Guck Foogle

We're not changing the name of Lake Ontario. Name it whatever you want at your leisure: https://gulfof.mapquest.com/lakeontario (tag us so we can see your work 🙂)

[image or embed]

— MapQuest (@mapquest.com) August 27, 2026 at 4:14 PM

MapQuest is having none of it 

Once again Google has offered conclusive evidence that it's old motto of, "Don't be evil," is inoperative.

In this case, Google Maps renamed Lake Ontario to Lake America before the ink was dry on Trump's executive order.

Time to switch to MapQuest, I guess.  (Waze is owned by Google)

Google Maps has changed the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America following Donald Trump’s executive order mandating the change amid his trade war with Canada.

On Saturday, two days after the president cited Executive Order 14172 (Restoring Names That Honor American Greatness) to authorize the Great Lake’s renaming, Google Maps was updated to reflect the change for U.S. users.

Google’s sudden name change — the executive order stated the change must occur within 30 days, not 48 hours — was met with anger by Canadians, Lake Ontario-defending Americans, and HOMES mnemonic rememberers, all of whom accused the company of too quickly complying with Trump’s Lake America demand spurred by a trade war over tariffs.

To the degree that a future Democratic administration can dismantle all of the Silly-Con Valley monopolies, they should. 

Worse than Useless

Just the thing for caving I am referring, of course, to the dead eyed leader of the Democratic Party Caucus in the House of Representatives, and exemplar of everything that is wrong with the Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment), Hakeem Jeffries, who was just caught meeting with Trump son in law Jared Kushner.

Nice job of pre-capitulation.  Showing your belly to these guys is going to work out just great.

Democrats and other Donald Trump critics reacted incredulously to a New York Times report on Sunday that House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries met with Jared Kushner, the president’s influential son-in-law, to discuss possible areas of collaboration.

The reported meeting comes months ahead of the November midterm elections in which Democrats are favored to retake the US House, a development that would make Jeffries speaker. If they are in the majority, Democrats are expected to use their oversight power to aggressively investigate the Trump administration, including self-enrichment by the president and his family.

There are longstanding conflict-of-interest concerns about the way Kushner has continued to make money from foreign nations as he works on foreign affairs, including conflicts in Ukraine, Iran and Gaza.

There is no excuse for this.  Kushner holds no government position, and he is arguably the most aggressive grifter among the Trump Crime Family except (perhaps) for Donnie "Small Hands".  

………

Nonetheless, among some who lamented the reported gathering was Tommy Vietor, previously an aide to former president Barack Obama and now a co-host of the left-leaning podcast Pod Save America.

“Jared Kushner has no actual government job he just uses his family connections to get money from gulf autocrats and fund corrupt deals. The only way [Jeffries] should work with him is with demands for documents and subpoenas,” Vietor posted.

In April, Democrats on the House judiciary committee opened an investigation into Kushner’s financial conflict of interest. The investigation is focused on the way Kushner’s private business has raised money from Gulf nations while Kushner served as a special envoy for peace for the government.

“You cannot both be a diplomat and a financial pawn of the Saudi monarchy at the same time; you cannot faithfully represent the United States with billions of dollars in Saudi and Emirati cash burning a hole in every pocket of every suit you own,” Maryland congressman Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House judiciary committee, wrote in an April letter to Kushner.

What a useless excuse for a leader.

Speaking of Political Malpractice………

Trump's disastrous and incompetent Iran adventure is deeply unpopular, and it's getting less popular by the day, but the Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) refuses to come out against the war.

To quote (not) Tallyrand, "This is worse than a crime, this is a mistake." 

There’s definitely something uncanny about this: We’re five months and 10 days into Donald Trump’s war of choice with Iran, and it’s been about five months and five days since he lost it. Trump won’t end the war because he can’t accept terms that make clear how badly he fucked this up, and we’re all captive to his narcissism. The result is that U.S. credibility is in tatters. Everyone’s mad at us for creating a global energy crisis, and rightly so. Nobody trusts Trump to honor his word, because he’s a liar. Nobody trusts him to make good on his threats, because he makes them endlessly but never follows through. He’s depleted U.S. munitions stockpiles badly enough to leave service members, and allies that rely on our preparedness, vulnerable to adversaries.

It’s a cockup of world historic proportions. And yet… it’s often not among Trump’s biggest day-to-day political liabilities. The war is slow-bleeding support from the GOP. But there are no sustained calls for Trump to resign in disgrace, or face impeachment, or any consequences that match the scale of the failure. And yet we know, because we weren’t born yesterday, that presidents and cabinet officials have been mired in damaging controversy for much smaller military blunders. Remember Barack Obama’s redline in Syria? Or Benghazi?

