Monday, January 5, 2026

The Euphoria Period

We’re in the euphoria period of acknowledging across the board that Maduro was a bad guy and that our military is absolutely incredible. This is exactly the euphoria we felt in 2002 when our military took down the Taliban in Afghanistan, in 2003 when our military took out Saddam Hussein, and in 2011 when we helped remove Muammar Gaddafi from power in Libya. ... Let's let my Republican colleagues enjoy their day of euphoria, but they're going to wake up tomorrow morning, knowing, oh my God, there is no plan here any more than there was in Afghanistan, Iraq, or in Libya.

- Rep. Jim Himes, ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee

This week's featured post is "The Venezuela attack is a constitutional crisis for the United States".

Ongoing stories

This week's developments

This week everybody was talking about the attack on Venezuela

The featured post makes the case that the way the Trump administration ignored and even lied to Congress about its Venezuela policy constitutes a constitutional crisis, which a self-respecting Congress would answer with impeachment. (Not that I expect that to happen.) There's still a lot we don't know about what the administration intends going forward (or if they even have a clear intention). But a few things are immediately clear

  • The mission was a tactical success. Plucking a foreign leader out of his seat of power without killing him is never easy. The people who planned and executed this mission must be very good at their jobs.
  • Maduro was a bad guy. Critics of the attack shouldn't fall into the trap of lionizing Maduro or making him a victim. He stayed in power by stealing the 2024 election (and probably the 2018 election as well), and has ruled as a dictator. Venezuelans running from oppression have created a refugee problem for several countries.
  • None of the administration's justifications for the attack add up. Maduro was an illegitimate leader, but so are the leaders of many countries. He may have been involved in the drug trade, but Trump just pardoned former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández for convictions on very similar charges. Just about everything Trump has ever said about Venezuelan refugees or Venezuelan gangs operating in the US has been a pure flight of imagination.
  • The attack was illegal under international law. The UN charter recognizes two justifications for going to war: self-defense, and when the war has been authorized by the UN Security Council. As Oona Hathaway of Yale Law School and the American Society of International Law put it: "The dangerous thing here is the idea that a President can just decide that a leader is not legitimate and then invade the country and presumably put someone in power who is favored by the Administration. If that were the case, that’s the end of international law, that’s the end of the U.N. charter, that’s the end of any kind of legal limits on the use of force. And if the President can do that, what’s to stop a Russian leader from doing it, or a Chinese leader from doing it, or anyone with the power to do so?"
  • There is no plan for what happens next. During a press conference Saturday morning, Trump said: "So we are going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper, and judicious transition. ... [F]or us to just leave, who's gonna take over? I mean, there is nobody to take over." But Max Boot was unconvinced: "What is he talking about? There are no indications that U.S. troops are preparing to occupy Venezuela. ... Maduro was not a one-man band. He presided over a large apparatus of oppression that includes the army, the national guard, the national police, the intelligence service and the Colombian guerrilla group ELN. All of those forces remain intact after the U.S. raid."

If we learned anything from the expensive fiascos in Afghanistan and Iraq, it should have been that you don't take down a country's government without having a plan for what comes next.

I wonder what's going on in the minds of Trump voters who thought "America First" meant that we were done with pointless foreign wars.

Josh Marshall speculates on what's going on at the White House:

I don’t think there’s any actual reason we’re invading Venezuela or trying to decapitate its government or whatever we’re doing. I think there are two or three different factions in the government each pushing a very hostile policy toward Venezuela for differing reasons. Meanwhile, Trump thinks it’s cool and has a personal beef with Maduro. That combination of factors created a lot of forward momentum within the U.S. government with nothing pushing back in the opposite direction. That gets you to today. My point is that it’s a mistake to think there’s a “real” reason mixed in with other subterfuges and rationales, or that it’s important to find out which one the “real” reason is. It’s not that linear or logical.

and the old/new year

Andy Borowitz and Anne Telnaes pick out the best editorial cartoons of the year.

