone with
@SecRubio

He informed me that Nicolás Maduro has been arrested by U.S. personnel to stand trial on criminal charges in the United States, and that the kinetic action we saw tonight was deployed to protect and defend those executing the arrest warrant

This action likely falls within the president’s inherent authority under Article II of the Constitution to protect U.S. personnel from an actual or imminent attack.

[David Nieporent]

86 47.

[Armchair]

Stop making coded calls to kill the President.

[Malika la Maize]

Yawn.

[hobie]

https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/eighty-six-meaning-origin

What does 'eighty-six' mean?

"Eighty-six is slang meaning "to throw out," "to get rid of," or "to refuse service to." It comes from 1930s soda-counter slang meaning that an item was sold out. There is varying anecdotal evidence about why the term eighty-six was used, but the most common theory is that it is rhyming slang for nix."

[Armchair crawling onto beach of deserted island. Extends arm]...'Must...clutch........pearls!'

[Armchair]

David has been told, repeatedly, that that phrase is used as a coded call to kill the President. Regardless of what other definitions it may have.

He continues to call for it.

[Malika la Maize]

Given its other definitions it’s likely he’s calling for one of them, of course.

[Armchair]

He knows what he's doing.

[Malika la Maize]

What do you tend to say about dog whistles?

[Sarcastr0]

I'm pretty sure he does it partially because it makes you act like an idiot.

[Armchair]

Calling for people to be assassinated using coded language that he can say "oh, I didn't mean THAT...." later?

[Sarcastr0]

Or:
-It's not what you're super sure it is,
-that's why only you [and Riva lol] care,
-and thus you're acting like an idiot.

[SRG2]

And lo! you act like an idiot again.

[jb]

Armchair has been told, repeatedly, that it means no such thing. He continues to engage in fake outrage.

[Joe_dallas]

jb 1 hour ago

"Armchair has been told, repeatedly, that it means no such thing"

Yet - that has become the specific meaning of the phrase.

[Malika la Maize]

It certainly has not.

[Joe_dallas]

You have been corrected on that multiple times - keep up with the alternate universe of the changing meanings that suit your fancy

[hobie]

You leave Joe_dallas alone. Meanings change all the time. Like what do we call insurrections these days?

[JohnSmith97]

I'm pretty sure CNN calls them "mostly peaceful" demonstrations when they are done by the followers of one party.
(20+ dead, $2+B in damages)

"darkest day in US history" when done by the other.
(1 dead, a few broken windows)

The totally neutral press in action.

[Magister]

Estimated costs arising from the single January 6th insurrection was $2.7 billion (from the GAO). 2000 people took part in that insurrection with injuries and several fatalities to the police; demonstrations prompted by the murder of George Floyd numbered over 6000, with tens of millions participating, most of which were entirely peaceful. (Not going to get into the weeds of how much of the damage right wing provocateurs caused in those demonstrations.) Add in that January 6th represented the only time a US president sought to prevent a peaceful transfer of power to his successor, and that alone might make for the "darkest day in US history".

[jb]

By zero people who use it and somehow at the same time by all the people who disingenuously try to interpret it.

Why don't you find a single example of someone using the term also acknowledging that they intend it to mean "kill Trump"? Absent that it is quite clear that "86" retains the common meaning by basically everyone outside of the so-called party of free speech.

[Armchair]

When people say "All the Jews should die in ovens"...and then say later "oh, I didn't mean kill them."

We all know what they really meant. Especially when it's pointed out.

[Magister]

Was there ever a time when "All Jews should die in ovens" had a benign meaning? Even before the Holocaust? This is a profoundly stupid attempt to change the meaning of 86.

[jb]

Right. So you can't find a single such example, I guess. Or maybe you have an example of someone saying that all the Jews should be killed in ovens who then claimed it meant something else?

[Randal]

The specific meaning of the phrase has become "let's trigger Armchair, Rivabot, and Dallas for funsies."

[David Nieporent]

David has been told, repeatedly, that that phrase is used as a coded call to kill the President.

I have been told that… by loser trolls speaking in bad faith.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Didn't your HR explain to you that words mean whatever offended parties want them to mean, whether loser trolls speaking in bad faith or not?

[David Nieporent]

I am my HR. And I did not tell myself that, no.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Well, you know what they say about someone who's his own HR. What will happen if you offend yourself?

[David Nieporent]

I will ground myself for a week.

[Harvey Mosley]

Trolls like the BBC?
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1de47kk31eo

From the link: "More recently, the term has taken on another lesser-known meaning - "to kill", according to Merriam-Webster, the oldest publisher of dictionaries in the US."

[jb]

From your own link: "In military or law enforcement jargon, it has also come to mean to eliminate or kill, according to a blog entry by Merriam-Webster.

However, the dictionary does not include that meaning in its entry for 86, explaining that this omission is "due to its relative recency and sparseness of use"."

So yes, it very rarely means that. Why wouldn't you assume it's normal meaning instead, especially when everyone that uses it tells you that's what they intend?

Because you're trying to be mad on pretextual ground, just like every other day of the week.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Anyone who knows history knows that in the government context, it is a reference to the most feared top secret US assassin in history.

It is a call to direct that agent to target Trump.

[jb]

"In the government context"

LOL

[Armchair]

When someone tells you what a coded message means...perhaps you should stop using it in isolation, if you don't agree with it.

[Absaroka]

Like the OK sign?

[DDHarriman]

David this threat against the POTtUS has been reported to the Secret Servicel

[hobie]

And we're reporting your threats to Jews to AIPAC!

[DDHarriman]

Hey brother, I guarantee you and I are on the same ADL lists.

[Davy C]

That's not a threat. Seems more like incitement, but it's not that either, legally.

[Riva]

If anyone ever wondered why I call him "crazy Dave," wonder no more.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Threatening to kill the POTUS is s crime,

[Malika la Maize]

Luckily you for you being a moron is not.

[David Nieporent]

If they ever make me carry a rifle the first man I want to get in my sights is L.B.J.

[Bored Lawyer]

How do you propose to do that, specifically?

The choices are:
(1) assassination
(2) impeachment
(3) removal under the 25th Amendment
(4) pray to God that Trump die or become disabled.

(2) and (3) are not happening. (4) requires one to believe in God. So that leaves (1).

Care to offer an alternative?

[hobie]

I ain't mad this happened. Dictators are bad. Yet, this ain't none of our business. Like I asked yesterday, how does this enrich the Trump Clan?

[DDHarriman]

Hey brother, since Trump is ZOG we know who this serves.

[hobie]

Kneel before Zog!

[Frank Drackman]

"Zog"?? you're probably too stupid to even know what it stands for and even if you do, your White Surpremercists whole Spiel is that You're the real Jews, and would follow "Zionists". Also by using that term your marking yourself as over 50, let me guess, 1988 F-250 that you actually use to collect cans by the side of the road in Dumbfuck Arkansa, that and the Plasma Center and keeps you in Lone Star for most of the week,

Frank

[not guilty]

How is Trump ZOG, DDHarriman? That is a bizarre assertion even from you.

[DDHarriman]

Trump is more MIGA than MAGA.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

OTOH, I don't really want some foreign power to come into our country and overthrow Trump, citing violations of international law and so forth. That sort of thing would be problematic.

[David Nieporent]

What if the people who do that claim to be peaceful tourists?

[John F. Carr]

My first reaction: I hope Trump knows what he is doing. Or Trump's team knows. I remember the aftermath of the invasion of Iraq.

Second reaction: Good operational security. They had to admit that something was up. We weren't expecting a kidnapping/arrest/coup.

Third reaction: How long until a judge orders Maduro released?

Where is María Corina Machado now?

[hobie]

Well, has Maduro actually committed an actionable crime in the US...like murdering our citizens in boats or something? Or did we just basically kidnap him and his wife?

[SRG2]

Basically kidnap him. It's hard to see what crime he has committed that the US has any jurisdiction other than FYTW.

[Brett Bellmore]

Likewise for Noreaga, for all the good it did him.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Conspiracy to smuggle drugs.

[Zarniwoop]

he was indicted in 2020 in SDNY; there are detailed factual allegations.

The TL,DR:

1) narco-terrorism conspiracy
2) cocaine importation conspiracy
3) possession of machine guns/destructive devices
4) conspiracy to possess machine guns/destructive devices

https://thehill.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/01/maduro_moros_et_al_superseding_indictment_sdny_redacted_0.pdf

[ducksalad]

Good news for Bondi. At least she's spared the worry that another grand jury would refuse to indict. Now she just needs to find a legitimately appointed US attorney to handle the next step.

[Zarniwoop]

They may have to move fast to get an arrest warrant for Cilia Flores de Maduro, though. I don't see her charged in the 2020 indictment. The only mention of her I see in the 2020 indictment is on p.15:

During recorded meetings with the sources, Campo Flores and Flores de Freitas explained that they were at "war" with the United States, described the Cartel de Los Soles, discussed a connection to a "commander for the FARC" who was "supposedly high-ranked," and indicated that they were seeking to raise $20 million in drug proceeds to support a campaign by the Venezuelan first lady -- and wife of MADURO MOROS -- in connection with a late-2015 election for the Venezuelan National Assembly.

It seems like Campo Flores might be related to Cilia Flores de Maduro (Maduro's wife), but that fact alone is probably not sufficient for indicting her. So what happens to her could be an interesting but minor side show. Or she'll become a witness. Hard to predict.

Also, assuming she's not [yet] indicted, DOJ will need to consider the 5 year general statute of limitations for Federal crimes, or charge offenses that have a longer SOL. So, what evidence might DOJ have showing Cilia Flores de Maduro's involvement since Jan. 3, 2021?

[Zarniwoop]

Ope! Cilia Flores de Maduro is charged in the recently-unsealed SDNY indictment (2025? I don't see a date, but Trump-appointed Jay Clayton signed it as the US Atty). It looks quite similar to the 2020 indictment, but has some additional stuff in it.

So, no quick get out of jail free card for her.

https://www.justice.gov/opa/media/1422326/dl

[Dr. Ed 2]

What happens when some judge does order him freed?

[hobie]

I wonder if Maduro and the wife are in a jail cell. Also, did we scoop up his two teenage daughters, or just leave them?

[Joe_dallas]

Which judge would have jurisdiction? Any Obama or Biden Appointed district judge sitting an any federal district?

[Zarniwoop]

Facts help, not illiterate speculation.

There's a criminal indictment in SDNY.

[Joe_dallas]

I was unaware of the criminal indictment, though my point remains the same. Multiple district judges have been behaving as if they think article 3 gives them the power conduct domestic and foreign policy, at least during Trump's presidency.

[Zarniwoop]

I was unaware of the criminal indictment

I'm not surprised.

though my point remains the same.

And then you double down on the illiterate speculation, with a side order of uninformed "bad judges!" hand waving.

[ducksalad]

Everybody's favorite district.

[not guilty]

"Which judge would have jurisdiction? Any Obama or Biden Appointed district judge sitting an any federal district?"

The docket number includes the designation (AKH). I surmise that that refers to Senior Judge Alvin Hellerstein of the Southern District of New York, who was appointed by President Clinton.

[ducksalad]

JFC-

I remember the aftermath of the invasion of Iraq.

As much as I despise Trump, it has to be admitted that he seems strongly averse to getting troops bogged down in foreign countries. He prefers surprise stuff that's over quickly.

How long until a judge orders Maduro released?

In this case there was an indictment in place. IANAL but that would seem to rule out rapid stuff like releasing for no probable cause. And of course we're assuming this will even be run through the criminal justice system. There's a remote chance that Trump and Vance will exhibit him in the Oval Office, make him hand over oil and do other concessions, and then send him back after the "deal" with lots of bragging about how we won trillions.

Where is María Corina Machado now?

Assuming this whole exercise actually brings down the Chavistas, she would need to find a path to legitimately taking power.

Her actual official position is roughly equivalent to Hakeem Jeffries in the US. Hakeem wouldn't become president if some other country abducted Trump.

It's worth keeping in mind that if one believes that last election was rigged, and the opposition really won - which seems to be the US position - Edmundo Gonzalez was the official opposition candidate. Maybe he could take over, appoint her VP (or something) and then resign immediately.

----
PS Just to be clear, I believe the whole operation is wrong even if the consequences end up being good. Same thing I said for Panama/Noriega (which did turn out OK) and Libya/Qaddafi (which didn't).

[Joe_dallas]

Agree that most everyone agrees that the last election was rigged/falsified/stolen or what ever other term one considers appropriate. Though worth noting that Carter and a few others blessed hugo's prior elections as clean and fair.

[Zarniwoop]

Though worth noting that Carter and a few others blessed hugo's prior elections as clean and fair.

Hugo Chavez died in 2013. Hugo Chavez is not Nicolas Maduro.

The discussion is about Maduro's election, years after Chavez died.

Are you one of the true believers who still can't tell that Chavez and Maduro are different people, and still think that years-dead Chavez ordered Dominion to alter the 2020 U.S. election results?

[Joe_dallas]

Your response is simply inane and non relevant.
Not only is your response non relevant, you accuse me of not knowing that Hugo and Maduro are different people - even after I specifically stated and referred to Hugo and not Maduro.

[Zarniwoop]

LOL. If you criticize the "last election" then immediately laud the fairness of "hugo's prior elections", the natural parsing is that you think "hugo" was elected in the "last election".