………

What do you think would happen to Democratic Party approval ratings if Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries wrote up an agenda like the one I proposed here, including a promise that if Democrats win the election, they’ll defund Trump’s war against Iran? Would they go up or down?

What if they were able to communicate, unabashedly, that Trump had humiliated America. That through his own foolishness, megalomania, and dishonesty, he had made the United States seem weak and feckless to the world. That this is, for the pendency of his regime, a disaster for U.S. strategic power—but also that it’s fundamentally aberrant. Something Democrats will set right once Trump is gone.

What if Democrats told the electorate, but also the world, that American renewal could begin early, but only if voters gave Democrats enough power to dog walk Trump to the end of his term. No more threats to invade or occupy enemies or allies on a lark. No more denial about the failure of his foreign policy. He might serve his last two years in full—Republicans could still ensure his acquittal on impeachment—but he’d be muzzled and on a tight leash?

People are disinclined to vote for careerist coward hypocrites.

Brave, Brave, Brave, Brave Sir Donald

And they were forced to eat Robin's minstrels, and there was much rejoicing

I'm not sure that I can add much about Donald Trump cravenly slinking away from the Presidential 747 in response to an almost certainly false report of a threat from Iran, but seeing as how it gives me the opportunity to make a Monty Python reference, I'm doing it anyway.

Donald Trump departed on a secret military flight from Turkey to Britain last month when the White House said he was flying aboard ⁠Air Force One, in an extraordinary ruse – prompted by an Iranian assassination threat – that involved hiding the president in an airport catering container, according to reporting from the Washington Post and the New York Times.

The operation took place when Trump was in Ankara for a Nato summit with world leaders, according to the Post. The president reportedly boarded the old Air Force One jumbo jet in view of television cameras, and then was secretly shuttled minutes later to a smaller plane via an airport catering truck typically used to load meals and other supplies preflight, a US official told the Post.

What a f%$#ing poltroon,

A Quisling and a Coward

I am referring, of course, to Colorado Governor Jared Polis, who just caved to Donald Trump and commuted Tina Peters' sentence for election fraud.

Needless to say, his political career with the Democratic Party should be over now, but it probably won't be, because the Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) is too busy trying to kneecap people like Platner, Mamdani, and AOC. (Priorities, don't you know)

Gov. Jared Polis reduced Tina Peters’ sentence by half on Friday, ignoring months of pleas against such an action by many other Colorado elected officials and the prosecutor who won the former county clerk’s conviction in an election data-breach scheme.

In a letter to Peters, Polis wrote that she will “be released on parole effective June 1, 2026” — in just over two weeks.

The commutation, which was announced in a group of 44 clemency actions Friday afternoon, reduced Peters’ original sentence of nearly nine years, which was thrown out last month, to about 4.5 years. Polis’ action, coming after more than a year of pressure from President Donald Trump — and several actions taken targeting the state — risked the appearance that he was bending to Trump’s demands. But in an interview with The Denver Post ahead of the announcement, the governor was resolute.

Peters, the former Mesa County clerk, has been a public supporter of election conspiracies rooted in Trump’s reelection loss in 2020. But Polis said that “just because somebody believes the Earth is flat — just because somebody believes in conspiracy theories — does not mean that they should receive a harsher sentence for a very specific crime.”

Polis’ action drew swift reaction from other elected Democrats. Attorney General Phil Weiser, in an interview, called the commutation “an insult,” “mind-boggling” and “a threat to the rule of law.” And Secretary of State Jena Griswold called Polis’ decision “an affront to democracy” and accused the governor of “selling out our state justice system to cave to a vengeful president.”

F%$# Jared Polis. 

Because They Are Cowards and Hypocrites

Over at The Nation, they are asking, "Why Do the Democrats Keep Expanding the Institutions They Claim to Oppose?" 

How's that a simple answer for a simple question? 

In January, the senseless killings of Renée Good and Alex Pretti briefly forced many Americans to confront the brutalities of state violence. Millions took to the streets nationwide to express their anger and outrage over the murders of a 37-year-old mother and poet and a 37-year-old nurse who cared for veterans. The idea that ICE is beyond reform and should be abolished was no longer confined to the left. Even prominent conservative pundits began saying openly what many progressives have known for years: This agency cannot be restrained by norms, oversight, or exposure.

But as the administration’s “shock and awe strategy” advances, launching a war with Iran and generating new crises domestically, public attention has largely moved on from ICE violence to other outrages. Meanwhile, the deportation operations have not stopped. ICE has continued making hundreds to more than a thousand arrests daily, with more than 32,000 people booked into ICE detention in March alone. Tens of thousands of community members continue to cycle through a detention system operating at full scale, largely out of public view, and increasingly untethered from any coherent claim of public safety.