TPM did its annual celebration of the year in corruption, the Golden Dukes. Best General-Interest Scandal: Trump's $300 million ballroom. Biggest Journalism Fail: the NYT's anti-Mamdani campaign.

Meanwhile, the NYT reviewed a year of Trump's attempts to "crush dissent".

In case you're wondering how the other half thinks, conservative WaPo pundit Marc Thiessen lists the 10 worst and 20 best things Trump did in 2025. Second-worst thing: He didn't give the Pentagon enough money. Sixteenth best thing: "He brought many of the nation’s elite universities to heel." #4 is his mostly mythical "peacemaking" record, while #6 is his attack on Venezuela.

and the Supreme Court

A week ago yesterday, Face the Nation had an extended panel discussion about the year behind and the year ahead. In their final go-round (at about the 22:40 mark) about over- or under-reported stories, legal analyst Jan Crawford picked out the corruption of the Supreme Court -- that it is "in the tank for Trump" -- as an over-reported story.

Not only is that narrative over-reported, it is patently false, and it is dangerous for the institution and the public’s faith and confidence in the rule of law.

The people making the in-the-tank charge did not take that criticism lying down. On his Law Dork blog, Chris Geidner described Crawford's statement as "shockingly devoid of substance". She gave no examples and did not point to any specific case where someone has criticized the Court unfairly.

In particular, she did not account for the obvious corruption of Clarence Thomas, who has taken literally millions of dollars worth of favors from people (like Harlan Crowe) who want to influence the Court. (Thomas has tried to hide behind a "hospitality from friends" loophole in rules about reporting gifts. But Crowe's "friendship" only manifested after Thomas ascended to the Court.)

Josh Marshall fleshes out that response to Crawford, observing that defenders of the Court like to use a very narrow definition of corruption that focuses on bribery in exchange for specific favors.

The secondary and older definition is the act of taking something in its healthy form, in its prescribed and proper form, and pervert it into something different. The corruption of the Court is bound up with both those definitions. What the current Supreme Court has done is take the proper and constitutional role of the Court and wrench it into something very different. That very different thing is corrupt, unconstitutional and undermines democratic self-government itself. It has moved from a final Court of appeal, which reviews cases and renders decisions by a range of possible jurisprudential philosophies — more conservative or liberal, progressive or libertarian — and changed it into a body which follows no consistent or coherent mode of interpretation or even the most basic procedures and processes for how cases are supposed to make their way from trial courts and finders of fact up through the appellate process. It is a “choose your own adventure” jurisprudence, mixing and matching doctrines based on desired outcomes, frequently manufacturing entirely new ones based on ignoring the explicit language of the constitution itself. And all for the consistent purpose of advancing the partisan and/or ideological interests of the Republican Party.

What both writers find most dangerous about Crawford's statement is the implication that the Court's corruption itself does not threaten democracy, but pointing out the Court's corruption does. Yes, the rule of law is less secure when the public doubts the honesty of the courts. But the solution to that problem is to call the Court back to honesty, rather than cover up its dishonesty.

and Jack Smith

You can tell that former Special Prosecutor Jack Smith performed well during his closed-door testimony to the House Judiciary Committee, because the committee's Republican chair released the transcript on New Years Eve, hoping no one would notice.

In his more-than-eight-hour of testimony, Smith insisted he had no political motivations in indicting Trump, and said he believed “we had proof beyond a reasonable doubt in both cases” that he brought.

“If asked whether to prosecute a former president based on the same facts today, I would do so regardless of whether that president was a Republican or a Democrat,” he said in his opening statement. Smith later told an unnamed committee staffer he would have indicted Biden or Barack Obama over similar evidence.

Trump wants to keep harassing the people who investigated him, but all he's doing is keeping the story alive. And that's bad for him because all the investigations were justified and he was guilty.

and fault lines in the MAGA movement

MAGA is struggling with the question of Nazis and antisemitism inside itself. It first arose in late October after Tucker Carlson interviewed avowed antisemite Nick Fuentes on his show, prompting considerable disagreement about whether Fuentes should continue to be held outside the pale.