So yes, your comment did make me think you're an illiterate wanker who gets Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro confused (possibly because you can't even use first name vs. last name in a consistent manner). Well, to be honest, it actually just added to the already-copious body of evidence.

[David Nieporent]

Here's the thing: if he didn't confuse them, then what was the point of his comment at all? Besides to get in a shot at Jimmy Carter? (Which, to be fair, I am not opposed to, when relevant.) What would the fairness vel non of one guy's elections years earlier have to do with whether a different election was fair?

[JoeFromtheBronx]

As much as I despise Trump, it has to be admitted that he seems strongly averse to getting troops bogged down in foreign countries. He prefers surprise stuff that's over quickly.

"As much as I despise ... but"

Accentuate the positive. Good to be optimistic.

So, what? Drone strikes and stuff? Plus, what about all the other things, aside from U.S. troops, involved in the aftermath of Iraq II?

[ducksalad]

Who knows, he's becoming more erratic. But there's a pattern of prematurely declaring victory (victory like never before, perhaps in the history of our nation...) and moving on. So far it looks like they haven't targeted the rest of Maduro's team.

I'm sure Trump/Rubio hope that the opposition will take care of the rest, and maybe that's not totally unrealistic.

[Magister]

Ooh, get out the "Mission Accomplished" banner!

[Randal]

As much as I despise Trump, it has to be admitted that he seems strongly averse to getting troops bogged down in foreign countries. He prefers surprise stuff that's over quickly.

What makes you think this is over? Quite the contrary, I think.

[Zarniwoop]

L'Affaire du Venezuela (2026 edition) almost certainly ain't over, but "U.S. boots on the ground to get Maduro" was over in a few hours. Hence the "He [Trump] prefers surprise stuff that's over quickly."

[Randal]

Allow me to reiterate:

he seems strongly averse to getting troops bogged down in foreign countries

You better believe we are now bogged down in Venezuela.

[Michael P]

Venezuelans seem pretty chuffed about it: https://x.com/Inevitablewest/status/2007416426659975448

[Sarcastr0]

No one is weeping for Maduro.

The international order we've had for nigh on 80 years, though...

The MAGA right's gotten so adept at conflating ends and means, I fear it's given them some permanent cognitive damage.

[Michael P]

The international order survived Putin trying to depose Zelenskyy in 2022, and it will survive Trump arresting Maduro in 2026.

One of these days, there will actually be a wolf when you cry "wolf", and nobody will believe you.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Let's not forget Putin annexing Crimea in 2014.

[Sarcastr0]

If the US's place in the world were the exact same as Russia's, and if we failed just like Putin, you'd have a point.

But that's not at all true, so it's more a you don't know what you're talking about.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Yes, this really threatens the international order that caused Putin to fail to take Crimea. What's your point?

[Michael P]

It's a talking point. They don't have points that can be defended in more than a soundbite. Is always Year Zero for them, or maybe they are worried that the 80-year-old order is decrepit and senile, and cannot take the stresses survived by (checks notes) a 38-year-old international order when we invaded Grenada in the middle of the Cold War, or even by a 65-year-old international order when the US intervened in a Libyan civil war to overthrow its government. (The excuse then was that we were blowing things up to enforce a ceasefire, ha ha.)

I mean, these people complain that the US acts as the world's policeman, including when we do something like a SWAT raid to arrest Maduro, but had no real objection to Obama targeting civilians around the world with drone assassination strikes.

[Sarcastr0]

So you're on to 'sure we ignored the law, but it doesn't matter since we did it before.'

had no real objection to Obama targeting civilians around the world with drone assassination strikes.
Yeah, you would think that. You couldn't imagine criticizing a President of your own party.

Though the melodrama of calling them 'drone assassination strikes' is vintage. Reminds me of when people wanted to talk about 'homicide bombers' or 'freedom fries.'

[Malika la Maize]

Comparing us to Putin’s Russia. With friends like this does the US need enemies?

[CountmontyC]

So should we return Maduro to Venezuela? Or do you propose a different remedy?

[Sarcastr0]

Read my very first sentence, and then try again.

[CountmontyC]

Your very first sentence does not suggest a policy choice. It merely states that Maduro is not a sympathetic figure. I ask again what we should do about him? If we keep him in custody doesn't that suggest Trump's actions were correct? If Trump's actions are wrong shouldn't we return Maduro where he was taken from?

[Sarcastr0]

If we keep him in custody doesn't that suggest Trump's actions were correct?

If you start riding a tiger, it's a bad idea to dismount but also it was a bad idea off the break.

[CountmontyC]

Still avoiding the question I see. What should we do with Maduro now?

[ducksalad]

The least bad thing, considering that the deed is already done?

Bring him to the Oval Office and get him to resign on live TV. Behind the scenes get his successors to agree to snap elections. Then release him with the understanding that he'll go anywhere except Venezuela.

Not that I think any of that is legit. Just that it's now the least bad option. No martyr for the Chavistas and no bullshit trial that further corrupts our legal system.

[CountmontyC]

The only nations that would take Maduro unless he brought billions of dollars of Venezuela's money would be Cuba, Russia or China who would promptly return him to Venezuela where he would denounce his resignation as being under duress and thus null and void. This would probably cause a Venezuelan civil war with thousands if not tens of thousands of deaths. Of course you could detain him for months or years ( something like putting him in prison).

[ducksalad]

Actually I think places like Qatar or UAE would not only take him, they'd agree to discreetly make sure he stayed on the beach and out of politics.

Someone upthread asked what happened to Comical Ali / Baghdad Bob. He ended up living very quietly in the UAE. But there are lots of other precedents of dictators leaving and staying gone.

Also, I think you underestimate how important it is for a strongman dictator to project strength. Being humbled on live TV is politically fatal for them.

[CountmontyC]

Why would those nations accept him unless he brought boatloads of money? Money stolen from poor Venezuelans.

[ducksalad]

Why would those nations accept him unless he brought boatloads of money?

Same reason they already do all kinds of favors for us. We agree to overlook that they're among the least democratic countries on the planet - like less democracy than even Iran or Venezuela - and instead deal them like they're respectable countries treated nicely with respect to trade, visas, diplomatic representation, etc. We don't talk about elections much less regime change. In return they do what we want on matters like this, let us keep naval bases, maintain a favorable business climate for Americans, tone it down a bit on Israel, and don't embarrass us by openly butchering opposition journalists.

[Sarcastr0]

Dude, you're the one who thinks what we do with him now somehow retroactively validates us snatching him.

I don't think it much matters what we do with him now. We're riding the tiger.

[CountmontyC]

And you are still avoiding the question. Ducksalad at least answered the question though I disagree with his answer. He was at least brave enough whereas you are just a cowardly pussy.

[Sarcastr0]

You are insisting I tell you my position on something I said I don’t think matters?

Weirdo.

[Commenter_XY]

Stick his ass in jail, and have a trial. Just like Noriega. Keep your promise to VEN that the people will see the benefits of US investment in VEN oil infrastructure.

[Armchair]

"The international order we've had for nigh on 80 years, though.."

Granada
Panama
Kosovo
Serbia
Libya
Syria
Iraq
Somalia

[Sarcastr0]

You're conflating when we went at it alone vs. when we got an international coalition.

You're ignoring when we had Congress on board.

You're conflating bombings with boots on the ground.

You're conflating kidnapping with striking military targets.
=================
If you need to ignore every distinguishing detail to create the precedent you want, that kind of shows your thesis is full of it.

[Armchair]

Try looking at all those, and fitting them into your events.

[Sarcastr0]

Add in the Civil War too then. Why not?

[Michael P]

The guy who was concern trolling about the "international order we've had for nigh on 80 years" asks why people didn't count the US Civil War as a counterexample to his storyline?

Good grief.

[Sarcastr0]

I'll add concern trolling to the list of terms you don't understand.

And reducto ad absurdum.

[Armchair]

"80 years"

At least don't move your own goalposts.

[Michael P]

You have mistaken your straw man for a reductio ad absurdum. You are the one who doesn't understand these things.

[bernard11]

They won't stay chuffed if Trump installs some sort of puppet government, or helps himself to the Venezuelan oil.

[hobie]

Probably Trump: "In my first administration I made America a net oil exporter. Then the Biden Crime Family shut down all energy production. Our rig workers were treated very unfairly. Then in my second term we became net exporters to the world once again."

Also probably Trump: "I'm pleased to announce that we will be flooding American refineries with IMPORTED Venezuelan crude! Some said we couldn't do it."

Drill, baby drill! Amirite?!

[Commenter_XY]

Better to build entirely new refineries in VEN, the oil is refining intensive.

[Kazinski]

I was somewhat gobsmacked by something I saw in Jack Smith's recently released deposition to congressional staffers.

(Link for NG here: https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ?si=GcOc9Fn359xZK-iI )

Q But the President's statements that he believed the election was rife with fraud, those certainly are statements that are protected by the First Amendment, correct?
A: Absolutely not. If they are made to target a lawful government function and they are made with knowing falsity, no, they are not. That was my point about fraud not being protected by the First Amendment.
Q: I mean, there is a long list of disputed elections, I mean, the election of 1800, 1960, year 2000, where candidates believed they were wronged by the -- you know, because they lost. And there's a long history of candidates speaking out about they believe there's been fraud, there's been other problems with the integrity of the election process. And I think you would agree that those types of statements are sort of at the core of the First Amendment rights of a Presidential candidate, right?
A: There is no historical analog for what President Trump did in this case. As we said in the indictment, he was free to say that he thought he won the election. He was even free to say falsely that he won the election. But what he was not free to do was violate Federal law and use knowing -- knowingly false statements about election fraud to target a lawful government function. That he was not allowed to do. And that differentiates this case from any past history.

So even if you agree with Smith, and I do agree that Trump lost the 2020 election, lets look at a few hypotheticals.

I hope we can all agree that protecting the border is an "important governing function", so lets pretend a President and his Cabinet officers claimed for several years the border was closed. Then when that lie became untenable, then they claimed they needed new legislation to regain control of the border.

That's fraud right? And keep in mind you don't have to agree with that, a jury will find the facts and decide if they think that statement was fraudulent.

Or lets pretend healthcare is an important government function, and a president lies to be able to pass his signature health care plan claiming "if you like your doctor, then you can keep your doctor.

That's fraud too, under Smith's definition.

And then I might also ask why Stacey Abrams wasn't charged for fraud when she claimed with even less justification than Trump she got cheated out of victory in an election.

[David Nieporent]

It's like you copied and pasted Smith's testimony without reading it.

[Kazinski]

I got a bad taste in my mouth when I read it, and had to wash it out with some Stout Barrel Aged Kentucky Whiskey*.

But I did read it.

Do you think Smith is articulating a crime? Can you point to a court case with his "knowingly false statements about election fraud to target a lawful government function" standard?

* Bourbon has to be aged in brand new American Oak barrels for 3 years, so if they use recycled barrels from stout, wine or port, they can't call it bourbon, and often the stout, wine, or port barbells had a first go round as bourbon barrels.

[Joe_dallas]

Crazy dave accuses a lot of people of not reading the docs, especially when they shed a bad light on leftists.

[David Nieporent]

There are no "leftists" in this discussion, stupid.

[David Nieporent]

But I did read it.

Then why did you ignore the part where he said "he was free to say that he thought he won the election. He was even free to say falsely that he won the election," and ask about whether two other people saying things you claim are false had committed a crime by doing so?

Do you think Smith is articulating a crime?

I think the indictment articulates the crime, and that you should read it to understand the charge rather than out-of-court comments by the prosecutor.

[not guilty]

For Kazinski's benefit, the original and superseding indictment are here: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.258149/gov.uscourts.dcd.258149.1.0_11.pdf and here: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.258149/gov.uscourts.dcd.258149.226.0_38.pdf

Idle speculation about whether a president's hypothetical speech on other topics would or would not be First Amendment protected serves no purpose. As a general principle, offers to engage in illegal transactions are categorically excluded from First Amendment protection. United States v. Williams, 553 U.S. 285 (2008). SCOTUS has expressly rejected the contention that the constitutional freedom for speech and press extends its immunity to speech or writing used as an integral part of conduct in violation of a valid criminal statute. Giboney v. Empire Storage & Ice Co., 336 U.S. 490, 498 (1949). “[I]t has never been deemed an abridgement of freedom of speech or press to make a course of conduct illegal merely because the conduct was in part initiated, evidenced, or carried out by means of language, either spoken, written, or printed.” Id., at 502. "Speech intended to bring about a particular unlawful act has no social value; therefore, it is unprotected. United States v. Hansen, 599 U.S. 762, ___ (2023), citing Williams, 553 U.S., at 298.

[hobie]

I agree. Smith is wrong to say that words constitute fraud in this particular case. Then and there, he should have said as much, but then segued into all the actual illegal acts

[Riva]

The first amendment protected claim of fraud was at the core of the thug’s abusive circular DC indictment. He claimed that President Trump used knowingly false claims of election fraud as a central means of carrying out the alleged conspiracies to defraud the government. But nice to see even a troll can now acknowledge the abuse.

[not guilty]

The First Amendment does not protect a conspiracy to defraud, Riva.