Instead of endorsing popular calls to abolish ICE in this critical moment, establishment Democrats have again sprinted in the opposite direction. In headline after headline, Democrats are described as standing firm—blocking funding, demanding reforms, holding the line. But look closer at what that “line” is: They are not fighting to shrink the enforcement state. They are negotiating the terms under which it continues.

The Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) is corrupt and incompetent.  They need to be completely turfed out of politics.

A Charity Not to Donate To

The Holocaust Memorial Museum.

It turns out that they shut down all their online and offline programs detailing the linkages between Jim Crow in the United States and the Nazis in Germany without being asked by the Trump administration..

This is not a minor thing.  This is them betraying their whole mission because they are concerned that Trump will throw a hissy fit.

In the first year of President Donald Trump’s second term, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington quietly removed from its website educational resources about American racism and canceled a workshop about the “fragility of democracy.”

The changes, which have not been previously reported, came as Trump cracked down on what he called “corrosive ideology” at the Smithsonian Institution, demanding a slew of alterations at the world’s largest museum network to more closely align its content with his worldview. They also coincided with the administration’s efforts to remove content related to diversity, equity and inclusion from federal websites.

Unlike his posture toward the Smithsonian, Trump has not publicly commented on the USHMM’s content or publicly called for any modifications. But two former museum employees who left amid the changes told POLITICO they believed the museum was altering its content preemptively, so as to not draw unwanted negative attention from the Trump administration. Both were granted anonymity due to fear of professional retaliation.

“It seems like they were trying to proactively fall in line as to not then be forced to change,” one of the people said.

The museum pulled from its website a page called “Teaching Materials on Nazism and Jim Crow” at some point after Aug. 29, 2025, the last time the page was captured on the Internet Archive. That page provided lesson plans and resources about the connections between American de jure racism and the Nazi regime, including links to sites about “African American Soldiers during World War II” and “Afro-Germans during the Holocaust,” among other topics.

………

Since taking office, Trump has tightened his grip on the USHMM, an independent museum that relies on both private donations and federal appropriations and is not affiliated with the Smithsonian. In an unprecedented move last year, the president purged from its board several of President Joe Biden’s appointees before the end of their terms. And in the months since, he has installed his own loyalists on the board — most notably replacing Stuart Eizenstat, who helped found the museum, with GOP megalobbyist Jeffrey Miller as chair last month.

………

In emails reviewed by POLITICO sent from a museum employee to two professors who had planned on hosting the workshops, the employee attributed the cancellation to “a set of cuts that are due to limited federal funds and a difficult fundraising environment.” But the employee — who has since left USHMM — said museum leadership had privately told them the cancellation was also about “shifting priorities.”

It's really simple, when push came to shove, the the USHMM showed who they were, because this is what they did.

As such, they do not deserve our support. 

Please Make it So

It appears that a group of Senate Democrats are looking at replacing Chuck Schumer with someone who has a modicum of guts and integrity.

About f%$#ing time:

Sen. Chris Murphy was dining with progressive activists at a French restaurant in Washington’s Georgetown neighborhood when the conversation about how to advance their legislative priorities turned to a thorny question: what to do about Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.

To the surprise of some attendees, the Connecticut Democrat—a rising star in the party’s left flank—responded that some lawmakers had been doing informal counts to see whether enough votes existed to remove the New York Democrat from his leadership position, according to people familiar with the mid-February dinner. Murphy explained that Schumer had enough backing to remain as leader. But the disclosure stood out nonetheless, because it revealed that frustration inside the Senate had reached a high enough level that some Democrats were actively contemplating how to oust Schumer.

………

In more than four dozen interviews with Democratic senators, candidates, current and former congressional aides, activists and advisers, many said the concern about Schumer’s leadership was widespread. Meetings between Democratic chiefs of staff on Senate business often veer into airing discontent with Schumer and how to pressure him to step aside as leader after November’s elections, according to attendees and others familiar with the discussions.

Your mouth to God's ear, Mr. Murphy.

Today in Cowardice

Congressmen Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie are attempting to force a War Powers Act resolution on what looks to be an all out attack on Iran. 

The Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) is doing their level best to sabotage this effort, because heaven forbid that a member of Congress should go on the record on the matter of war or peace.

Careerist assholes. 

House Foreign Affairs Committee Democrats have been working behind the scenes to try to prevent a vote on Reps. Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie’s Iran war powers resolution – a measure that would require every member of Congress to go on the record about a potential U.S. war with Iran.

