Dear Everybody:
Today we found out more about Trump’s "reasoning" behind invading Venezuela and grabbing Maduro:
--The New York Times is reporting that Trump was furious because he thought Maduro was "mocking" him by dancing in videos on TikTok, etc. (And no, I am not making this up.)
--And now they’re reporting that the reason he refused to consider Maria Machado, the opposition leader to Maduro, to lead the country is because she won the Nobel Prize. He felt she should have refused the prize and told the Nobel Committee that Trump was the one who deserved it. An official close to Trump said, "If she had turned it down and said, ‘I can’t accept because it’s Donald Trump’s, she’d be the President of Venezuela today." (No, I’m not making this up either.)
--It instantly reminded me of a scene in the long-ago miniseries, I CLAUDIUS, in which the mad Emperor Caligula came in carrying the cut-off head of his cousin who he’d killed because "his coughing annoyed me."
--We are now in full Mad Emperor territory with Trump, and he’s far from being done. Yesterday on the plane back to DC from Mar-a-lago, he threatened the head of Venezuela he just installed, former vice-president Rodriguez, saying if she didn’t do what he said, "she is going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro; the President of Mexico; Colombia , Iran, a second strike against Venezuela, Cuba, and Greenland.
--Reporter: "What do you need from Delcy Rodriguez (who Trump just installed as president of Venezuela)?" Trump: "Total access. We need access to the oil and other things."
--Reporter: "So will there be an operation by the US in Colombia?" Trump: "Sounds good to me."
--Trump: "We need Greenland."
--When Trump was asked who was going to be in charge of Venezuela, his answer seemed to encompass more than that country and to be his approach to the whole world. Trump: "Don’t ask me who’s in charge because I’ll give you an answer and it’ll be very controversial." Reporter: "What does that mean?" Trump: "It means we’re in charge."
--And he wildly posted and reposted last night, over 100 posts.
--Psychiatrist Dr. Gartner: "Trump shows signs of having fronto-temporal dementia which...disinhibits people to basically act out badly...so we have this person, who has virtually absolute power and no guardrails, who, in a a demented stae, is impulsively being driven to act out in these paranoid and destructive and crazy ways. He really could do almost anything." Dr. Gartner also said Trump is completely cognitively confused, which means that "he can also do something that just doesn’t even make any sense, or that completely reflects a disordered view of reality."
--Kurious: "Republicans in Congress are allowing a madman to use the US military to act out his sociopathic ‘king of the world’ fantasies."
--Paul Krugman: "It’s all about Trump’s self-aggrandizing delusions. And it will accomplish nothing except to make America look even less trustworthy and weaker than it did before."
--American Veritas: "Trump feels emboldened now. He will strike again unless he is held accountable."
We also shouldn’t forget Trump’s envy of Obama as a motive:
--Trump was apparently trying to copy (and outdo) Obama’s take down of Osama bin Laden and the iconic photo of the war room with Obama, Hillary Clinton, and the generals intently watching the operation:
--Irish Star: "Trump Tries to Recreate Iconic Obama War Room Picture but Makes Major Error. Donald Trump has been accused of attempting to mimic Barack Obama’s iconic war room moment, but was left embarrassed after critics spotted an embarrassing detail in the background. In a series of images shared by the White House...the group appeared to be monitoring the operation on Twitter."
--Twitter users immediately ridiculed them. "During the Osama operation, Obama’s war room photo became iconic. Trying to copy that moment, Trump forgot one thing--you don’t open Twitter in a war room."
And the Wag the Dog motive:
--The timing of the attack was designed to distract from the deadline to turn over all the Epstein files, the deadline for the DOJ to explain its redaction process to Congress, the failure to extend the ACA subsidies, with the subsequent huge spike in premiums, Jack Smith’s testimony before Congress, and the anniversary tomorrow of the January 6 insurrection and Trump’s subsequent pardoning of all the insurrectionists.
--Governor JB Pritzker: "Never has a President wagged a dog harder than Trump and MAGA now to distract from Epstein, the explosion of health and homeowners’ insurance costs, and the tariffs that are decimating small businesses."