SCOTUS has expressly rejected the contention that the constitutional freedom for speech and press extends its immunity to speech or writing used as an integral part of conduct in violation of a valid criminal statute. Giboney v. Empire Storage & Ice Co., 336 U.S. 490, 498 (1949). “[I]t has never been deemed an abridgement of freedom of speech or press to make a course of conduct illegal merely because the conduct was in part initiated, evidenced, or carried out by means of language, either spoken, written, or printed.” Id., at 502. "Speech intended to bring about a particular unlawful act has no social value; therefore, it is unprotected. United States v. Hansen, 599 U.S. 762, ___ (2023), citing United States v. Williams, 553 U.S. 285, 298 (2008).

[DDHarriman]

> If they are made to target a lawful government function and they are made with knowing falsity, no, they are not.

What statute is this referring to? What does "target a lawful function" mean?

> But what he was not free to do was violate Federal law and use knowing -- knowingly false statements about election fraud to target a lawful government function.

What statute did he violate by committing which action?

[Michael P]

Apparently Jack Smith is implying that miscounting and/or manufacturing votes -- what Donald Trump was targeting -- is a legitimate government function.

I am also curious to know what specific federal statute With had in mind.

[Malika la Maize]

Trump was targeting manufacturing of votes when he asked them to find the exact amount he needed to go over!

[Brett Bellmore]

For the umpteenth time, he didn't ask them to find anything. You're reasoning as though that dishonest paraphrase most media outlets ran with was an actual quote.

[Malika la Maize]

“So look. All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have because we won the state.”

[DDHarriman]

So what? You don't think politicians hunt for votes in close elections? lmao

[Magister]

Most politicians hunt for votes in legitimate ways, through recounts and court challenges. Politicians who forge election certificates and organize insurrections and other illegitimate way should be prosecuted.

[DDHarriman]

So when Trump was talking to the GA SoS it was in service of his conspiracy of the backup electors and the J6 rally?

Are you this stupid on purpose?

[David Nieporent]

When Trump was thuggishly threatening the GA SoS if the guy didn't help him steal the election by "finding" 11k votes, it was in service of his conspiracy to steal the election, as were his fake electors and the J6 rally. It was one conspiracy with one object and multiple steps to get there.

[Brett Bellmore]

Except, YET AGAIN, he didn't ask the GA SoS to find anything.

This demonstrates just how serious a matter it was when most media outlets decided to run with a deliberately deceptive paraphrase, instead of actually quoting anything he'd said. They knew that for decades to come idiots like you would think he'd actually said it, even with the transcript right in front of you, because the lie was just too much better than the truth.

[Magister]

Trump didn't do just one illegal thing, you know. But getting Georgia to reconsider its certified vote would indeed have promoted his objective of blocking the electoral vote count.

[David Nieporent]

Except, YET AGAIN, he didn't ask the GA SoS to find anything.

Yet again, he did.

But also again: what legal or moral distinction do you think there is between, "Go into the vault and get me all the cash you have in there or I'll shoot you" and "Let me go into the vault and get all the cash I have in there or I'll shoot you"?

[Brett Bellmore]

"Yet again, he did."

I realize that lying about the easily checked is kind of your gig here, but, no, he didn't.

Donald Trump Phone Call Transcript with Sec. of State Brad Raffensperger

[David Nieporent]

Yes, I've read the transcript.

And I repeat: not only are you simply cherrypicking words from it, but you haven't explained what possible difference it makes who he was demanding "find" the imaginary votes?

I'll repeat yet again (so I can correct my typo): what legal or moral distinction do you think there is between, "Go into the vault and get me all the cash you have in there or I'll shoot you" and "Let me go into the vault and get all the cash [you] have in there or I'll shoot you"?

[Malika la Maize]

Not by pressuring state officials to “find them.”

[DDHarriman]

Where was the threat of pressure?

[David Nieporent]

The part where he told them that what they had done was criminal and that it was a "big risk" to them, told them it was "very dangerous" for them to say that the election was valid.

[Brett Bellmore]

Yes, he asked for access to find them himself, which is not what you had claimed.

[David Nieporent]

1) As always, Trump rambles incoherently and you just pick the interpretation that you want.

2) Even if that were right, so what? What is the legal or practical significance of whether he wanted his own flunkies to "find" the 11k imaginary votes or whether he wanted Georgia officials to do so?

[Brett Bellmore]

What is the legal or practical significance about whether you lie about what he said, or tell the truth?

If there were no significance, you wouldn't bother sticking with the lie.

The point of the deceptive paraphrase, with the scare quotes around "find", is to imply that he was actually telling Raffensperger to invent those votes.

While the truth is that he was just asking for access to voting records, in the expectation that he'd find enough irregularities to throw the Georgia outcome into doubt.

Look, the very fact that they insisted on a paraphrase with just one original word is, by itself, enough of an indictment of the media. There's never a good reason for the media to substitute a paraphrase for what somebody actually said, the moment you see one, alarm bells should start ringing.

[David Nieporent]

Still false, and also terrible spin. There was no "expectation." Trump said he already knew the answer, and he just needed those ballots to be found, and that it was criminal for Georgia not to do so.

But again: what does it matter whether he was telling Raffensperger to invent votes or offering to do it himself?

[DDHarriman]

Smith: "targeting a lawful government function"
Stinky Pajeet:" targeting manufacturing of votes"

That may be okie-dokie in street shitter country, but not in modern human civilizations.

[Malika la Maize]

More deranged than most of your comments, and that’s saying something. Was your New Year’s Resolution to go off your meds or is it the Medicaid work requirement kicking in?

[DDHarriman]

That doesn't explain away your low IQ pajeet hot take

[Frank Drackman]

Dingle Dick Hairyman has a very very high "IQ" which in his case is his "Idiot Quotient"

[Josh R]

From the indictment:

Count 1: 18 U.S.C. § 371 (Conspiracy to Defraud the United States)

Count 2: 18 U.S.C. § 1512(k) (Conspiracy to Obstruct an Official Proceeding)

Count 3: 18 U.S.C. §§ 1512(c)(2), 2 (Obstruction of and Attempt to Obstruct an Official Proceeding)

Count 4: 18 U.S.C. § 241 (Conspiracy Against Rights)

[Josh R]

The border and health care are policy issues, completely different than trying to steal an election.

Abrams comes under Smith's "He was even free to say falsely that he won the election" because she didn't then try to steal the election.

[Zarniwoop]

Shorter Kazinski: let's set up weak partisan hypos that don't acknowledge a difference between

Lie 1: "I'm rich"
Lie 2: "I'm really rich"
Later: "I was knowingly pretending to poor, so I just got a job to fix it"

versus

Lie 1: "I'm rich"
Lie 2: "I'm really rich"
Later: "I was knowingly pretending to poor, so I just robbed a bank to fix it"

It's almost like he's dishonestly trying muddle the distinction between intentional lies that are protected speech, followed by legal things to correct the lie (example 1) and intentional lies that are protected speech, but are still evidence of motive and intent to commit an actual crime (example 2).

(I used "intentional lies" on purpose; Kaz's constant return to the Obama-was-lying gotcha does not demonstrate that Obama knew and intended that "you can keep your doctor" was false when he said it. Sometimes a policy is made with honest intent, but still turns out to be incorrect in the long term.)

[Josh R]

If Trump's lies were integral to criminal conduct (fraud), those lies are not only evidence of fraud, they are part of the fraud (and not protected speech).

In contrast even if Obama knowingly lied, there was no criminal conduct those lies advanced. Thus, Obama's lie was protected.

[Brett Bellmore]

"Kaz's constant return to the Obama-was-lying gotcha does not demonstrate that Obama knew and intended that "you can keep your doctor" was false when he said it."

Actually we have testimony from within the Obama administration confirming that, yes, he knew it was false when he said it.

NBC: Obama admin. knew millions could not keep their health insurance

"Four sources deeply involved in the Affordable Care Act tell NBC NEWS that 50 to 75 percent of the 14 million consumers who buy their insurance individually can expect to receive a “cancellation” letter or the equivalent over the next year because their existing policies don’t meet the standards mandated by the new health care law. One expert predicts that number could reach as high as 80 percent. And all say that many of those forced to buy pricier new policies will experience “sticker shock.”

None of this should come as a shock to the Obama administration. The law states that policies in effect as of March 23, 2010 will be “grandfathered,” meaning consumers can keep those policies even though they don’t meet requirements of the new health care law. But the Department of Health and Human Services then wrote regulations that narrowed that provision, by saying that if any part of a policy was significantly changed since that date -- the deductible, co-pay, or benefits, for example -- the policy would not be grandfathered.

Buried in Obamacare regulations from July 2010 is an estimate that because of normal turnover in the individual insurance market, “40 to 67 percent” of customers will not be able to keep their policy. And because many policies will have been changed since the key date, “the percentage of individual market policies losing grandfather status in a given year exceeds the 40 to 67 percent range.”

That means the administration knew that more than 40 to 67 percent of those in the individual market would not be able to keep their plans, even if they liked them. "

Just to be clear: The bolded text relates that they went out of their way to write the regulations to REDUCE how many people could keep their policies.

[Zarniwoop]

The NBC article shows that there were regs written in Jul 2010. Obama's "keep your doctor" push was in 2009. Frankly, it's a lousy source for the whole "what did Obama know and when did he know it" question.

Politifact has a much better timeline connecting the dates of precise "keep your doctor" statements with key events like passage of the ACA in March 2010 and the administration's release of the regs in June-July 2010. It's ... underwhelming.

There's one - exactly one - statement attributed to Obama with the word "doctor", on Oct 3, 2012: "If you've got health insurance, it doesn't mean a government takeover. You keep your own insurance. You keep your own doctor. But it does say insurance companies can't jerk you around."

The way I read it, the administration's statements changed as the facts on the ground changed. This happens, because duh, implementation is harder than aspiration. Yawn. Not nearly enough to seriously enbunchenate my panties.

And that's without even getting into:
1) whether Obama's "doesn't mean a government takeover. You can keep your own insurance. You can keep your own doctor." means "exactly the same policy, exactly the same doctor, no changes ever" versus "the ACA is not socialized medicine, you keep having your own insurance, you won't be forced to see a different doctor each time you visit";
2) whether Obama knew the exact details of an estimate buried deep in regs that were promulgated 2+ years earlier, that he remembered them, and then knowingly lied about them; and
3) the extent to which "normal turnover" predating the ACA is the ACA's fault in the first place.

But sure, Kaz has to keep trotting it out because that's all he's got for partisan "OMG OBAMA IS A LIAR!! FRAUD!!1!" bait.

https://www.politifact.com/obama-like-health-care-keep/

[Kazinski]

Zarni, I was pointing out what mischief Smith's fraud formulation could do. Especially since it would only take 13 people, 1 prosecutor, and 12 jurors to charge a president with a felony.

And I picked that example because it was very prominently labeled the lie of the year across the political spectrum, and involved an important public policy debate and legislation.

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2013/12/13/250694372/obamas-you-can-keep-it-promise-is-lie-of-the-year

Obama's 'You Can Keep It' Promise Is 'Lie Of The Year'

[Josh R]

There is no way to stretch Smith's indictment into an indictment of Obama. The "government function" at stake in the indictment was the "collecting, counting, and certifying the results of the presidential election." There is no such analogy to Obamacare.

[Kazinski]

Smith's formulation was an "important government function". Now I personally don't think healthcare should be an important government function, but I lost that argument.

[Josh R]

FFS. "Government function" does not mean something the government provides or any other policy issue. It means the administration of the workings of government, like counting votes.

[Kazinski]

"The NBC article shows that there were regs written in Jul 2010. Obama's "keep your doctor" push was in 2009. Frankly, it's a lousy source for the whole "what did Obama know and when did he know it" question."

That actually makes it worse. The regulations the Obama the Obama administration wrote broke Obama's promise, a year after Obama made it.

That's supposed to be exculpatory?

[Magister]

Actually, Politifact's 2013 "lie of the year" was "If you like your health plan, you can keep it", not anything about your doctor.

It was a stupid thing to say without the caveats that Obama often included -- insurance companies can stop offering any insurance policy, with or without the ACA -- but the intent was that the ACA did not prevent existing plans from continuing to be offered, and Obama at other times included the caveats. Politifact had previously rated the same statement "Half True" in 2009. As presidential lies go, it's pretty small potatoes; nothing like Gulf of Tonkin or WMD in Iraq, since polling shows 57% support for the ACA, higher than the popular vote margins that Obama got in 2008 or 2012.

[Kazinski]

Yeah, I think you are right, but that actually makes it worse.

Because Obama's legislation actually forced insurance companies to cancel just about every existing plan because they didn't conform to the new coverage and eligibility mandates.

"If you like your health plan, you can keep it except the ACA will force your insurance company to cancel it and force you to get a new one.". Would have been an honest statement.

[Magister]

More Kazinski dishonesty. Existing plans (as of March 2010) were grandfathered; it was up to insurance companies whether they continued them. Insurance companies dropped many of those plans, adding new ACA compliant plans for the subsidies and dropping grandfathered plans rather than split their marketing between two lines.

[David Nieporent]

Anyone with health insurance knows that changes to costs and/or benefits are made to them every year without it being considered a new policy. So people would have — and did — assumed from Obama's pledge that those plans would continue to be permissible. But in fact "existing plans" were only grandfathered if no non de minimis changes were made to them.