A top Democratic HFAC staffer, multiple sources with direct knowledge tell me, ​​deliberately inflated projections of opposition to the bipartisan measure – warning of 20 to 40 Democratic defections – as part of a broader effort to dampen momentum and prevent the Iran war powers vote from advancing. Khanna and Massie had initially planned to force a vote on the resolution this week, but Democratic leadership is now saying they expect the vote to be delayed until next week or even later. The postponement comes as the Trump administration accelerates preparations for unauthorized military action, overseeing the largest U.S. military buildup in the region in years.

………

A senior Democratic congressional staffer told me it’s “pretty clear” Democratic leadership is working to delay “or potentially sideline” the vote on the Khanna-Massie war powers resolution. “If you’ve been around the Hill, this is a familiar playbook.”

………

The internal effort to sabotage momentum for the Iran war powers resolution reflects a broader strategic calculation among Democratic elites. As a recent Drop Site report detailed, many top Democrats privately believe Iran will ultimately have to be confronted militarily. But they also understand that openly backing another regime change war in the Middle East would be politically toxic. Poll after poll show there is little to no appetite for war with Iran, including lukewarm support among conservatives. The preferred outcome of many AIPAC-aligned Senate Democrats, according to a senior foreign policy aide to Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, is that Trump acts unilaterally, weakening Iran while absorbing the domestic backlash ahead of the midterms.

………

Unlike the run-up to the Iraq war, when the Bush administration orchestrated a sustained campaign to sell the public on invasion, the Trump administration has made little effort to construct a coherent case for war with Iran. They aren’t bothering to lie convincingly to the public. And top Democrats, mainstream media outlets, and liberal commentators have been conspicuously silent.

………

I asked Schumer’s office last week whether he supports Trump’s potential strikes, and whether escalation into a broader regional conflict is a risk he considers acceptable. His office did not respond to my request for comment. Days later, and only after the Drop Site report was published, Schumer’s office issued a minimal statement in support of congressional war powers.

Heaven forbid that Schumer and the rest of the Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) make anything like a meaning full statement on this.

It's not like Congress has any role in going to war. (Spoiler, only Congress can declare war)

………

Votes to invoke the War Powers Resolution are historically rare on Capitol Hill – though they have increased in frequency in recent years – and party leadership in both chambers has sought to avoid them. Passed over Nixon’s veto, the War Powers Resolution of 1973 was designed to guarantee that decisions about war reflect congressional deliberation and, by extension, the will of the American people before a president pulls the trigger. Forcing members to take a recorded position on military action carries political risk and can expose internal divisions, particularly when the White House is pressing for escalation.

………

Even Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, a staunch pro-Israel Democrat from Florida, has flipped on the issue. She supported Trump’s strikes on Iran in June but is now publicly against unauthorized war with Iran. “Make the case to the American people. Make the case to Congress,” Wasserman-Schultz said in an interview on MSNBC. “We have not seen anything about an imminent threat that would necessitate a significant strike.”

Even Wasserman-Schultz, the poster child for fecklessness among the Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) in Congress is willing state a position.

If a Senator or Representative is unwilling to make a statement on this, they are unfit for office.

I'll Believe it When I See It

Chuck Schumer, the chief Democratic Party spelunker in the Senate has announced that the Democratic Party Senate Caucus will block any funding bill that includes funding for ICE.

They won't.  They will cave somehow, because they ALWAYS find some way to cave.

In the wake of another fatal shooting of a US citizen in Minnesota by a federal officer, the Senate Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, said his party would block a funding package next week if it includes money for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

The announcement, which dramatically escalates the potential for another partial government shutdown, comes as anger towards homeland security, which oversees ICE, intensifies among the party after a group of federal agents violently restrained and then fatally shot 37-year-old ICU nurse Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.

“What’s happening in Minnesota is appalling – and unacceptable in any American city,” Schumer, a New York senator, said in a statement. “Democrats sought common sense reforms in the Department of Homeland Security spending bill, but because of Republicans’ refusal to stand up to President Trump, the DHS bill is woefully inadequate to rein in the abuses of ICE. I will vote no.”

“Senate Democrats will not provide the votes to proceed to the appropriations bill if the DHS funding bill is included,” he added.

The craven gerontocracy that is the Democratic Party leadership in the Senate must be broken. 

The Greatest Trick That Obama Ever Pulled Was Convincing the World He Was Powerless

I am, of course rephrasing Charles Baudelaire in the hed, though most people know it from the movie The Usual Susopects.

With all the talk of the Green Lantern theory of politics and the like, the centrists have maintained for decades that they simply lack to power to follow through on their promises.

The reality is that they are fine with the way things are, because they personally do very well under the current regime of inequality. 