--rugbymom: "Everything distracts from everything else. It’s not a single strategy...the reality is that we are governed by an impulsive person with a short attention span, and aides around him determined to keep him occupied with something that grabs his attention, however briefly, and aides and lobbyists eager to get his help in pushing their own agendas. So it’s a continual cycling from one crisis to another as his attention goes "Squirrel! Arch! Ballroom! Drug gangs! Greenland! Another squirrel!" And as he flails, his noticeable physical and cognitive decline attract attention on TV, he loses support (even votes in the House and on the Supreme Court), he’s likely to panic and go even further into a frenzy of squirrel-issues. And the people around him, instead of working hard to keep him in appropriate channels, are promoting the chaos and the most extreme options."
--The Lincoln Project posted that "#EpsteinTrumpFiles is trending and commented, "It’s gonna get crazier because it’s still not working."
And there may be yet another motive:
--Ambassador Ken Fairfax: "During Fiona Hill’s testimony to Congress on October 14, 2019, she described how Trump and Putin discussed exchanging Ukraine for Venezuela. The quid pro quo was if Trump refuses to help Ukraine fight off a Russian invasion, Putin would not help Venezuela (a Russian ally) resist a US takeover."
In other Venezuela invasion news:
--When asked how he justified arresting Maduro when he had pardoned the drug-trafficking Honduras president, Trump gestured behind him at Rubio and said, "I went to a lot of the people standing behind me and they felt that he was persecuted, that’s why I gave him a pardon."
--Stephanopoulos: "You cannot credibly argue that drug trafficking charges demand invasion in one case while issuing a pardon in another. What’s your response?" Rubio: "In the cast of Maduro, it’s very simple. This guy was indicted." Stephanopoulos: "Hernandez was convicted by a jury." Rubio: "I wasn’t involved in those deliberations. I haven’t looked at the case files. I haven’t looked at the arguments made...I can’t comment on a case that, frankly, I’m aware of but not deeply familiar with. I don’t want to comment on something that I haven’t had a chance to be involved in reviewing the file and the rationale behind it." (Apparently the buck doesn’t stop anywhere.)
In other Trump’s Venezuela invasion news:
--Only 34% support the invasion according to a brand-new YouGov poll.
--Headlines from abroad said Trump is acting "like a colonial strongman" and that "America is on the warpath."
--The Pope issued a call for respect for Venezuela’s independence and human rights and warned against occupying the country.
--As if things couldn’t get worse for Venezuelans, Trump is now talking about putting Stephen Miller in charge of running the country.
--Ron Filipkowski: "From Maduro to Stephen Miller. People in Venezuela can’t catch a break."
--Hakeem Jeffries: "The Venezuelan people elected Edmundi Gonzalez to run the country. Not Pete Hegseth or Marco Rubio. (Or Stephen Miller.). The American people do not support another expensive foreign war that risks the lives of our men and women in uniform."
--At the same time, Trump revoked Temporary Protected Status for Venezuelan immigrants, saying it was safe for them to return home, even though the same party that caused them to flee in the first place is still in power.
In Kennedy Center news:
--Composer Steven Schwarz (who wrote the music for WICKED) has canceled his performance at Kennedy Center.
--Now it turns out that the center’s bylaws were changed in advance of the vote to add Trump’s name to the building to make sure the measure would pass without opposition. According to the Washington Post, after Trump stacked the board with his own buddies--JD Vance’s wife, Susie Wiles, Dan Scavino, etc.--new bylaws were added that restricted voting eligibility.
--The revised bylaws specified that board members designated by Congress, called ex officio members, could not vote or contribute to a quorum.
--Law scholar Ellen Aprill: "I believe there is a strong argument that such a bylaw provision violates the Kennedy Center’s charter."
--cgorham: "The name change is obviously illegal. But they are also showing NO RESPECT for the rule of law and don’t care."
--Senator Sheldon Whitehouse is investigating possible corruption at the Kennedy Center since Trump and his gang took over.
--He’s looking at charges that they let politically-aligned groups use the center for free or at steep discounts and billed the center for lavish hotel stays, expensive meals, and hospitality for friends, donors, and political allies.
--They had no business doing any of those things. The Kennedy Center is taxpayer-funded.
--Trump bragged in advance of the Kennedy Center Honors show he hosted: "I believe--and I’m gonna make a prediction--this will be the highest-rated show that they’ve ever done, and they’ve gotten some pretty good ratings, but there’s nothing like what’s gonna happen tomorrow night. This is a first. I’m sure they’ll give me great reviews, right? You know, they’ll say, ‘He was horrible. He was terrible. It was a horrible situation.’ No, we’ll do fine. I’ve watched some of the people that host. Jimmy Kimmel was horrible, and some of these people, if I can’t beat out Jimmy Kimmel in terms of talent, then I don’t think I should be president." (Too bad he didn’t say ratings.)