[Magister]

It was a stupid thing to continue saying; but everyone should also have known that plans stop being offered for reasons having nothing to do with the government. ACA subsidies on new plans were a bigger incentive to drop those plans than not being able to make non minimal changes to the plans, which would likely make them worse anyway.

[David Nieporent]

You have invented a ridiculous strawman claim and are refuting that. Obviously when Obama said, "If you like it you can keep it" nobody interpreted that to mean, "I promise that health insurers will never (be allowed to) decide to stop offering the policy you like." The concern was about the government outlawing plans that people liked, not insurers deciding on their own to stop offering some of them.

[Randal]

Or lets pretend healthcare is an important government function, and a president lies to be able to pass his signature health care plan claiming "if you like your doctor, then you can keep your doctor."

That's fraud too, under Smith's definition.

No. We expect Congress to weigh the evidence and create policy. The function, aka the process, wasn't impeded.

If Obama had said to some congressional staffer, "I want you to break the legs of Sen. Hatch so he can't vote and Obamacare passes" then that would be an attempt to fraudulently manipulate the lawmaking function of Congress.

Smith is saying that Trump's verbal attempts to gin up fake votes and fake electors - knowing that they were fake - is more like my example than your example.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Kazinski — Are you incapable to grasp the difference between orchestrated activity on a gigantic scale—presented with reams of corroborative evidence and testimony from conspirators themselves—and hypothetical whatabouts?

What a blessing it would have been for the nation had the Supreme Court permitted a skilled defense team to try its hand at defending against Jack Smith's Trump election conspiracy case. Of course, for Trump/MAGA generally, and Kazinski specifically, that was never in the cards.

History will judge that the Supreme Court majority was as convinced as others of the outcome of any such trial. The Court acted to prevent that outcome. The Court majority thus made itself a corruptly partisan party to the conspiracy.

Absent dramatic court reform, it will be generations, if ever, before there is any possibility for this nation to avail itself of a Supreme Court which enjoys once again the public legitimacy this Court threw away. Absent court reform, even a countervailing political majority put on the Court by political happenstance would prove incapable to stifle the taint. Tit-for-tat defenders of the Trump/MAGA legacy—like Kazinski, but richer—would raise unlimited funds to prevent any such outcome. The taint itself would become an indispensable part of America's right-wing politics.

Without visible structural change in the Court's organization, procedures, and operations, nothing will eradicate living memories among the citizenry that the Court as it now exists is inherently political, corrupt, and incapable of judicial independence. Whatever political polarity is manifest later, facts already demonstrated will not be forgotten, nor should they be.

[Brett Bellmore]

"Are you incapable to grasp the difference between orchestrated activity on a gigantic scale—presented with reams of corroborative evidence and testimony from conspirators themselves—and hypothetical whatabouts?"

Your problem is that there's reams of evidence of legal orchestrated activity, and precisely none connecting Trump to any illegal activity.

[hobie]

'precisely none connecting Trump to any illegal activity.'

?

[Brett Bellmore]

If you've got it, cite it.

[hobie]

You want two years of news footage or the condensed version?

[DDHarriman]

Can filter out MSNBC, the View, or bluesky hot takes first?

That way your post will be short.

[Brett Bellmore]

I want some damned version, anyway. Not just a casual assumption that it's true.

[Sarcastr0]

Trump got convicted.

Your 'all Presidents are equally bad so Trump is normal actually' remains convincing only to yourself.

[DDHarriman]

Woah! It was such a fair trial too!

lmao, you nutters are all the same

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Trump got convicted."

And sentenced, so we have a sense of his level of culpability. Heck, even jaywalkers get a $20 fine or something.

[Brett Bellmore]

Trump got convicted of "orchestrated activity on a gigantic scale"? I thought he got convicted of someone in his employ listing payments to a lawyer as 'legal expenses".

[not guilty]

"If you've got it, cite it."

Read the freaking superseding indictment, Brett. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.258149/gov.uscourts.dcd.258149.226.0_38.pdf

[Randal]

The indictment has been linked here a thousand times, Brett.

[Drewski]

For a rare change I fully agree with you.

[Malika la Maize]

It was a joyous day, the fulfillment of a quarter-century of hard work and relentless fund-raising. Srinivasachary Tamirisa, a retired doctor living in Sugar Land, Texas, beamed with pride as his dream — to erect a statue of the Hindu deity Hanuman on the grounds of a temple he had helped found — came to life.

But just outside the temple walls, dozens of conservative Christian protesters gathered, castigating what they called “a demon god.” Local right-wing politicians seized on the topic. “Why are we allowing a false statue of a false Hindu God to be here in Texas? We are a CHRISTIAN nation,” a U.S. Senate candidate wrote on social media…

It is a startling turn in one of the most successful migration experiments in modern history. Since 1965, when civil rights immigration law opened the United States to migrants from countries across the globe, hundreds of thousands of Indians have immigrated to the United States. No group has made a bigger success of its opportunity. Indian Americans’ median household income significantly outstripsthat of white Americans overall; about three-quarters of Indian American adults have at least a college degree and many work in high-status, well-paying professions in places like Houston, New York and Silicon Valley.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/29/opinion/indian-americans-trump.html

[Brett Bellmore]

Indeed, Indians are an immigration success story. Not the only one, of course, but a success story.

The problem is getting people like Somin to admit there are immigration failure stories, too.

[DDHarriman]

Indians rip us off just like Somalis and other Future Democrat voters.

There's a reason they own so many motels. Its fraud.

[Malika la Maize]

As the article says:

Vance and other Trump administration officials blame illegal immigration for just about every difficulty Americans face — the housing shortage, unemployment, inflation, health insurance premiums and more. But Americans face their stiffest competition for jobs and homes from immigrants here legally. Because voluntary migration is such a rare and self-selecting phenomenon — over 96 percent of the world’s people live in the country of their birth — Americans are often competing against the best educated and most ambitious people from countries across the globe.

This is especially true for India, home to 1.4 billion people. It has a formidable tradition of elite science, engineering and medical education, accessible only to those who can ace a pitiless gantlet of extremely competitive tests. For decades, the United States has welcomed those graduates, who have contributed much to American prosperity and been rewarded for it with handsome salaries and comfortable lives in the suburban idylls that typify the American dream.

But as that dream feels increasingly out of reach for many young Americans, stoking resentment of perceived outsiders who are achieving it makes for good, if cynical, politics. The turn against highly skilled legal immigrants, especially those who worship differently and have darker skin, was perhaps an inevitable escalation of Trump’s anti-immigration movement.

[DDHarriman]

https://x.com/i/status/2006565257217716404

The State Bank of Texas, run entirely by an all-Indian leadership team, funnels SBA loans almost exclusively to fellow Indians who now monopolize a staggering 89% of all hotel properties in Texas.

---

. It has a formidable tradition of elite science, engineering and medical education, accessible only to those who can ace a pitiless gantlet of extremely competitive tests

---

Wtf you believe that shit? India is a shit country with a shit culture. They cheat and commit fraud all the time. It's part of their third world society.

They are rapey, gross, shit in streets, and eat cow shit.

[Malika la Maize]

You’re a collectivist who of course doesn’t get that there are hundreds of millions of Indians, many who are poor and act within cultures of poverty to be sure but also many that are far more intelligent and cultured than you. That’s why you have to believe in conspiracy theories about fraud behind their relative greater success than your failures.

[DDHarriman]

Welcome to the warmth of collectivism!

lmao you aren't a bug you're a fuckin pajeet lol that's even worse. Do you know how hard I press the hangup button on my phone whenever I hear that shitty wet fart sounding accent?

[Malika la Maize]

You mean when your mom lets you use her phone? Losers like you need someone to blame for why other people have succeeded where you’ve failed. Little wonder you hate Indians and Jews as they’ve disproportionately succeeded here.

[DDHarriman]

What's it like to live in such a shitty filthy shithole with trash and human shit everywhere?

How gross.

[Malika la Maize]

I live in a Maryland suburb (and not in my mom’s basement like you) and the human shit I most regularly come across is bigots like you on the internet.

[DDHarriman]

lol no you don't, you fucking pajeets are always online committing Stolen White Valor or Stolen American Valor.

[Malika la Maize]

Stolen White Valor, that’s the best white economic anxiety slogan I’ve heard in a while!

[DDHarriman]

Don't feel bad, you're not alone as a POC stealing White Valor, Jews do it all the time online when they're "apologizing for Whiteness".

[MarkJawz]

The Maryland suburbs suck. You either pick Montgomery County and its white shitlibs or Prince George's County with its federal employee black population.

[Malika la Maize]

So you’re as ignorant of Maryland as you are so many other things. It’s a lifestyle I guess.

[MarkJawz]

If you see a hotel with terrible customer service, this is likely why.

[David Nieporent]

First, the MAGA are too stupid to know that, like Bank of America's, the "State Bank of Texas"'s name is just a geographic indicator; it is a private institution. It was founded by a group of Indian-Americans, so it is run by a group of Indian-Americans. The rest of the claims about it are just — like everything Voltage! says — pulled out of his ass, or the ass of some other inbred MAGA loser.

[MarkJawz]

So what? If a white owned bank was deploying its capital to exclusively other whites, you and the other lefties would throw a tantrum.

Tribalism isn't okay for everyone except whites.

[David Nieporent]

If a white owned bank was deploying its capital to exclusively other whites, you and the other lefties would throw a tantrum.

1) I am not a "lefty," so there can't be "other lefties."
2) The claim that the bank was/is "deploying its capital to exclusively other [Indians]" is just a lie on your part, gotten from the Stormfront newsletter or whatever.

Tribalism isn't okay for everyone except whites.

Tribalism isn't okay.

[MarkJawz]

Oh, so then you oppose all of the various hate whitey parades? You oppose black scholarships? You oppose women and minority business grants?

[David Nieporent]

I know of no "hate whitey parades," but I would oppose them if they existed. (But of course the 1A would protect such a parade, just as it protected your buddies when they wanted to march in Skokie.) The other two, also yes, though as a libertarian I think that — as long as they're undertaken by private parties rather than the government — they should be legal.

[MarkJawz]

How many of the immigrants here legally are still people that us opponents of illegal immigrants still didn't want?

[Malika la Maize]

Is there a point in there?

[MarkJawz]

Yes, we opposed mass immigration from the third world whether legal or illegal. It was foisted upon us, especially through anchor babies, "family reunification," "diversity lotteries," and "asylum."

The fact that these people that Americans never wanted in the first place are now here doesn't mean we have to accept them as our people.

[Malika la Maize]

The argument is they’ve (Indians) been successful and beneficial

[Kazinski]

Congress passed those laws. And it is up to Congress to repeal them.

Congress also passed laws requiring a visa to enter this country, or allowing visa free travel for certain countries, and we need to enforce those laws too.

Nobody gets to pick and choose which laws we follow and which ones we don't.

[MarkJawz]

It's questionable whether Congress passed those laws with the support of the people. The people have been ignored on this topic for years due to corporate lobbying from the Republicans and ethnic lobbying from the Democrats.

But the lack of enforcement is a whole different things entirely.

[David Nieporent]

You don't speak for "Americans." You speak for the people who lost in 1865 and in 1945, so nobody cares what you opposed.

[David Nieporent]

The problem is getting you — there are no "people like" you — to admit that MAGA's position is that all immigration (or at least all non-white immigration, though they often don't even seem to want that) is bad. Not because of "illegal immigration." If anyone's position was ever truly that their only complaint was illegality, they've moved far beyond that now. What do you think all the delusional drooling about "Heritage Americans" is, or the ranting about Hart-Cellar?

[MarkJawz]

What's wrong with that? America was founded as a white nation, with white values and a white culture.

Small numbers of non-whites can assimilate into those values and culture, but the majority cannot.

[David Nieporent]

American was not founded as a white nation, and there's no such thing as "white values" or "white culture." (At least if you had said "British" your statement might have been mildly coherent and not historically and sociologically illiterate.)

[MarkJawz]

Northern European Protestant values are white values.

[David Nieporent]

That's certainly not what the founders thought.

[MarkJawz]

It certainly is.

[David Nieporent]

Nope. You should see what Franklin said about Germans, for instance.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"American was not founded as a white nation, and there's no such thing as 'white values' or 'white culture.'"

Not according to the Smithsonian. Folks in the field of Whiteness Studies find that values like hard work and rational thinking are white values and aspect of white culture. And they are the experts.

[MarkJawz]

The ability to see an objective truth beyond one's tribal loyalties is a white male thing.

[not guilty]

"What's wrong with that? America was founded as a white nation, with white values and a white culture."

Wrong, MarkJawz. The United States of America has been multiracial since the founding of the original government under the Articles of Confederation (although most blacks were brought here involuntarily or descended from those brought here involuntarily). Every part of North America was stolen from nonwhite aboriginals by European powers. (Great Britain, Spain, France, and in the case of Alaska, Russia.)

That is not a proud history.

[MarkJawz]

It was not multiracial since its founding. At its founding, Indians and blacks did not have rights. America was run by whites, for whites.

[TwelveInchPianist]

When Wokes and Racists Actually Agree on Everything

[Randal]

The problem is getting people like Somin to admit there are immigration failure stories, too.

Like what? And don't say "Somalis," that's just allowing your racism to get out over its skis.