That's also why the centrists want to keep the filibuster, it gives them another excuse not to do anything.

Of course, when the reactionary right takes the White House, whether it be Reagan, Bush I, Bush II, or Trump, they seem to have no problem making the United States a crueler and worse place.

Well, over at The Lever, David Sirota shines a light on what might be the only bright side to Trump being elected in 2024, he has shown that the centrist bleats about being powerless are a lie, and they always have been.

There are a few of us who are old enough to remember everyone in the Obama White House and in liberal media defending former President Barack Obama’s failures by insisting that he never had the power to do any of the big things he promised.

Those who pushed Obama to at least try to do what he promised were ridiculed by Ezra Klein as deranged believers in a so-called “Green Lantern Theory” of the presidency. When Obama’s own grassroots supporters tried to help round up congressional votes for his promised populist policies like a public health insurance option, Obama’s Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel reportedly lambasted those supporters with epithets:

The friction was laid bare in August when Mr. Emanuel showed up at a weekly strategy session featuring liberal groups and White House aides. Some attendees said they were planning to air ads attacking conservative Democrats who were balking at Mr. Obama’s health care overhaul.

“F—ing retarded,” Mr. Emanuel scolded the group, according to several participants.

………

To be fair, former President Joe Biden rammed through Congress a much bigger stimulus package than Obama ever tried, and pockets of the Biden administration at the Federal Trade Commission, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and the Justice Department’s antitrust division did laudably exercise much more power to deliver than their Obama predecessors ever did. And yet, in his rhetoric and deference to norms, Biden himself did his own part to enshrine the overall idea of the powerless president as Democratic dogma.

………

I bring this all up not because I live eternally in the past, and not just because I’m still mad about what happened in the Obama years, and not because I still believe that was the entirely preventable meltdown that explains this whole godforsaken era. I bring it up with an eye on the future: I want to remind everyone in the horrible here and now that President Donald Trump’s ongoing second-term rampage of unilateral executive power shows what a complete lie all of that pretend Democratic powerlessness really was. And that reminder is important so that nobody accepts that horseshit excuse ever again. 

This is why the Democratic Party rank and file know this, which is why they want Chuck Schumer's and Hakeem Jefferies' heads on a pike.

They have seen what the, "Better things aren't possible," policies leads to, and that is Donald Trump.

Since the mid-1970s, the Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) has positioned itself as a ratchet, so while they were in charge, nothing would get much worse, but they would not reverse the evil done by the reactionaries when they had power.

This is unsustainable for us as a society, and that which cannot continue will not continue. 

Because, Of Course They Did

As I had predicted, the Senate has killed the war powers act resolution to limit Trump's actions in Venezuela.

Senate Republicans are all Trump's little bitches. 

The US Senate has voted against a war powers resolution that would have prevented Donald Trump from taking further military action against Venezuela without giving Congress advance notice.

Senators Josh Hawley of Missouri and Todd Young of Indiana, who had joined three other Republicans to advance the resolution alongside Democrats last week, flipped after they said they received assurances from the Trump administration.

With Hawley and Young’s votes, the Senate was split 50-50 on the resolution. JD Vance cast the tie-breaking vote. Republican senators Rand Paul, Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins cast their votes for the war powers resolution alongside Democrats.

As a note, if neither Hawley or Young had flipped, Collins would have flipped, as she always does when her vote is the deciding one.

Our Democratic Party Establishment (There is no Democratic Party Establishment)

Amid increasing calls, particularly following the murder of Renee Good by an ICE agent, to reduce the budge of ICE, Democratic Party minority leaders in the House and Senate, Charles Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries are refusing to even consider the idea.

The cowardice of the party leadership is the single biggest impediment to political success. 

How can you believe promises from Democrats when they always cave? 

The killing of Renee Good by a federal immigration officer in Minneapolis this week came as Republicans in Congress were planning to bring a homeland security spending bill to the House floor, deciding on whether the agency that's surged thousands of armed agents into communities across the country should have increased funding—and progressive lawmakers are demanding that the Democrats use the upcoming government funding deadline to hopefully reduce the department's ability to wreak further havoc.

"I just don’t understand how we provide votes for a bill that funds the extent of the depravity," Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) told CNN Thursday. "I know we can’t fix everything in the appropriations bill but we should be looking at ways we can put some commonsense limitations on their ability to bring violence to our cities."

But the top Democratic leaders, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (NY) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (NY) both appeared to have little interest in discussing how their party can use the appropriations process as leverage to rein in US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agencies that have taken part in President Donald Trump's mass deportation operation.

………

But Jeffries said Thursday that he was focused on passing other appropriations bills that were ultimately approved by the House.