--The show had the smallest audience ever and the worst ratings CBS has ever had (a 35% drop since 2024.)
--Washington Post: "The center’s abnormally shrinking audience and growing financial woes have largely been tied to Trump’s unprecedented changes to the Kennedy Center, which have sullied its reputation in the eyes of once-loyal performers and patrons."
--CBS, which did the broadcast, referred to the center as "the Kennedy Center" throughout, saying in a memo to its staff that the name change has not been authorized by Congress.
--Aaron Rupar: "The Kennedy Center is threatening to sue Chuck Redd to enforce the tyrannical precent that we are all, always, everywhere, the king’s performing monkeys. Are our voices our own? Or do they belong to Trump alone?"
In Epstein news:
--Barb McQuade: "It’s hard to believe a President would time an illegal military attack to distract the public’s attention, but today is the statutory deadline for DOJ to release its report on the Epstein file production. The DOJ has not provided it."
--House Oversight Democrats: "We are sure it’s just a coincidence, but today is the statutory date for the DOJ to explain its redactions on the Epstein file productions. We have not forgotten and we won’t let up--regardless of the President’s new unconstitutional actions."
--Heather Cox Richardson: "The Epstein Files Transparency Act is a law passed by Congress on November 19 with an overwhelming vote. Complying with it was not optional. The DOJ did not comply."
--Allison Gill says the DOJ is lying about finding those new files on Epstein that New York supposedly had and didn’t tell them about. "I reached out to sources and they say that not only did New York send over everything they had, but that the entire review process--using roughly a thousand analysts from the FBI’s Information Management Division--was specifically to review the boxes of files from New York."
--Ro Khanna: "Every person at Justice who violates this law is guilty of obstruction of justice, and a future administration could prosecute them."
--Peppa Pax Pippa: "Donald Trump is going to threaten to bomb a different country every 12 hours until he finds the one that will make everyone stop talking about how he raped kids."
In other news:
--Trump announced he intends to punish blue states who cross him by withholding federal funds: "We are not going to pay Minnesota, we are not going to pay California, we are not going to pay Illinois--the big slob of a governor they have."
--The Ark Encounter, the Creationist museum in Kentucky in the shape of the Ark with the humans riding dinosaurs, may be the site of a measles outbreak. A child who visited had the measles (and the people who go there are very likely to be unvaccinated), but the museum has made almost no effort to notify the people who might have been infected. (Measles is one of the most infectious diseases there is. It infects 9 out of 10 people exposed to it unless they’ve been vaccinated.)
--And today RFK, Jr. announced that the number of recommended vaccinations for children will be lowered from 17 to 11, eliminating those for rotavirus, hepatitis A and B, meningitis, and seasonal flu except for "high risk" children. The changes were made without formal public comment or input from vaccine makers.
In good news:
--Dan Bongino is no longer the Deputy Director of the FBI. He resigned/was pushed out.
--A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to facilitate the return of another immigrant. Reyes Vasquez, who was deported in violation of a court order.
--A wildlife photographer who was exploring a remote pocket of the Italian Alps has discovered thousands of dinosaur footprints preserved in the vertical face of a mountainside. You can see the photo here: https://news.artnet.com/art-world/dinosaur-footprints-italian-alps-2732685
Best meme of the day: A picture of the last scene of THE SOUND OF MUSIC, with the von Trapp family climbing over the Alps, with the caption, "I heard that a family singing troupe fled the country on foot in the middle of the night to avoid having to perform at the Kennedy Center."
Best comment of the day, from Kavid: "First they took over Venezuela, and I didn’t speak up because I’m not Venezuelan. Then they came for Greenland..."
On Daily Kos, they post daily art and poetry in some of their articles, and it really helps on dark days, so I’ve decided to add a couple of lines of poetry a day to get us through till spring. (Spring is a poem all by itself.)
Today’s bit of poetry, from e.e. cummings’s "Skating": "Gleam of ice and glint of steel, jolly, snappy weather; glide on ice and joy of zeal, all, alone together. Fickle spring! Who can imprint her? Faithless while she’s captivating. Here’s to trusty Madame Winter..."
Keep calm and carry on,
Connie Willis