[MarkJawz]

Most non-white immigrants outside of East Asians have not really assimilated.

[David Nieporent]

In what way?

[MarkJawz]

Look at the crime, socioeconomic, illegitimacy, homelessness, mental illness rates.

They're overrepresented in all of the social ills, and that persists in perpetuity. It doesn't end at the first generation.

[Malika la Maize]

Forty thousand oysters and the 14 watery cages in which they sat were discovered missing from a facility in Falmouth, Maine, on Nov. 22, authorities said. The fish and equipment were valued at nearly $20,000.

Then, authorities believe, thieves took a shipment of crab Dec. 2, and someone stole $400,000 worth of processed lobster meat 10 days later after both shipments left the same cold-storage warehouse in Taunton, Massachusetts, according to the Boston Globe and the AP.

Cargo thefts have surged in the United States and Canada in recent years — with 3,625 reported incidents in 2024 representing a 27 percent increase from 2023, according to cargo theft tracking firm Verisk CargoNet. The estimated value per theft was $202,364 in 2024, up from $187,895 the previous year…

Food theft is a relatively easy crime to get away with because, unlike electronics, food doesn’t usually carry trackers or barcodes, Lewis said. The seafood thieves probably had a half-dozen or so buyers lined up beforehand and then went door-to-door peddling their cut-rate lobster and crab to restaurants.

It’s hard to bring charges against those restaurant owners. “I can’t prove he knew it was stolen because there’s no serial number on that lobster,” Lewis said.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2026/01/01/seafood-cargo-theft-lobster-crab/

[Ridgeway]

"It’s hard to bring charges against those restaurant owners. “I can’t prove he knew it was stolen because there’s no serial number on that lobster,” Lewis said."

Marty DiBergi: And what happened to Stumpy Joe?
Derek Smalls: Its not very pleasant story…but uh, he died, uh he choked on uh, the official explanation was he choked on vomit…
Nigel Tufnel: It was actually – it was actually someone else’s vomit…you know there’s no real…
Derek Smalls: Well they can’t prove whose vomit it was…they don’t have the ability…there’s no way of…
Nigel Tufnel: You can’t really dust for vomit…

[Dr. Ed 2]

First, Oysters are not “fish.”

Second, each box of Maine Oysters does have a serial number — a producer tag that was introduced about fifty years ago to track Red Tide and ensure the individual box doesn’t have it.

Third, the real issue here is that if you pay cash for your seafood and then have your diners pay cash, there is no record of the meal ever having existed, QED no tax liability.

[thesafesurfer]

Cannot wait to see Ilya's outrage that Maduro is no longer free to oversee drug smuggling into the United States.

[Malika la Maize]

Yeah, sure, that’s a fair representation of Somin’s beef there.

[hobie]

From the FoxNews comment section this morning on Venezuela:

"I simply cannot believe as a US citizen anyone would not support actions that are implemented to keep the US safe"

"Venezuelan is the home of Dominions voting hub... Trump HAD TOO attack"

"This is what we voted for, a real President. "

"Find and release the stolen Minnesota Daycare files. We want those files now! "

"It is true Maduro emptied prisons and migrants were instructed to come to America and create havoc."

And my favorite so far...

"The Maduro government uses arbitrary detention and short-term forced disappearances as tools to repress dissent and intimidate opponents. This has included the detention and abuse of hundreds of children and adolescents,"

[John 4]

Indistinguishable from the first few hours of any Open Thread here.

[dwb68]

Judge Boasburg: No turn the bombs around and send Maduro back. lol. Can't wait to see how an activist Oregon judge deals with this.

MLAGA, Make Latin America Great Again?

Trouble with Congress is all the districts are hypergerrymandered to be hyperpartisan. Inherently, Congresscritters are risk averse. They will retroactively authorize military action, if its a success.

And, capturing Maduro is a big military success. Unconstitutional, morally wrong, maybe, but a big success. Bigger if its sets off dominos in Iran and Russia.

[hobie]

You know, yesterday, about 9,000 shipments of fentanyl passed into Nogales, AZ. Just sayin'.

[Malika la Maize]

Hahaha, just another unconstitutional aggrandizement of Presidential power! Didn’t you used to at least pretend to be a libertarian?

[dwb68]

Oh, I am not saying I agree with it. I am recognizing reality: Americans love ass-kicking and football. Elections are popularity contests, which congresscritters love to win. Capturing Maduro was a major ass-kicking.

Maduro is getting indicted in New York. If the Trump admin fucks up the prosecution, Biondi and the whole DOJ will look like idiots, deservedly so.

However, if the prosecution gets fucked up by an activist judge, the whole judicial system will get a black eye.

[Malika la Maize]

“Oh, I am not saying I agree with it.”

You just lol’d it.

[dwb68]

I lol'd aggrandizement of judicial power. Boasberg is peak unelected knowbetterism nonsense. He is in no way a libertarian; he is a Boasberg-itarian, upholding the supremacy of Boasberg.

[Malika la Maize]

It’s not judicial aggrandizement that has us attacking another country without a declaration of water right now.

[dwb68]

Boasberg is the epitome of self-aggrandizement.

Panama invasion... Granada... there is plenty of precedent. Congress can do its job at any time; it has the levers of funding. The solution is elections, not judicial activism.

[Malika la Maize]

Yes, we all remember Boasberg having our military invade another country and kidnap its leader and wife to charge him with basically what he pardoned another leader who was duly convicted for recently!

[dwb68]

Noriega. Like it or no there's legal precedent for Maduros indictment, seizure and prosecution. The DOJ though will have to bring their A game.

[Malika la Maize]

That was t my point at all, it’s that libertarians should be more worried about executive aggrandizement.

[dwb68]

Libertarians need to worry about getting people elected first and foremost.

[Malika la Maize]

Maybe, but not by pushing the more consequential federal aggrandizement.

[David Nieporent]

1) Historical precedent and legal precedent are different concepts.

2) As I recall — it's been over 35 years — the fig leaf of a justification for Operation Just Cause was that Panama had declared war against the U.S. and threatened our troops who were legally stationed there. They don't even have a glimmer of such a fig leaf here.

[Voize of Reazon]

Yes, the Panamanian legislature had passed a resolution declaring a state of war with the US, and the Panamanian Defense Force had shot and killed a US Marine lieutenant at a roadblock. A military response to a military threat is not what we are seeing in Venezuela, it more resembles the Grenada regime change.

[Josh R]

Assuming things work out as they did for Bush41 in Panama, there will be no impact in our elections. If they blow up in our face like Iraq did for Bush43 and Americans are killed, then the GOP will pay some price at the polls.

I'm guessing it will look more like the former than the latter.

[Josh R]

Now that we are going to run the country, we have moved a step closer to the latter.

[Dr. Ed 2]

It’s a message to Putin and the Iranians —you could be next.

[John 4]

Betting sites have Trump as odds-on favorite to win the Juan Orlando Hernandez Peace Prize in 2026. Great job.

[hobie]

Just imagine the pardon letter Maduro's poet laureate is writing this very minute!

[hobie]

Nicaragua - Rep
Grenada - Rep
Panama - Rep
Iraq 1 - Rep
Serbia - Dem
Iraq 2 - Rep
Afghanistan - Rep
Venezuela - Rep

Goddamn that Bill Clinton!

[Armchair]

Forgetting a few on your list there.

[hobie]

Oh?

[Bwaaah]

Syria? Libya? (Not that I'm good at remembering history.)

[hobie]

Oh yeah, forgot about Libya and the Freedom Fries thingy.

Libya - Rep

[Michael P]

It says a lot that hobie thinks Obama was a Republican.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_military_intervention_in_Libya

[hobie]

Reagan Library archive
https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/archives/audiovisual/white-house-photo-collection-galleries/libya-bombing

[Michael P]

Your counting is as biased as your racist anecdotes about your drug dealing neighbors. If you include that kind of strike, there are dozens that would justify listing Clinton and Obama, like when Clinton blew up a Sudanese pharmaceutical factory to distract from his domestic scandals.

https://www.baltimoresun.com/1998/08/23/clintons-airstrike-motives-questioned-many-wonder-if-attack-was-meant-to-distract-from-lewinsky-matter/

[hobie]

Sean Hannity every single night for the past twenty years:

"Benghazi! Benghazi! Benghazi!"

Sure, I'll concede that one

[Michael P]

The Benghazi attack that you're probably thinking of happened in 2012. Sean Hannity has not been complaining about it for twenty years.

But you are so eager to defend Obama and Hillary Clinton for their malfeasance in handling a premeditated attack that killed the US ambassador and three other Americans, including falsely claiming that it was spontaneous, that even basic facts get away from you.

[hobie]

Benghazi!

[Armchair]

Serbia. Kosovo. Somalia. Yemen. Syria. Iran. Sudan. Haiti. Cambodia.

Hell, you can even bring in the Dominican Republic

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominican_Civil_War

[Sarcastr0]

You sound like when a tankie is arguing America is a malign force in the world.

Do you understand what citing past precedent is for? You are making neither a policy not a legal argument.

[Kazinski]

Don't forget the biggies:

Korea - Truman
Vietnam - Kennedy/Johnson

[hobie]

Civil War - Rep (Lincoln - the OG Rep!)

[DDHarriman]

How long before judge Boasburg orders Maduro freed?

About two days after paid protestors go down there to block US troops, kinda like how they are protecting bulb headed fraudsters

[Malika la Maize]

Protesters are protecting Rick Scott?

[Michael P]

It took a while, but now I understand: When you say "whatabout" it's an endorsement.

[Malika la Maize]

No, as usual you don’t understand (while rushing in yet again to white knight our Daily Stormer like the good American Renaissancer you are).

If there’s one time when whatabout is useful and necessary it’s when someone is arguing an entire group is especially bad.

[DDHarriman]

Can you tell Gentle Reader how cow shit tastes?

[Malika la Maize]

Sorry to upset you by insulting your comrade/boyfriend.

[Frank Drackman]

Shouldn’t you be meeting Lloyd Christmas in a Stall for some Manly-Love?

[Michael P]

Defending your whataboutism with incoherent name-calling is very on brand.

I'm not "white knighting" anyone else here, I'm criticizing you. If you don't want to be criticized for being a hypocrite, don't be so hypocritical.

[Malika la Maize]

Well, of course hypocrisy upsets you more than bigotry, that’s how American Renaissancers like you roll. Also consistent for you is not getting my explanation of how whaboutism is in this circumstance different and justified.

[DDHarriman]

lol sure thing pajeet, which street did you shit on today?

[Malika la Maize]

It’s nice to see Mikie Q and Harriman’s relationship goes both ways in more than one aspect.

[Frank Drackman]

Looking for some Shit to kick?

[Michael P]

Your attempt to distinguish your hypocrisy was even more psychotic than your unfounded name-calling. I was doing you a favor by ignoring it. There was no "someone is arguing an entire group is especially bad" here, unless you count "paid protesters" as "an entire group", which would be crazy even by your standards. And there's no logical reason that such a thing would specially justify whataboutism even if it was there.

[Malika la Maize]

DDHarriman 2 hours ago
Flag Comment
Mute User
How long before judge Boasburg orders Maduro freed?

About two days after paid protestors go down there to block US troops, kinda like how they are protecting bulb headed fraudsters

“ bulbhead (plural bulbheads)
(slang, derogatory) A dull or unintelligent person.
(slang, derogatory, uncommon, ethnic slur, offensive) A Somali person.”

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bulbhead

If someone says “we have to watch out for those Jewish money-grubbers” pointing out non-Jewish money money-grubbers, especially ones that are in the groups that person aligns with and thinks is superior in that respect, is one of the rare instances of a useful whatabout. That’s the logic though I get it’s of a kind you’re rarely going to come across at your American Renaissance conferences

[Michael P]

I was not aware of "bulbhead" as an ethnic slur. You must hang out with a worse crowd than I do. So: that part of Harriman's comment was bad and he shouldn't have written it.

Regardless, that's no excuse for whataboutism. Criticize the use of a slur, don't use it as an excuse for otherwise irrelevant whataboutism. Otherwise it looks like your objection is to whatever you whatabout'ed rather than the slur.

[Malika la Maize]

I wasn’t familiar with it either, but knowing Harriman’s past comments I assumed it was a slur. And I’ve explained the relevance of the whataboutism here in light of it, you not understanding is on you.

[Michael P]

I read it as a slur too -- but in the non-ethnic sense of the first definition your source gave, rather than the second, "uncommon" sense.

Insisting on your delusions about relevance just highlights that you are delusional. It's not a reflection on me.

[Malika la Maize]

Like I said, you not getting it is on you.

[Michael P]

I understood your excuse for whataboutism, but it was so ridiculously dumb that I have to assume you are delusional. And that's on you.

[Zarniwoop]

This thread is the very first time I've heard "bulb head" used in any context whatsoever.

By analogy to "towel head" and "rag head" as slurs, it shouldn't take a rocket surgeon to figure out it's probably a slur. And is certainly used as a slur given the source. And then google it.

I've got Harriman blocked; it's pleasantly refreshing to be reminded why. Raving jerk who insults without pretending to make a substantive contribution. Try the mute button, it's healthy for your brain!

[Malika la Maize]

“ I understood your excuse for whataboutism, but it was so ridiculously dumb that I have to assume you are delusional.”