“We’ll figure out the accountability mechanisms at the appropriate time," Jeffries told reporters.

With Congress facing a January 30 deadline for approving government spending packages—and with public disapproval of ICE at an all-time high—several lawmakers have said this week that right now is the "appropriate time" to rein in the agency in any way the Democrats can.

Yeah.  Keep that powder dry, boys! 

Wagging the Dog

First, I would note that anyone relying on US mainstream media for their information is a moron. 

Between the Epstein files, persistent concerns about his health, and plummeting poll numbers it's pretty clear why Donald Trump authorized the abduction of Nicolas Maduro and his wife and strikes on Venezuela.

It had nothing to do with drugs, particularly not Fentanyl.

The fact that Trump has also explicitly stated his goal was to steal Venezuelan oil is part of that as well.

Maduro is now in custody in the US (Update: MDC Brooklyn.)

Trump is claiming that the United States is, "Now running Venezuela," though I would think that the Vice President of Venezuela and their Defense Minister differ on this matter,

The US attacked Venezuela and captured its long-serving president Nicolás Maduro on Saturday, with Donald Trump promising to put the country under American control for now, even as Venezuelan officials vowed defiance.

As part of a dramatic overnight operation that knocked out electricity in parts of Caracas, US Special Forces captured Maduro in or near one of his safe houses, Trump said.


With Maduro in US custody, “we will run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition”, the US president said during a press conference at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.

“We can’t take a chance that someone else takes over Venezuela who doesn’t have the interests of Venezuelans in mind.”

………

But a few hours later, the president’s claim was undermined by Rodríguez, who, in a televised address, maintained the critical tone adopted by all members of Maduro’s cabinet since the first reports of the US bombardment.

She described the US attack as an “unprecedented military aggression”, and demanded the “immediate release” of Maduro and his wife. The Venezuelan people “are outraged by the illegal and illegitimate kidnapping of the president and the first lady”, Rodríguez said.

The Venezuelan vice-president insisted that the country “will never again be anyone’s colony – neither of old empires, nor of new empires, nor of empires in decline”.

She also echoed an argument repeatedly made by Maduro before his capture: that the real objective of the four-month-long US military pressure had never been a supposed “war on drugs”, but rather “regime change” and the “seizure of our energy, mineral and natural resources”.

With little in the way of US ground troops in the area, I'm not sure how this is going to play out.

I'm with what Atrios said, "Look forward to Venezuela defense and retaliation being portrayed as criminal aggression."  (His hed, "Mommy, he shot me back," is prize).

Even if the current regime in Caracas capitulates, there is a very good case that it all goes pear shaped, with insurgencies and a possible civil war.

The Democratic Party House Minority Leader, part 1


The Democratic Party House Minority Leader, part 2


And the always simping to the Cuban diaspora in Florida Debbie Wasserman Schultz While Maduro is not a popular figure in Venezuela, the former eletes are even less so, so their return, accompanied by US companies seizing control of their oiil and other natural resources, will not result in any US occupying force being, "greeted as liberators,"if just because the first thing that any leader installed by trump will do is roll back public healthcare and social safety net provisions that were put in place by Chavez.

Meanwhile, the Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) is doing what they always do, and basically caving, and soft pedaling the whole thing.

Guys, you don't have to spend 60% of your talk saying how bad Maduro was.

This act, a war of choice, is against the war powers act and against the Constitution of the United States of America.

Presenting this is just some concerns about some Congressional prerogatives being stepped on is weak, stupid, and bad politics. 

In related corruption news, it appears that someone close to the Trump administration created an account on the Polymarket betting site and netted a quick  $½ million.

Econoimists can blather all they want about the value of predictive markets, but this is just corrupt as hell.

In the best of circumstances, betting on world events for fun and profit on marketplaces like Kalshi and Polymarket is an innocent way to make reading the news a little more interesting. Unfortunately, some suspect there are rascals out there who want to ruin it for everyone else by placing unfair, insider bets with the potential to corrupt the motives of powerful figures and their advisors. So with that in mind, when I say this next thing, I don’t want you to be suspicious:


On Friday, something that very much looks like a brand new account on Polymarket plowed $30,000 into bets on the toppling of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro. By the very next morning, when Maduro was suddenly no longer able to act as president of Venezuela anymore due to having been dragged out of his bed by the U.S. military and spirited out of his country, that account had apparently bagged $436,759.61 according to Axios’s Herb Scribner. It’s not spelled out where that number is coming from, but an archive.ph snapshot being circulated on social media places the amount at $407,920.12, so either way, this lucky person made a lot of money off their totally wild guess.

