"So we’re having a war."
~ Rebecca Schoenkoepf
But, well, it's not "we" who are having a war.
It's Donald Trump who's having a war.
Because he has long wanted to control an army, play big man with soldiers.
#Trump #Venezuela #war #military #oil
/1
https://www.wonkette.com/p/sure-right-heres-your-one-a-day-email
And, unfortunately, all the rest of us get dragged into his egomaniacal, cruel delusions because he's in the White House and some of us gave him the power to tear everything down if it so pleases him.
And many of us will, the very minute the drum of war is beaten, start marching and cheering no matter what deranged reprobate is beating the drum and where the drumbeat is leading us.
"As predicted in September, October, November, and December, the United States has begun its invasion of Venezuela. A US Navy and Air Force air armada started attacking strategic military objectives around the country."
"UPDATE: Trump is claiming they have captured Maduro and flown him out of the country."
~ Malcolm Nance
"The United States began a full-scale military operation against Venezuela early Saturday morning. We’ll call it what it is: an unlawful invasion. Explosions were seen and heard throughout the country, including in Caracas, as the U.S. relentlessly bombed the country. After initially refusing to comment, U.S. officials are now confirming the campaign was ordered by Trump."
~ Meidas
#Trump #Venezuela #war #military #oil #Maduro
/4
https://www.meidasplus.com/p/breaking-us-invades-venezuela-live
"Trump’s warmongering is a betrayal of his base, the Constitution, and all Americans."
~ Robert B. Hubbell
#Trump #Venezuela #war #military #oil #Maduro
/5
https://roberthubbell.substack.com/p/trumps-warmongering-is-a-betrayal
"Some things to keep in mind as we process news of the war in Venezuela:
1) This act of war is unauthorized, unjustified and unconstitutional, no matter what the near term 'success' the White House claims in toppling a foreign government or capturing its president.
2) Regime change is always unpredictable and could lead to greater instability."
~ Jay Kuo
"3) With such acts, we lose all moral authority to condemn other nations that similarly attack their neighbors or carry out illegal renditions of foreign leaders.
4) Trump wants Venezuela’s oil reserves for his friends and a war to distract the public. This was never about interdicting drugs.
5) We still don’t know how many people the U.S. may have killed or injured so far, and we must demand all hostilities cease immediately to prevent further loss of life."
#Trump #Venezuela #war #oil
/7
"6) Two things can be true. It’s possible both to despise Maduro for what he has done to Venezuela AND to oppose this war as an illegal invasion of another country to seize control of its oil reserves.
7) Expect the GOP in Congress to lay down again and surrender their constitutional authority. Some already have fallen in line."
"Experts are condemning the strikes as illegal under international law, and questioning why Congress wasn’t consulted."
~ Josh Marshall
#Trump #Venezuela #war #military #oil #Maduro
/10
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/trump-says-us-has-captured-venezuelas-president-maduro
The Guardian offers live feed with video clips tracking Trump's invasion of Venezuela:
And see also The Guardian's summary of what we know so far:
"What happens next is critical. Not in the US, your news cycle today is going to be a roiling thunderdome of noise. The US army uses the language of “theaters of war” but this is military theater. A son-et-lumière spectacular crossed with an action movie. Regime change meets the Bourne Identity."
~ Carole Cadwalladr
"I have zero doubt that there will be POV real-time helmet footage from the stormtroopers who lifted him, and that it will be crack cocaine to cable news bulletins and social media algorithms. God knows what is waiting for Maduro in the US but your news cycle is going to be flooded by this for weeks; held in a chokehold that will block all other sources of heat and light."
"In America, the next 24 hours and the days and weeks to follow will be a national gaslighting event. It will be claimed a criminal narco regime has been busted by the US and the people must celebrate. Notice the language in Trump’s tweet. This isn’t an illegal invasion or even a military action. It’s 'law enforcement'."
"The fact is there are no real checks on Trump’s power right now. Some of the courts are still holding on some of the executive orders but he’s invaded a foreign state on the bogus pretext of 'law enforcement' presumably to bypass Congress’s approval and if this doesn’t ram home what it means to be governed by a rogue, out of control president, then what will?"