You literally used the same logic on hobie regarding military conflicts below (whataboutism isn’t much useful to defend any individual person or action but is regarding many generalizations), so you understand the logic in some reptilian way you just don’t have a self-awareness of it. As your King says: Sad!

[Michael P]

I unmuted a bunch of accounts -- including Malicia and either Harriman or a predecessor account -- a few months ago to give them second chances. Perhaps it's time to reinstate those mutes, given that they're still toxic and largely information-free.

I do not often look up definitions for slurs, as they are usually inherently ambiguous (as in this case) or sloppily used. The meaning and target of the slur doesn't change the substance of the original comment and still doesn't justify the whatabout. "If there’s one time when whatabout is useful and necessary it’s when someone [uses an identity-based slur]"? That was really the argument?

[Michael P]

Malicia, I pointed out that hobie was being typically dishonest in how he enunerated AUMF-free military strikes by the US. Pointing out errors in a list is not whataboutism, and it's not remotely the same as your excuse here.

(Whataboutism - "responding to an accusation with a counter-accusation instead of offering an explanation or defense against the original accusation.")

[Malika la Maize]

hobie’s point was that Republicans especially/uniquely instigate military actions. Your retort was whatabout these Dems, who he aligns with, examples? That’s actually appropriate.

Harriman (along with your King) has been saying Somalis are especially/uniquely fraudsters. Pointing out non-Somali fraudsters that he aligns with does the same.

Sorry you can’t follow that.

[hobie]

Yikes! We've been beating MichaelP over the head with his whatabouts for weeks and it looks like we overdid it. Now he just jibbers it nonstop. Possibly with a little drool.

[Malika la Maize]

“"If there’s one time when whatabout is useful and necessary it’s when someone [uses an identity-based slur]"? That was really the argument?”

No, but thanks for illustrating you failed to understand my argument, which was:

“If there’s one time when whatabout is useful and necessary it’s when someone is arguing an entire group is especially bad.”

[Michael P]

The first comment on this thread doesn't say anything like "Somalis are especially/uniquely fraudsters" (or "especially bad"), so it doesn't support your excuse, even as belatedly revised.

[Malika la Maize]

It’s almost like there’s a history of Harriman (and your King) making bigoted comments about Somalis in regards to the current fraud scandal that was referenced!

[Michael P]

So your actual, unvarnished excuse is that whataboutism is justified when you feel like it -- in this case because you don't like the commenter's posting history.

Which was my original point: that you're happy to engage in whataboutism when it suits you, and just as happy to throw "whatabout" at others as a criticism.

We could have saved so many words if you had just taken the L and shut up in the first place.

[Martinned2]

David Allen Greene usually expresses himself more cautiously than I do. But it looks like he's given up on the US too.

The United States is a gangster state at home and a rogue state abroad

For some time there has not been a great deal of point offering constitutional commentary about the United States - though this blog tries from time to time.

This is because constitutional commentary usually requires there to be a settled body of rules and principles to which one may point when examining various political actions and inactions.

But in the United States such an exercise is futile: there are no settled body of rules and principles to which one can point to when examining various political actions and inactions.

Sometimes President Donald Trump and his cronies get away with something, and sometimes they do not. But there seems little rhyme nor reason, even at an abstract level, as to when and why they get their way and when and why they do not.

From an outside perspective, the United States seems akin to a gangster state at home - and (as emphasised by the overnight news about Venezuela) a rogue state abroad.

But in one sense Trump is not ultimately to blame, for there are always potential Trumps in every age and in every place. Knaves and charlatans are not novelties, nor are illiberals and their cruelty.

What usually happens, however, is that the potential Trumps are either kept out of power or restrained when in power by gatekeepers who, in turn, enforce constitutional arrangements and provide checks and balances.

And so what the real cause of the current horrors is the abdication by the United States Congress and Supreme Court of their proper constitutional functions.

Indeed there is a case for all this - all of it - being mere footnotes to the irresponsible failure of the Senate to convict Trump on indictment after the attempted January 6 insurrection. For once he could get away with that, he knew he could get away with anything - and those around him knew they also could get away with anything while Trump was President.

There is no easy way out of this now for the United States - other than a waiting game for elections to come round, which may nor may not make any difference.

So as a new year begins, the United States polity will remain in its darkest days for some time to come. And those days may even get darker.

https://emptycity.substack.com/p/the-united-states-is-a-gangster-state

[Michael P]

In the immortal word of Korath the Pursuer, "Who?"

[CountmontyC]

At first I thought he meant David Alan Coe but then realized it was Martinned posting so it had to be a loser no American ever heard of before.

[Harvey Mosley]

Ah, yes. The perfect country and western song.

[DDHarriman]

Can someone clarify Smiths theory?

When Trump did __________________ he was targeting a lawful government function.

The act above with good intentions is lawful but since Trump believed ____________ it was unlawful.

[Josh R]

What Trump did:

Pressured state officials to certify he won when he lost, organized fake electors, ordered the DOJ to falsely declare there was fraud, pressured Pence into not certifying the count in Congress.

Trump believed he had lost the election which made the above unlawful.

[Swede425]

LOL!
That's a lot of words to say "whaaah!"
He's English, no?
They have their own problems to solve right now but one thing is clear: they'll take too long and will be ineffective.
The world doesn't like the fact that the US can carry out a strike against a narco-state, capture their leader, and put his ass in prison.
And I don't care.
Maybe, MAYBE, the next narco-state/quasi-narco-state will mind their p's and q's. Or maybe they won't. But now they can see what a likely outcome looks like. Which is nice.

[hobie]

Newsflash tomorrow: Fentanyl deaths in US plummet by 1500%!

Also newsflash tomorrow: "President Maduro was treated so unfairly by the Biden Crime Family. I am issuing a full pardon. And - completely coincidental - this morning Eric has been appointed to the board of Citgo!"

[Dr. Ed 2]

Trump should pardon him — and turn him over to a VZ Nuremberg Court.

[Malika la Maize]

“capture their leader, and put his ass in prison.”

And pardon him like Juan Orlando Hernández? Talk about lol!

[Swede425]

Wake us all up when that happens.
Thanks in advance!

[Malika la Maize]

He already did that, were you asleep the past few months?

[Swede425]

OMG!
He pardoned Meduro?
Already?
Gosh, you were right!
That was fast.

[Malika la Maize]

He pardoned Hernandez whose offenses were like Marduro, ya goof. You’re so dense you don’t see how that undercuts your buffoon boosting braggadocio.

[TwelveInchPianist]

A President pardoned someone for an offense and then prosecuted others for similar offenses? Wow! Has that ever happened before?

[Malika la Maize]

If you’re going to go with “hell yeah this shows my President is hard on narco-terrorists gun runners” he having pardoned one of those right before is going to be undercutting….

[Swede425]

Oh, yeah?
Well, you're a nattering nabob of negativity!
Not a direct quote, but close enough.
Anyway, I think my prediction will come true and yours won't.
You think Trump will pardon him. I don't think he will.
But I do think the internet will be full of huffy posters incensed about Maduro's downfall. Not because he didn't deserve it, but because Trump did it. That's Trumps magic: he can get the left to support something/someone dangerous to American and get them rather riled up about it. The next few days and weeks will probably bear this out.
Enjoy!

[Malika la Maize]

You’re so dense you can’t tell the difference between being mocked* and a prediction. Perfect Trump supporter!

* you know how someone might support a narco head of state? Maybe by pardoning them, lol

[Swede425]

LOL!
You're so dense that you probably can't see my prediction coming true in this very thread.
Kick back. Put your feet up. Get yourself a nice glass of water.
And watch all the "YEAH, BUT..." you'll see here and in later threads.
There'll be a lotta "but", the biggest "but", bigger than yours, probably.

[Malika la Maize]

As your CO used to tell you, keep digging!

[hobie]

https://photos.app.goo.gl/YSHSoCh1G7ynejZc8

Further to my project of training my dog to approach my drug dealer with cash in his collar, and then return with my dope. I taped his favorite treat to the drug dealer's car (he lives next door). I don't know how your drug dealers operate, but mine - and indeed quite a lot of black people - just like to sit in their running cars for hours burning gasoline. But it's early morning and the drug dealer won't be awake for hours, so let the training commence!

[Bwaaah]

I'm guessing you should be in the clear between sunrise and noon. In NYC, they're pretty much non-existent until after noon. (Sunrise is the outer limit of "nothing good happens after midnight.")

[Dr. Ed 2]

You forget the 9AM Arrainments..

[hobie]

I should be in the clear no matter what happens. If the feds swoop in for a bust, the entire transaction was conducted by the dog.

[ducksalad]

Unless your dog decides to testify against you in return for a reduced sentence, or his favorite treat.

[hobie]

[searches dog for a wire] 'Oh my God, Tuck! How could you?!!!'

[ducksalad]

Too bad you waited until now to start this project. Maduro's been captured so the dope supply is going to decrease by 1500%.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Why do you think that?

[ducksalad]

What, the number? Ctrl-F 1500%. Hobie himself was the authority. Surely you'd never doubt Hobie.

[Michael P]

hobie was making fun of Trump hyperbole: https://www.cnn.com/2025/08/11/business/prescription-drug-prices-trump

The useful or relevant information content of any hobie comment is expected to be zero, so one should interpret them in that light.

[Malika la Maize]

Always useful to note the King you bend the knee to so gladly is a dolt, though I get why his toadies would like people to overlook it.

[ducksalad]

Um, I was making fun of Trump hyperbole also. But thanks for trying to help make things clear. Because some of our "colleagues" here seem to actually believe such stuff.

[hobie]

No one doubts hobie. I mean, just look what I can get a dog to do!

[SRG2]

https://www.bbc.com/news/live/c5yqygxe41pt
Maduro, [Bondi] says, has been charged with "Narco-Terrorism Conspiracy, Cocaine Importation Conspiracy, Possession of Machineguns and Destructive Devices, and Conspiracy to Possess Machineguns and Destructive Devices against the United States".

Preposterous.

[hobie]

And one count of election tampering [you know...the Hugo Chavez-Dominion thingy...probably the real reason we did all this shit]. With Donny, if it ain't about the shekels, then its about the revenge.

[Malika la Maize]

His Juan Carlos Hernandez pardon awaits!

[ducksalad]

WTF? No mortgage fraud?

[hobie]

HaHa! +1

[Zarniwoop]

the SDNY indictment from 2020 is available here:

https://thehill.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/01/maduro_moros_et_al_superseding_indictment_sdny_redacted_0.pdf

[hobie]

Even charged the wife (who only married Maduro ten years after the alleged start of the 'conspiracy'). She must be a bad bitch.

[Zarniwoop]

I'm not seeing "Cilia Flores" in the 2020 indictment, got some more deets on if/how/when they indicted her, or how they plan to do so? Or is that based on the fact that she was swept up with Maduro himself during the raid?

[hobie]

I may have misspoken.

[Zarniwoop]

Fair enough. Based on what I can read in the 2020 indictment she's mentioned as "wife of Maduro" (see p.15) but not charged in that document. There could be a separate indictment. Or not, and DOJ will need to whip one up pretty quick and/or explain why she's under arrest. If there's no indictment and no arrest warrant, what then?

Possibly interesting, but I think Cilia Flores is a side show compared to Maduro himself, who is obvs the primary target. That said, she may have considerably better legal footing than Maduro.

[Zarniwoop]

You didn't misspeak! New unsealed indictment:

https://www.justice.gov/opa/media/1422326/dl

[hobie]

Yikes! That didn't take long. A careful reading of all 16 mentions of Cilia is a real head scratcher. Apparently her criminality is:

She married Maduro (p4)
Attended a meeting (p11)
Conspired/imported/manufactured (p18-21...they don't mention how)
And apparently along with everyone else, also carried around a machine gun (p21-22)

I wonder if it was the same machine gun for everyone?

Looks like Cilia is getting a good old-fashioned railroading

[Zarniwoop]

Note that she's referred to as "FLORES DE MADURO" and gets about 26 mentions if you search for that. For ex at p. 12:

d. Between in or about 2004 and in or about 2015, MADURO MOROS and FLORES DE MADURO worked together to traffic cocaine, much of which had been previously seized by Venezuelan law enforcement, with the assistance of armed military escorts. During this time, MADURO MOROS and FLORES DE MADURO maintained their own groups of state-sponsored gangs known as colectivos to facilitate and protect their drug trafficking operation MADURO MOROS and FLORES DE MADURO also ordered kidnappings, beatings, and murders against those who owed them drug money or otherwise undermined their drug trafficking operation, including ordering the murder of a local drug boss in Caracas, Venezuela.

So the 2025 indictment allegations seem enough to get her into court, at least on the conspiracy allegations. Even if there aren't more recent acts alleged (and I haven't parsed every one), so long as the conspiracy is ongoing and she didn't affirmatively withdraw, the 5 year general SOL didn't start to run for her.

I guess we'll see what DOJ comes up with for "Cilia had a machine gun", but honestly I don't think that will matter too much.

[Zarniwoop]

I haven't bothered to wade through the whole thing (I made it part way through Count 1). There are some pretty detailed factual allegations about Maduro's involvement with the Cartel de Los Soles in the time period from 1999 through 2020. Like specific meetings, specific multi-ton cocaine shipments, and his roles in VEN gov't before and after assuming the presidency following Chavez's death in 2013.