About the only thing clear in this entire thing is that, to paraphrase Mitchell and Web, the USA is the baddie here,

One thing that is certain though, we are going to see a wave of migrants heading toward the United States to get away from this developing mess.

I wonder how that will play to Trump's MAGAt supporters. 

Headline of the Day

No, Progressives Don’t Want “Purity.” They Just Want Some Courage

—The New Republic, on the cowardice of the Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment)

Truer than turnips this is.

Mainstream Democrats use dozens of old catchphrases that suggest they’re out of step. “When they go low, we go high,” for example, sounded fine when Michelle Obama first said it in 2016, but it passed its sell-by date almost the next day. For quite some time, the Democratic Party, which is still closely aligned with banks and billionaires, has needed to go anywhere but high. 

But it’s the meme of the “purity test” that should spike real worry that the Democratic Party is missing the moment right now. Party standard-bearers still use the phrase as a slur to trivialize legitimate questions from the left. It’s a petty and defensive move, and it comes across as a refusal to engage with the most obvious and urgent questions facing the party and the country.

A recent case in point involved New Jersey Senator Cory Booker. Booker is a tireless legislator who two weeks ago sponsored a promising bill to provide support for family caregivers, but he has sometimes been criticized for his coziness with Big Tech and Big Pharma. In October, the popular firebrand Jennifer Welch of the podcast I’ve Had It asked Booker why he and other Democrats had turned to “Neville Chamberlain–type appeasement” with President Trump. As just one example, Welch cited Booker’s confirmation of one of Trump’s shadiest ambassadors, Charlie Kushner, Ivanka Trump’s father-in-law; a felon and a billionaire real-estate developer from Booker’s home state of New Jersey.

“What do you have to say about the capitulation that you participated in?”

Booker smiled. He tried to seem unflappable. He then waved away Welch as “holding up a purity test.” 

“That’s such bullshit,” Welch shot back. “It’s not a purity test. It’s, Are we in this fight? Are we being beholden to corporations and corporate interests? Or, Are we really the party of the working class?”

Welch was right. “Purity test” is bullshit, and it’s a deflection Democrats must stop using. Challenges to politicians on major issues, including foreign policy, acceptance of corporate money, and failure to keep ICE out of cities—these are not puritanical attacks on their lifestyles. They are credible allegations that the party must acknowledge and address: that Democrats are allies of Republican hawks like Liz Cheney, valets for private equity, and hopeless incrementalists on social justice. 

The problem is that many of the politicians in the Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) have achieved their positions entirely from their prowess at fund raising.

Cowardice is self-interested job protection.

Headline of the Day

SUSIE WILES IS A UVALDE COP

—No More Mister Nice Blog, on what Trump's White House Chief of Staff's tell all interview with Vanity Fair means.

This is a marvelous metaphor.

It perfectly explains the perfidy of Wiles' actions.

She knows what should be done, but is unwilling to take the risk of losing her proximity to power. 

Dems Cave

It looks like 8 Senate Democrats flipped and voted to end end the government shutdown.

What they got in return was a promise to hold a vote on extending the Obamacare subsidies in December in the Senate.

The House is not a part of this deal, and so the House Speaker Mike Johnson has said that there will be no vote there.

Short version, they caved.

The Quislings?  Catherine Cortez Masto, Tim Kaine, Dick Durbin, John Fetterman, Maggie Hassan , Jacky Rosen, Jeanne Shaheen, and Angus King.

They got nothing for their betrayal of the American people.

A key group of Senate Democrats joined Republicans on Sunday night to advance an agreement to end the longest government shutdown in U.S. history.

After bipartisan negotiators struck a deal during a rare weekend session, seven Democratic senators and Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) voted with almost all of the chamber’s Republicans to take the first step toward reopening the government. Sunday’s vote, which needed 60 votes to pass, is the first of many that will be necessary to pass the agreement in the upper chamber.

But the deal split the party. Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-New York) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York) came out against it.

I'm sure that Schumer will be writing a very strong letter to the Traitorous Eight.

“I think it’s a terrible mistake,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) told reporters as she left a closed-door meeting of Senate Democrats that lasted more than two hours Sunday evening. “The American people want us to stand and fight for health care, and that’s what I believe we should do.”

Senator Warren is right. It is bad policy and bad politics.

I would argue that it is worse politics than it is policy, because it shows that when push comes to shove, Democrats cannot be relied upon to fight for the American people.

The bipartisan compromise combines three full-year funding measures into one package with a stopgap funding bill that would reopen the government through Jan. 30.

But the deal would not extend Affordable Care Act subsidies set to expire at the end of the year, which Democrats have warned will cause health insurance premiums to skyrocket for millions of Americans.

They just capitulated completely.  They are the Washington Generals of politics. 