"On Christmas Eve, I said that America is not our enemy. It’s not. We need a transatlantic alliance more than ever, but it needs to be between peoples not states. Your state is out of control. Our state is frozen in craven ignorance. And we’re all, governments and people too, in a state of dangerous denial."
"According to The New York Times, Trump declined to say whether he sought congressional approval before launching the strikes and seizing Venezuela’s leader. 'We’ll discuss that,' he told the newspaper in a brief phone interview, adding that a news conference would follow."
~ Aaron Parnas
#Trump #Venezuela #war #military #oil #Maduro #media
/17
https://aaronparnas.substack.com/p/breaking-united-states-strikes-venezuela
The Venezuelan leader and his wife are now indicted in the Southern District of New York. Further details coming soon.
Melissa Corrigan features on-the-spot commentary (including video clips) from her friend Elizabeth Raven in Caracas.
#Trump #Venezuela #war #military #oil #Maduro #media
/18
https://www.blueamp.co/p/direct-from-caracas-venezuela-attacked
"Trump didn’t attack Venezuela because it produces fentanyl. It doesn’t. He didn’t attack Venezuela because President Nicolás Maduro controls the Tren de Aragua gang. He doesn’t. He didn’t attack Venezuela because Maduro is the head of the Cartel de los Soles. It doesn’t even exist.
It’s about the oil, stupid!"
~ Mehdi Hasan
Philip Bump offers two instructive graphics about the "peace president's" actions in 2025, one of them a posting on BlueSky by Wesley Morgan. The graphics list all of Trump's combat actions in 2025 and show all the places in the world where he has mounted military attacks.
"Less than three days ago, Congress released Special Counsel Jack Smith’s powerful testimony insisting he had obtained the evidence to prove 'beyond a reasonable doubt' that Donald Trump 'engaged in a criminal scheme to overturn the results of the 2020 election and to prevent the lawful transfer of power.'”
~ Steven Beschloss
#Trump #Venezuela #war #military #oil #Maduro #media #crime #coup
/21
https://www.americaamerica.news/p/can-we-further-weaken-trumps-criminal
"The horrific attack on Venezuela overnight puts the U.S. in the same camp as Russia.
An undeclared, unprovoked, and illegal war designed to, well, we can only guess—though Donald Trump and JD Vance have seemed to concede this was a war for oil—puts the United States on the same moral and legal footing as Russia, which invaded its neighbor in a war of pure aggression."
~ Jennifer Rubin
#Trump #Venezuela #war #military #oil #Maduro #Putin #Russia
/23
"The U.S. president this weekend attacked a sovereign nation, killed its citizens, and kidnapped its leader. …
It is hard not to conclude that the action is a 'wag the dog moment' aimed at distracting the public from the Epstein files, the rotten economy, and Trump’s declining health."
#Trump #Venezuela #war #military #oil #Maduro #Putin #Russia
/24
"It is likely concerns that this is about oil—Maduro and his predecessor Hugo Chavez nationalized oil fields in the country and Trump has repeatedly railed against 'stolen oil'—will continue to surface. On Fox News this morning, Trump said, 'When you do oil everything follow.'”
~ Joyce Vance
#Trump #Venezuela #war #military #oil #Maduro
/25
https://joycevance.substack.com/p/trump-strikes-venezuela-arrests-president
As you’re likely aware by now, overnight, the Trump administration, without alerting Congress first, went into Venezuela and arrested its President, Nicolás Maduro, on charges stemming from a newly announced indictment in the Southern District of New York.
"Given his pardon of Juan Orlando Hernández, Trump's kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro cannot be regarded as a legitimate fight against drug trafficking. Rather, it's about getting a piece of the action."
~ Marcy Wheeler
#Trump #Venezuela #war #military #oil #Maduro
/26
https://www.emptywheel.net/2026/01/03/trumps-selective-drug-enforcement-in-latin-america/
"If the reason it is acceptable for the U.S. to remove a foreign leader is because he is an authoritarian who lacks democratic legitimacy, there is an obvious contradiction is prosecuting this attack through authoritarian means."