So I'm gonna vote against the indictment itself being "preposterous".

[Brett Bellmore]

I personally find preposterous the idea that US laws apply to actions by non-Americans outside our territory. But I guess that joke got accepted as legit years ago.

[Zarniwoop]

I have mixed feelings on that for the Maduro indictment.

Conspiracy to import cocaine into the U.S.? There are allegations that the U.S. was specifically intended as the final destination. Decent enough U.S. jurisdictional hook for that part.

Possession of weapons/conspiracy to possess weapons? They're (presumably) possessed in foreign countries, by a person who is a gov't official/head of state. Not seeing much of U.S. valid jurisdictional hook. Does anyone, anywhere in the world need U.S. authorization to possess a machine gun, or risk felony charges in the U.S.?

[Brett Bellmore]

"Decent enough U.S. jurisdictional hook for that part."

Sure, by modern crap standards of jurisdiction.

[David Nieporent]

By all standards of jurisdiction throughout history. If you target a crime at a jurisdiction, the fact that you plan it somewhere else is irrelevant.

[Zarniwoop]

TL,DR: it's complicated, and labeling it "modern crap standards" is a lot easier than coming up with workable alternatives.

I get where you're coming from, but I think there's a very good argument that "conspiracy to ship cocaine from Venezuela to the U.S." can and should be a U.S. crime even if some acts occur outside the U.S. The conspiracy is there, with the U.S. as the specific object.

This is in direct contrast to a scenario with a much poorer jurisdictional hook: "conspiracy to ship cocaine from Venezuela to Mexico". Maybe the cocaine gets used in Mexico City. Or maybe it gets further shipped to the U.S. by the recipient in Mexico, but that's not what the person is Venezuela knows about, intends, or conspires with others to do. In this example, the person in Venezuela literally doesn't care.

To be fair, stuff like this - the contours of conspiracy, and where the "conspiracy act" versus "conspiracy agreement" should be - is exactly the sort of thing lawyers love to debate.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on what the jurisdictional hooks should be - do 100% of conspiracy acts have to happen in the U.S., or only some of them? If only some, is there a percentage? Or maybe only people who are in the U.S. when they agree to conspire? What if someone conspires in Venezuela, but later travels to NYC as a tourist and conducts no conspiracy biz during the trip?

Do "conspiracy acts" differ from "conspiracy objectives"? For example, how would you feel about a conspiracy to ship cocaine from Venezuela to Canada, but the plane carrying the stuff has a 2hr stop in Newark NJ? Does it matter if Newark is an intentional stop by the conspiracy, intentional stop by the pilot but not by the conspiracy (pilot isn't part of conspiracy or know about the cocaine), or completely unintended (due to storm or mechanical issues, for example)?

It's not hand-wavy simple.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Does the policy of the country where the acts occurring count? If I introduce two gay Iranian dudes to each other that I think are compatible, knowing that they might go to Iran and do things that are illegal there, should that be a crime in Iran? It seems like that interferes with US sovereignty.

Which of course goes to your point that none of it is simple.

[Zarniwoop]

Yep, all sorts of issues!

But I do know with high certainty that you (and me, and the rest of the VC) would be pretty upset if Iran's response was to abduct you from the U.S. to put you on trial in Tehran.

[Zarniwoop]

Ope, update: new 2025 indictment as well. I should have read that first.

https://www.justice.gov/opa/media/1422326/dl

[hobie]

In the department of Accusations are Confessions. This could be boilerplate for the indictments of 2029:

"NICOLAS MADURO MOROS, the defendant, now sits atop a corrupt, illegitimate government that, for decades, has leveraged government power to protect and promote ... has enriched and entrenched Venezuela's political and military elite...has also concentrated power and wealth in the hands of MADURO MOROS's family..."

[not guilty]

Whether it is preposterous or not, SRG2, Maduro and others have indeed been charged with the offenses you list. They were indicted in the Southern District of New York during the first Trump administration. https://thehill.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/01/maduro_moros_et_al_superseding_indictment_sdny_redacted_0.pdf

[Frank Drackman]

And in unrelated news Hunter Biden was hospitalized for Cocaine/Fent-a-nol Withdrawal

[hobie]

Frankie, I hate to break this to you, but Biden hasn't been president for almost a year.

Look to the future, Frankie. In twenty years, some other REMF will be sitting in a bar and exclaim:

"I've seen some shit."
"'Nam?"
"No. 'uela"

[Malika la Maize]

It’s going to be increasingly comical for the booster of Trump to go with the “our guy is finally getting tough with narco heads of state” given his recent Hernandez pardon. Sometimes I think the guy is out to get his supporters to beclown themselves.

[Swede425]

Sir! Stop! STOP!!
You won, that straw man you're beating up clearly can't defend himself!
Oh, wait...you don't really think Trump is going to pardon Meduro?
You're just creating a scenario that you know isn't going to happen because you're just that angry that Trump grabbed this guy up and this is the only thing you can do?
Interesting...interesting.
So, you're just funnin'?
Carry on.

[Malika la Maize]

You poor dolt, I’m pointing out Trump’s undercutting hypocrisy, you really were made to be one of his lemmings.

[LawTalkingGuy]

So there’s a power vacuum. In a country with a lot of military and paramilitary forces. That has valuable resources like oil and drugs. And has entrenched ideological factions. And corruption. In a region with a history of guerrilla war, death squads, and terrorism.

And a US president/admin who seems primarily concerned with resource extraction?

I’m sure this will turn out great.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

You almost get the idea this is sarcastic.

[Michael P]

Nicolás Maduro met with a Chinese envoy just hours before we nabbed him, and China expressed their solidarity with him during that meeting.

Some have suggested that the meeting was how we knew where to grab him: https://twitter.com/BaldingsWorld/status/2007475371310985377

I have no idea whether that's right or not, but it's good for the world either way: China needs to worry about security lapses, either human or technological, that might have resulted from their visit. And it's an effective rebuttal to China's dream of influence in the western hemisphere.

[Sarcastr0]

"it's an effective rebuttal to China's dream of influence in the western hemisphere."

You gotta go back before WW1, but history tells us that being a giant imperial dick doesn't tend to prevent other powers from messing around in our sphere of influence.

That's why even if Maduro out of power is good (though Latin American succession is ever risky), the concern is how national sovereignty is going by the wayside and we're back to the age of empires.

That's worse for all the less powerful countries, and one must also not forget that democracy and empire do not mix well. Empire tends to win that contest.

[Michael P]

Yes, we must learn from what happened to the British Empire and how it defeated democracy. Um, or the Spanish? The Dutch?

I'll grant you that Portugal is less impressive nowadays than those other ex-empires, but Portugal proper has always been a small country.

You might need to strain a bit harder to find an example that works for your hypothesis.

[Sarcastr0]

Yeah, I think the past presents the risks of our current attitude and courses of action in the world.

But no one knows the future. Except that you'll defend Trump to the hilt no matter what.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

The Trump Administration's leniency regarding drug traffickers is rather impressive, with some exceptions noted:

https://www.adn.com/opinions/2026/01/01/opinion-trumps-coddling-of-drug-traffickers-threatens-our-safety-and-economy/

I appreciate that some of Trump's usual supporters are "concerned," though we have seen how far that has gone over the years. Over and over again, he and his minions do something blatantly horrible, illegal, unconstitutional, or a mixture of all three and well, it is oh so "concerning." We then move on.

Oh well. We are assured Trump is in perfect health:

At 6:56 this morning, Trump posted on social media that “The White House Doctors have just reported that I am in ‘PERFECT HEALTH,’ and that I ‘ACED’ (Meaning, was correct on 100% of the questions asked!), for the third straight time, my Cognitive Examination, something which no other President, or previous Vice president, was willing to take. P.S., I strongly believe that anyone running for President, or Vice President, should be mandatorily forced to take a strong, meaningful, and proven Cognitive Examination. Our great country cannot be run by ‘STUPID’ or INCOMPETENT PEOPLE! President DJT.”

As multiple people note, it is somewhat concerning that his doctors keep giving him all these cognitive tests.

Oh well. We can't rely on leftwing media like articles in the Wall Street Journal (Justice Alito's paper) about such matters.

https://substack.com/inbox/post/183317441

[hobie]

Apparently, presidents are given the Montreal Cognitive Assessment. An example is here. Brace yourself...it's a scorcher

https://geriatrictoolkit.missouri.edu/cog/MoCA-8.3-English-Test-2018-04.pdf

[Joe_dallas]

Joe Bronx

Did you show the same concern for Biden and his cognitive tests?

[Estragon]

The iterative assessments are evidence that the doctors are looking for signs of cognitive deterioration. Trumpists can square that circle however they like but it is self evident.

[Joe_dallas]

Estragon - Asking the same question I asked of Joe Bronx

Did you show the same concern for Biden and his cognitive tests?

[Sarcastr0]

What about Biden, you say?

[Joe_dallas]

Sarcastro - You should seek traetment from the same medical doctor as NG - since you are suffering from the same whiplash with the double standard and hypocrisy.

[Sarcastr0]

You mad.

[Zarniwoop]

FFS. Actually open the test and take it yourself.

You passed? Oh great! Are you going to tell the world?

The fact that Trump is bragging about passing that test is the issue.

[Joe_dallas]

That is trump being trump - really nothing to read into his comments - either positive or negative. Just more of the same TDS.

[John 4]

"That is trump being trump - really nothing to read into his comments - either positive or negative. Just more of the same TDS."

Correct. Trump is a moron who says all manner of stupid shit on a regular basis. The TDS is explaining it away as "that's just our slobbering moron!"

[Estragon]

“Concern”

What concern? I am stating an obvious fact.

[Swede425]

LOL!
That took NO time at all.
All the people you'd expect are on Twitter, big mad at Trump for getting Maduro.
Juxtaposed with a ton of videos of Venezuelans celebrating in the streets.
What a time to be alive!

[LawTalkingGuy]

Presumably you were born in 2003.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saddam_Hussein_statue_destruction

[Michael P]

Speaking of which, the Iraqi Information Minister was a comedic genius. Whatever happened to that guy?

"I can say, and I am responsible for what I am saying, that [American troops] have started to commit suicide under the walls of Baghdad. We will encourage them to commit more suicides quickly."

"There is no presence of the American columns in the city of Baghdad at all. We besieged them and we killed most of them."

[David Nieporent]

Speaking of which, the Iraqi Information Minister was a comedic genius. Whatever happened to that guy?

Came out as a woman and joined the Department of Homeland Security using the name Tricia McLaughlin.

[Swede425]

Hahahahahahaha!
Thanks for that, Baghdad Bob.
You're right. It's probably staged.
He was massively popular. This was an overreach.
After he serves his term in prison (if he's not pardoned) we should send him back to the loving arms of his countrymen.

[LawTalkingGuy]

No. The joy was real. Saddam was a bad guy. Many people were happy he was gone. But it was a brief moment that didn’t fully portray the underlying reality: deep sectarian division that would lead to over a decade of civil war and the proliferation of terrorism.

[Michael P]

Yes, Iran-backed militias continued to make trouble for years. Do you think cartels will play that kind of role in Venezuela? I think FARC-like insurrections are much harder to keep alive nowadays without foreign support -- if Venezuela's recognized government stays in OAS (which I think is likely) then they will probably get the aid they need to eradicate any domestic cartels.

[LawTalkingGuy]

I don’t know. And neither do you. And neither does the Trump admin or anyone else celebrating and jeering at the libs claiming they are supporting narcoterrorist communism or whatever by expressing skepticism.

[Michael P]

True: neither of us know the future, but we can try to anticipate based on reason, and on that basis -- rather than playing with post-hoc justifications -- try to evaluate the wisdom of an action. Which is why I wrote "think".

[David Nieporent]

then they will probably get the aid they need to eradicate any domestic cartels.

Yes, this time we will finally win the war on drugs. Keep hope alive!

[Michael P]

Straw man often? Or are you just ignorant on this topic, like so many others?

The biggest drug cartels are based in Mexico and Columbia. One doesn't win a war with local success on a secondary front.

[David Nieporent]

Um, the claim was that removing Maduro and giving Venezuela aid would enable the defeat of cartels. Try focusing on the discussion.

[Michael P]

Oh, so your excuse is that you created a straw man because you can't read, not because you meant to?

[Swede425]

Yeah, I hear there was a war there.
Say, are you suggesting that Trump is starting a war in Venezuela?
Or that there'll be a civil war there?
I mean, obviously the commies will have to be hunted down, but I don't think they're particularly popular right now, outside of NYC and the West Coast.

[LawTalkingGuy]

“Say, are you suggesting that Trump is starting a war in Venezuela?”

Well he did bomb it and kill civilians, do we know how the population will react to that? What’s the next step? Is he just going to leave Venezuela to the current ruling party? Is the opposition going to peacefully take over? Will there be resistance. Will we have to commit resources to support that? What if the opposition isn’t actually as popular as we think after elections?

“I mean, obviously the commies will have to be hunted down.”

Yeah yeah, right-wing death squads in Latin America. We’ve seen this before:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980_murders_of_U.S._missionaries_in_El_Salvador

[Michael P]

(moved)

[Armchair]

In other news, liberals are now very upset at Trump because he's allowed a criminal illegal immigrant from Venezuela into the country. They demand Trump immediately deport Maduro back to Venezuela.