Instead, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) committed to holding a separate vote on legislation to extend the subsidies by the second week of December, after the government reopens.

………

The promise to vote on ACA subsidies at a later date is unlikely to be enough for most House Democrats, who have demanded that Republicans agree to extend the subsidies before they agree to reopen the government. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) has not committed to holding a vote on a bill to extend the subsidies, which many Republicans would prefer to see expire.

We already know that, "Vote blue no matter who," is a lie, Charles Schumer never endorsed Mamdami.

That being the case, don't vote for any of these 8.  They are bad for the country and bad for the party. 

Lie Down with Dogs and Wake up with Fleas

After shameless kowtowing to right wing extremists in general and Elon Musk in particular, the radical right continued to go after them, and now FBI (mis)Director has severed all ties to the Anti-Defamation League, because even those house Jews are too uppity for the Nazis.

Don't give in to bullies.  It just makes things worse. 

FBI Director Kash Patel has ended a training and intelligence-sharing partnership with the Anti-Defamation League, accusing the organization of spying on conservative groups.

Patel announced the decision in a social media post Wednesday, criticizing a partnership celebrated under former FBI Director James Comey — a political adversary of President Donald Trump who was charged last week in an indictment sought by the Justice Department.

He singled out past speeches by Comey that the former director said amounted to “love letters” to the ADL, which has provided hundreds of tips about extremist activity per year to law enforcement agencies throughout the country.

“James Comey wrote ‘love letters’ to the ADL and embedded FBI agents with them - a group that ran disgraceful ops spying on Americans,” Patel wrote on X. “That era is OVER. This FBI won’t partner with political fronts masquerading as watchdogs.”

………

Trump allies have increased their attacks on the ADL in recent weeks following the killing of Charlie Kirk. A summary of Kirk’s organization Turning Point USA on the group’s website earlier this year accused Kirk of promoting “Christian nationalism” and detailed the group’s ties to the far-right.

The page has since been removed from the ADL’s website. 

So the ADL caved and got smacked anyway. 

Giving into bullies isn't just wrong, it's stupid. 

Headline of the Day

One Bad Thing About Fighting Fascists Is What You Have to Do to Stop Them

Mike the Mad Biologist, on the weak tea proposals of the Democratic "leadership" in Congress are proposing to prevent a government shutdown.

The proposals seem to be weak tea that would benefit the Republican Party more than the Democratic Party, by doing such things as pushing cuts beyond the midterms with a promise of "consideration" for making them permanent.

To quote not-Tallyrand, "This is worse than a crime, it is a mistake." 

………

It was pretty obvious rank-and-file Democrats would have to fight our own party to make them take an actual stand.

This also demonstrates the internal incoherence of party leadership. Their plan has been to let everything go to shit and hope voters figure out who is responsible. Never thought we would see accelerationist moderates and centrists, but here we are. Protecting Republicans from their own stupidity by preventing things from going to shit is the exact opposite of what leadership has decided to do.

That said, the larger problem is that the Democratic leadership, such as it is, still hasn’t internalized that the Republican Party is fascist. That does matter, as once you accept your opponents are fascists, you realize that there will be costs to be paid to stop them. There already have been people hurt, in one way or another, by this regime, and there will be more no matter what we do, until the regime is stopped. And the act of stopping them is going to result in American Carnage, one way or another. Hopefully, it will be less carnage than more and those responsible for it will bear the greatest cost, but it could get very bad–and far worse than a few months of healthcare subsidies (as murderous as that will be). To stop fascists, you actually have to stop them, not work on healthcare policy.

(emphasis mine)

The Democrats proposal in the Senate is to extend the Obamacare subsidies beyond the midterms.

Not roll back their repeal, just extend them for a year or so, because the Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) is terrified of drawing a line in the sand and fighting a senile fascist.

This is beyond pathetic. 

Truer than Taxes

NO DEMOCRAT WILL LOSE AN ELECTION IF SOME DEMOCRATS REFUSE TO WORSHIP SAINT CHARLIE KIRK

—No More Mister Nice Blog

And yet, Democrats continue to genuflect.

What do Democrats think? That swing voters will reject certain Democrats in November 2026 based on how other Democrats voted in September 2025 on a purely symbolic resolution? Do they really believe Kirk will still be one of America's main topics of conversation fourteen months from now? And do they realize that Kirk wasn't a universally admired person? 

It's just that they are cowards, and they have been in a defensive crouch for so long that they are useless.

As Steve M. noted, "The resolution passed, but 58 Democrats voted "no" and 38 voted "present." Good for them. An additional 22 did not vote."

The other hundred or so Democrats are useless wasted space.

Vote, and contribute accordingly.