~ Executive Watch
#Trump #Venezuela #war #military #oil #Maduro
/27
https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/trump-strikes-venezuela-picks-up
"The closest historical parallel for this action is George H. W. Bush’s war to capture dictator Manuel Noriega in Panama in 1989, without any formal authorization from Congress, violating the terms of the Constitution. Yet even Bush briefed member of Congress ahead of time, and they generally approved of the action."
"So what is it about?
Eliminating Congress, and congressional authority on ANYTHING. Extra-Judicial Uber Alles. Pretext is superfluous."
~ Susie Bright and Jon Bailiff
"The lesson is Congress doesn't exist. I can do anything I want. I control the military. That is the point of this whole thing."
~ Jon Bailiff
#Trump #Venezuela #war #military #oil #Maduro
/30
https://jonbailiff.substack.com/p/venezuela-the-extrajudicial-death
Back on the Warpath with Jon and Susie - What if invasion is just to say you can?
"It has nothing to do with Maduro. It's a target of convenience, of opportunity. actually. They've been engineering this for many years. …
This is about neutering Congress. It has nothing to do with anything but neutering Congress, saying to the American people, Congress doesn't exist."
"The only United States President in history to violently attack his own country, and attempt a coup to stay in power was always going to be a threat to illegally attack other countries like Venezuela, and destabilize the entire world. ...
This is classic fascism.
He is clearly unfit for the job, and the most dangerous man on Earth."
~ D. Earl Stephens
Aaron Parnas reports on the press conference the man gave today, at which he announced:
“We’re going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition."
And:
"We are going to have our very large United States oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country."
#Trump #Venezuela #war #oil #Maduro
/33
https://aaronparnas.substack.com/p/urgent-venezuela-update-trump-says
I just finished watching the press conference following American strikes on Venezuela. Here is what you need to know.
"We have been told repeatedly by this president that he was going to be the peace president and that he said at his inauguration that he was going to be the kind of president who was not going to engage in regime change. That is why he so desperately wanted the Nobel Peace Prize, because he said that he was the kind of president who ended wars."
~ Julie Roginsky
#Trump #Venezuela #war #military #oil #Maduro
/34
https://saltypolitics.substack.com/p/venezuelan-regime-change
A recording from Julie Roginsky's live video
"We are now in Venezuela and we've been given one reason and one reason only as to why. Not because Maduro is a bad guy, as the president's aides tried to convince us he is.
But precisely and because the president said that he wanted American companies to go in there and make some money on oil."
"There are so many ways in which what is transpiring poses a dire threat to the world order. The message — that 'might makes right' — is certainly being celebrated in Beijing and Moscow. …
There is no confusion when it comes to the Constitution: military action like this must begin with Congress. Leaders say they were not briefed until after Maduro was taken. So what will they do about it?"
~ Elliot Kirschner
"But amid all of these worthy recriminations, there is another institution that demands much harsher scrutiny. There is no question that the Supreme Court under John Roberts blessed this presidency with virtually no limits on its power and placed this president, unstable and unworthy, above the law. …
This war is Roberts’ war."
#Trump #Venezuela #war #military #oil #Maduro #SupremeCourt #JohnRoberts #corruption #immunity #UnitaryExecutive
/37
"Alongside the memory of George W. Bush, the ghost of Jeffrey Epstein loomed over Trump at his press conference today. The week after the DOJ announced that it has found another 5.2 million pages of Epstein documents that must be gone through and redacted so Trump’s name doesn’t show up, the same DOJ is very much a factor in the “arrest” of that terrible drug dealer Maduro in Venezuela…."
~ Lucian K. Truscott
#Trump #Venezuela #war #Epstein
/38
https://luciantruscott.substack.com/p/insanity-redux-shock-and-awe-in-venezuela
William Lindsey 
Tofu Golem
RiaResists
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