Trump claims confusion..."Deport this criminal illegal immigrant...don't deport that criminal illegal immigrant...I just don't know what they want anymore."

[JoeFromtheBronx]

More from Wall St. Journal for those who don't trust the New York Times:

President Donald Trump has presided over a rapid surge of U.S. military activity abroad since returning to the Oval Office.

In the first year of his second term, he has authorized a series of strikes ranging from the unprecedented use of bunker-buster bombs against Iran’s most fortified nuclear sites to a sustained counternarcotics campaign off the Venezuelan coast.

Trump, who has labeled himself a “peace president,” frames the expansion of force as a strategy of “peace through strength.”

At his inaugural ball in January, he declared, “We will measure our success not only by the battles we win but also by the wars that we end — and perhaps most importantly, the wars we never get into.”

Trump added that his “proudest legacy will be that of a peacemaker and unifier.”

Since taking office on Jan. 20, 2025, Trump has overseen at least 626 air strikes, according to data compiled by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project that was shared with Military Times.

By comparison, his predecessor, former President Joe Biden, launched a total of 555 strikes in his entire four-year term.

https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2026/01/realism-restraint-2 (quoting)

[Joe_dallas]

Was destroying Iran's nuclear program a bad thing? Especially considering the JCPOA was never really designed to curtail Iran's nuclear program, contrary to all the talking points that said otherwise which is also contrary to the diplomatic double speak that claimed the JCPOA was supposedly working.

Further considering the JCPOA and other actions of Obama were designed to keep the mullahs in power.

[David Nieporent]

Was destroying Iran's nuclear program a bad thing?

We'll let you know if that ever happens.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Uh…how exactly are we going to “run” Venezuela?

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Don't worry. We will send DOGE to clean things up.

[LawTalkingGuy]

You joke, but sending Elon to be administrator of the Venezuelan Transitional Authority is something that could easily happen.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Oh? Are they pals again? That's sweet.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Don’t think so, but sending your most annoying and wealthiest patron away on a risky foreign enterprise to get them out of the way is the kind of thing a mad emperor would do.

[Joe_dallas]

Doge - Democrats opposed to rooting out fraud
Democrats standing behind the Somalians with the massive fraud among that ethnic group

Democrats remained consistent.

[jb]

DOGE didn't identify any meaningful amount of fraud and didn't save any money: https://www.cato.org/blog/doge-produced-largest-peacetime-workforce-cut-record-spending-kept-rising-0

I haven't seen any Democrats standing up for Somalis that committed fraud. We're just not racists that think you should judge one brown person based on what another brown person did. If we judged fraudiness based on the color of the perpetrators' skin, whites would definitely be the ones we should be looking at suspiciously.

Hope that helps!

[David Nieporent]

bookkeeper_joe: imagining fraud and being racist.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

If Republicans are so darn "concerned," there are various things they can do. A token bit of symbolism would be to override his two vetoes, both involving noncontroversial legislation.

As I quoted above, not surprisingly, Mike Lee isn't concerned anymore, apparently. Others remain concerned. Honestly so.

But that and fifty cents will get me an onion roll at my local bakery.

Meanwhile ...

The US president says the US is going to "run" Venezuela "until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition"

https://www.bbc.com/news/live/c5yqygxe41pt

Any new leader who is seen as a U.S. lackey ... well, good luck with that, I guess.

[ducksalad]

Impression was that it was a raid and our military left with Maduro.

Let's hope his statement about running Venezuela is just senile rambling.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Sure. The U.S. will just be a concerned advisor.

[David Nieporent]

A token bit of symbolism would be to override his two vetoes, both involving noncontroversial legislation.

He vetoed a bill relating to a tribe in Florida and expressly stated that doing so was retaliation because it had opposed Trump's "Alligator Alcatraz" debacle. As always, Trump doesn't even pretend not to be a mafioso.

[David Nieporent]

Just to be clear: I do not dispute that Trump is constitutionally/legally allowed to veto a bill because the beneficiaries opposed an unrelated program that Trump supported. That makes it legal, but it doesn't make it not thuggish.

[Josh R]

Maduro's biggest mistake: not nominating Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize.

[Josh R]

And now it looks like Machado's biggest mistake was winning the Nobel Peace Prize.

Trump wants to run Venezuela until a proper transition (to a puppet government?). Sounds a lot like what Putin and Xi want. I guess Trump is carving up the world with his buddies.

[hobie]

Bombed Syria
Bombed Iran
Bombed Yemen
Bombed Gaza (by proxy)
Bombed Qatar (by proxy)
Bombed the Gulf of America
Bombed the Pacific
Bombed Nigeria
Bombed Iraq
Bombed Venezuela

And a few flash-bangs on American cities just for fun.

[ducksalad]

You should remove Qatar (evidence is weak), and replace it with Somalia, which you forgot.

[hobie]

There gonna have to fit Hegseth with a diaper for all the nocturnal emissions he must be having.

Reporter: "Little Pedro, can you tell us how you lost your father?"
Little Pedro: "Someone from Fox News fired a missile it him."
Reporter: "Jeez, that sucks."
Little Pedro: "Tell me about it."

[hobie]

"President Trump said the United States would “run the country""

We'll finally be able to find the shack that's been bailing all that weed.

[hobie]

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

[John 4]

"That's just Trump being Trump," the cultists whelped in unison.

[dwb68]

how exactly are we going to “run” Venezuela:

We are negotiating with the VP, who will essentially becom a puppet (until elections are held?)

[Michael P]

I was told there would be a power vacuum. An orderly transition to the next in succession followed by a free and fair election doesn't sound like a power vacuum.

[LawTalkingGuy]

It’s been 10 minutes. HTF do you know if it’s going to be orderly or not?

[Michael P]

Turn that around: How do you know there will be a power vacuum?

The current regime has no good option besides following the order of succession. Infighting will only make it easier for the democratic opposition to take charge. They might or might not act as a US puppet, and if you want to quibble, it should be about whether the election will be free and fair.

[hobie]

Trump says oil will pay for all of this. WRONG! Neither my company or any other energy company is going to mine Venezuela unless someone pays us to do it...and that will take billions of dollars. Who's going to pony up that money.

And let me tell you rubes something else. Venzuela is basically like Angola. No domestic industries to provide food or construction. Everything must be imported including labor. The profiteering will be immense. My apartment in Luanda, Angola was $15,000/month (although it was a nice apartment). A sandwich in a cafe could run upwards of $50.

What's worse is that Venezuela, like Angola, does not have the infrastructure to support any influx of oil companies. Trump is going to have to first invest hundreds of billions in airports, roads, ports, accommodations, security and agriculture

[ThePublius]

I though Venezuela nationalized oil drilling and production infrastructure owned by U.S. companies.

"Venezuela nationalized oil drilling and production infrastructure owned by U.S. companies, first in 1976, taking control from firms like Exxon, Mobil, and Gulf, and then again under Hugo Chávez in the 2000s, requiring U.S. companies such as ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips to cede majority control (to 60%) in joint ventures, ultimately leading to the effective seizure of assets and significant disputes."

What happened to all of that?

[hobie]

Chevron is the only US producer still in Venezuela. But in February, Trump smashed their contracts - but gave them back in a limited fashion as long as they funneled some of the dividends to a Trump crony.

Yeah, Venezuela clawed back their patrimony from US oil companies. I mean, wouldn't you approve the same if somehow Saudi Arabia had carved out the Gulf of America for itself long ago?

[Voize of Reazon]

They TikTok'ed the oil companies?

[Michael P]

https://www.upi.com/Health_News/2025/12/31/planned-parenthood-medicaid/4521767232564/

The First Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston placed a hold on U.S. District Court of Massachusetts Judge Indira Talwani's order blocking a provision in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that eliminated Medicaid funding for providers of tax-exempt abortion services.

The appeals panel ruled that (contrary to Talwani's decision) the law was not ambiguous, and that Congress rather than CMS has the authority to make law in that area.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Okay.

So the Bucs have to win (not something they have been doing lately), have an 8-9 record, and then hope the Falcons lose (they have been winning lately, but so have the Saints), since the alternative is a three-way tie, which will mean the Panthers get to the playoffs.

Couldn't we just worry about that (and the #1 seed deciding game tonight) today? Sheesh.

[Frank Drackman]

8-9 Team makes the playoffs? I believe Vince Lombardi would have something to say about that.
In the 1960's the NFL had a "Playoff Bowl" played the week AFTER the NFL Championship/Super Bowl, pitting runner ups in each Division. From 1960-1965 they didn't have much of a Playoff, the 2 Division Champions met in the "NFL Championship Game"
Starting in 1967 they expanded the playoffs to a whopping 4 teams, with the winner going to the Superbowl, and the Losers playing for 3rd place in the "Playoff Bowl"
Lombardi said it should be called the "Losers Bowl" Actually, he called it worse than that.

Green Bay Packers coach Vince Lombardi detested the Playoff Bowl, coaching in the games following the 1963 and 1964 seasons, after winning NFL titles in 1961 and 1962. To his players, he called it "the 'Shit Bowl', ...a losers' bowl for losers." This lack of motivation may explain his Packers' rare postseason defeat in the 1964 game (January 1965) to the St. Louis Cardinals. After that loss, he fumed about "a hinky-dink football game, held in a hinky-dink town, played by hinky-dink players. That's all second place is – hinky dink."

[Kazinski]

Seahawks had a 7-9 record and won the NFC West in 2010, they got matched up with the Defending Superbowl Champion 11-5 Saints.

But Seattle playing at home, and with Beastquake1 beat the Saints.

Anything can happen.

[Mr. Bumble]

Happy 2026!
MAGA + Just Do It!

[Michael P]

And YOLO, so focus on what you can do to make the world better today. (Scott Alexander agrees, after a fashion.)

As a wise man once said, "You go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time."

[Michael P]

On a non-Venezuela topic, https://open.substack.com/pub/nicholasdecker/p/improving-nursing-homes-in-america seems like a good survey of recent research on the economics of nursing homes (and the various reasons that there is no obvious silver bullet to improve quality, except maybe for chains to buy independent firms).

[Michael P]

Bill Ackman thinks that Francesca Gino was falsely accused and unfairly fired by Harvard: https://x.com/BillAckman/status/2006958483220955275 (it's very long for a Xeet, so don't take the URL as indicating that it's a throwaway or short write-up)

I like Ackman's independence and a lot of his contrarian positions, but I think he is wrong here, and that the hypothesis advanced by Data Colada is the better explanation / account of what happened.

[wvattorney13]

My belief in TDS has been upheld. I was thinking that surely they won't go there for this limited action in arresting a known drug dealer and international pain in the ass if for no other reason than it has been rather routine by presidents of both parties for the last 60 years.

But, of course not. It's Trump, so it is the worst.thing.ever. Impeachment number 27 in the hopper!

[jb]

Yes, such noted TDS victims as Kazinski, the first person to mention impeachment here today.

[Kazinski]

Doesn't look like its going anywhere though, Trump is getting a lot of support on Capital hill, but if Democrats stick together there maybe enough support with a couple of GOP mavericks to cobble together a bare majority for an impeachment resolution.

But it won't go anywhere in the Senate.

Has MTG officially resigned yet? I think it was supposed to be official today.

I am not sure even the Democrats have the appetite now for another failed impeachment, unless it polls really well, of course.

[ThePublius]

I think it would be great if Trump arranged the return of the Venezuela-nationalized U.S. oil production assets to the companies form whom they were taken. And then, resume legit oil trade for the benefit of the Venezuelan people. It was the wealthiest and highest standard of living South American country (I think) before the socialist dictatorships.

[ThePublius]

".@POTUS: As everyone knows, the oil business in Venezuela has been a bust for a long period of time... We're going to have our very large United States oil companies go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, and start making money for the country."

[Kazinski]

There are about 8 million Venezuelans that have left the country since 2014, I would guess at least half or more would want to come back.

2.5 million in Columbia alone.

We got half a million right here that we will be glad to facilitate their return.

[Sarcastr0]

Fuck yeah country building. We're super good at that.

I know Kaz will pick whatever prediction he feels will best support his guy, but it sure didn't take much for the neocon GOP to return, eh?

[Estragon]

Congrats you have just advocated for the use of the military to vindicate the interests of private oil companies. Noted for posterity.

[ThePublius]

No, you are wrong. The companies whose assets were seized in Venezuela in 1976 and again in the 2000's are public companies. That means they are owned by people who have stock, mutual funds that hold them, pension funds that hold them, IRAs and 401ks, and so on.

What is the purpose of the government if not to protect the interests of its citizens, particularly property interests?

[Estragon]

I am grateful that so many here have made their feelings publicly accessible in writing. For posterity. This invasion is madness, and will be shown to be such in short order. We have lost our way.

[ThePublius]

Yea, go ahead and record it for posterity, including your idiotic statement that the U.S. oil companies operating in Venezuela were private companies. Maybe you don't understand what public company means?

[DDHarriman]

Estrogen is only upset because this doesn't serve Israel like every military action since Israel attacked the USS Liberty on purpose

[Kazinski]

Hannah Duggan has resigned her judgeship to avoid impeachment after her felony conviction for obstructing ICE.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/wisconsin-judge-resigns-after-being-convicted-of-obstructing-migrant-arrest/ar-AA1TvQ93