Now, just weeks later, after the Carlson/Heritage fiasco appeared to have blown over, it bubbled back up in spectacular fashion at the main stage at Turning Point USA’s mega conference, dubbed “AmericaFest.” Podcaster Ben Shapiro used his speech to attack his fellow conservative influencers, from Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens to Megyn Kelly and Nick Fuentes himself. That led others to clap back at Shapiro, turning “AmFest” into a circular firing squad of grievance among the right’s top influencers.

Owens responded on her podcast by proving Shapiro's point, referring to dangerous Talmudic conspiracies.

The Heritage Foundation's president defended Carlson's Fuentes interview, causing more than a dozen staffers to defect to Mike Pence's rival think tank.

Vox finds a proximate cause in Elon's changes to X/Twitter. Musk took down the guardrails at Twitter, encouraging the growth of disinformation, conspiracy theories, and personal attacks. Once, these changes helped right-wing posters "own the libs". But liberals have largely left X for BlueSky and other greener pastures. Now, the best way to raise traffic (and get payments from Elon) might be to goad rival right-wingers.

It's hard not to laugh at someone like Christopher Rufo being hoisted by his own petard.

“On the right, the public mind is now shaped by the X algorithm,” right-wing activist and X power-user Christopher Rufo recently wrote, arguing that X has usurped the role formerly held by Fox News. But, he went on, “the platform’s algorithm seems increasingly hijacked by bad actors who peddle baseless conspiracies” for “clicks, dollars, and shares.”

but I want to talk about the future of small towns

In mid-December, I made a trip back to my hometown (Quincy, Illinois), a small city of about 40,000 people that is the regional center of a rural area stretching about 50 miles in any direction. That radius takes in smaller cities like Hannibal, Missouri and Keokuk, Iowa, but if you need any citylike service -- from a hospital to a good Indian restaurant to a big box store -- probably you go to Quincy.

My community within Quincy is comprised almost entirely of people from the local Unitarian church. I didn't grow up in that church, but it includes nearly everybody I go back to visit (now that my parents are gone). The church is a left-leaning citadel inside a county that voted 70% for Trump every time he ran. People attend largely because they need a place where liberals can feel safe saying what they think.

So I can't claim that I have spent much time talking to Quincy's MAGA majority. But simply being there gives me occasional bursts of insight into their worldview. This time something crystalized for me that I probably should have seen a long time ago: The Democratic Party has no message for towns like this.

Think about it. If I support MAGA, I can tell a story about how my vote is going to help this community thrive: Immigrant workers are going to leave the country, and tariffs will keep out foreign products. So we'll return to a time (like the 1950s) when Americans made products for other Americans. Factories will boom again, and jobs will be plentiful.

Now, so much is wrong with that vision that there's virtually no chance of things working out that way. The ultimate effect of Trump's policies won't be to shift money from immigrant workers to native-born workers. Instead, money will flow from ordinary people to the oligarchs who own the machines and algorithms. I don't believe many of those oligarchs call Quincy their home. Meanwhile, the people who do live in Quincy will have to make do with holes in their safety net, without well-funded schools, and without decent health insurance.

But as vaporous as the MAGA fantasy is, it's still a narrative that you can believe in if you need to believe in something. If somebody asks how your policies are going to help Quincy thrive, MAGA at least has a story to tell.

What's the Democrats' story? As best I can suss it out, we offer to help Quincy's young people pay for college, so they can get qualified for decent-paying jobs somewhere like Boston (where I wound up). In other words: We'll help your kids escape from the hellhole you call home. If you're lucky, they'll make enough money that they can come visit you at Christmas.

That's not going to win many votes. We need a story of how people from small towns can succeed and prosper in those towns.

I have a few ideas about that, but nothing like a complete program. For now, I'd just like to get more people sitting with the question.

and you also might be interested in ...

Maybe you remember that viral video where an ICE agent manhandled a woman in the hallway of a New York City immigration court. The agent was briefly taken off duty, but he was back the next week. Now DHS Office of Inspector General has decided no criminal probe is necessary.

