So I guess we’re at war with Venezuela now? Kat Abugazaleh gives us the full progressive take on the situation, while Adam Kinzinger gives a more conservative position, supporting the military for a job well done while wondering WTF the regime is trying to accomplish. I tend to lean more towards Kat than Adam, personally, though I will concede that Maduro was a terrible person who certainly didn’t deserve his position. But, as even Kinzinger wonders, will Trump install the properly elected president of Venezuela? or will he just take over the government and rape it for all the oil he can get away with before his term is up? I suppose we’ll find out ... though I suspect we could make a pretty good guess right now. (Also, between writing this and posting it, I think we already found out. Sigh.)
Other things you need to know this week:
- Adam Kinzinger has another good crop of videos this week: the one I linked above, why Russia isn’t winning the war in Ukraine (despite what Putin would have Trump believe), and, as always, the week in review.
- Christopher Titus gives us a year-end update, with his usual panache and venom.
I plan to do a proper look back on the horrors of Trump’s first year at some point, but of course the year isn’t quite over yet: that’ll come in about 2 weeks. So perhaps I’ll have time to put something together in that time. In the meantime, something good actually happened this week too: while most of New York was celebrating the ball drop in Times Square, Zohran Mamdani was being sworn in as the city’s first Muslim mayor, youngest in nearly a century, and possibly the most progressive since Fiorello La Guardia was elected in 1934. If you haven’t already, listen to his inauguration speech. His opening words: “My fellow New Yorkers, today begins a new era.” And I think we could all use a little of that action.