ICE does not punish this kind of violence. It condones it.

Anti-government demonstrations are going on in Iran, sparked largely by economic issues.

Trump's super PAC raised over $100 million in the second half of 2025, mostly in big contributions from people who expect favorable treatment from his administration. Together with his wife, the founder of Open AI gave $25 million. Crypto.com tossed $20 million Trump's way.

Other donors included a nursing home entrepreneur seeking an ambassadorship, a vape-maker, a pro-cannabis group and a woman whose father was seeking a deal from prosecutors to settle charges that in 2020 he bribed Puerto Rico’s governor at the time.

Anti-abortion politicians always deny that they want to go after women, but then there's this:

A Kentucky woman has been charged with fetal homicide after police say she admitted to terminating her pregnancy at home. Kentucky State Police arrested 35-year-old Melinda Spencer on charges of fetal homicide in the first degree, abuse of a corpse and tampering with physical evidence.

Apparently, Spencer confessed to clinic workers, who ratted her out to the police. Her "crime" was to obtain abortion drugs through the mail, induce her own miscarriage, and then bury the fetus in her back yard.

The trans University of Oklahoma instructor who was put on leave for giving zero to a Christian student essay has now been officially removed from all instructional duties.

This story has been in the news for about a month, but I hadn't paid any attention until recently. So I read the assignment, an abstract of the article the essay was supposed to comment on, and the essay itself.

My conclusion: A failing grade was justified, but a zero was probably harsh. Out of the 25 points available, I'd have graded it somewhere in the single digits. I mean, she did turn in an essay, the essay was made up of coherent English sentences, and an opinion was expressed, if not justified. Maybe five points.

The central problem is that the essay doesn't really address the assignment. The social-science article the essay is supposed to be commenting on was a study of the relationship between "gender typicality" and popularity in high school, and exploring the extent to which the poor mental health associated with gender atypicality is inherently part of gender atypicality, versus how much is due to teasing, bullying, and other social responses.

The student essay is almost entirely a personal emotional response to gender atypicality itself, and repeatedly makes the religious point that gender roles were established by the Creator. Teasing to enforce these gender roles is "not necessarily ... a problem". Did the student read any more of the article than the abstract I read? Not clear.

Personally, I'm reminded of a failing grade a friend of mine got on an essay for a college course on Indian philosophy. His essay responded to the questions in the assignment, but only from the point of view of Western thinkers. Similarly, he wrote coherent English sentences that had something to do with the general topic, but didn't demonstrate any course-related knowledge.

My conclusion: Removing the instructor is much worse overkill than zeroing the essay. Have somebody else regrade the essay and give the instructor a lecture about sensitivity to the prevailing winds of Christian domination. Right-wing Christians are encouraging their students to walk around with chips on their shoulders, looking for a fight. It's unwise to give them such a clear target.

Trans News Network interviews former NYT editor Billie Jean Sweeney, who describes how the NYT's hostile attitude towards trans coverage was pushed down from above.

Guess what? Jeff Bezos' Washington Post disapproves of taxing billionaires. California is considering a ballot initiative for a wealth tax, and some billionaires are already relocating to dodge it. "California will miss billionaires when they’re gone", the WaPo editorial board writes, pointing out that it's better for a state to collect low taxes from billionaires rather than none after they leave.

And that's true as far as it goes, but it misses the more important point: We need national taxes on billionaires precisely so that they can't play one state off against another.

Similarly, the nations of the world need to come together on a global corporate tax scheme, so that corporations can't play one country off against another. Here's how it could work: If you want to be a corporate tax haven like the Cayman Islands, fine. But you don't get to use the international banking system or trade with the countries who participate in the global tax regime.

You see this kind of argument all the time: Nobody should challenge the rich and powerful because they'll use their wealth and power to make your effort counter-productive. That argument is always presented in a matter-of-fact of-course-the-world-works-this-way manner, and the possibility that the world can and should work differently is never discussed.

and let's close with something positive

In a year with a lot of bad news, the WaPo picked out its five best good-news stories of the year.

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