Monday’s Forum

Scott says:

Monday, 5 January 2026 at 07:05

Happy New Year, everyone! Intentionally stayed away for the holidays. Anything happen? All quiet? Yeah, I didn’t think so. Couldn’t totally wrap myself in a bubble. Or eat and drink myself in total ignorant bliss.

Weather in Houston has been outstanding. Warm and dry. Down in the 40s/50s at night. Took the grandkids to the zoo. Besides being a pretty decent zoo, it highlighted for me how multicultural Houston is. The dress, the languages, the food. All on display in harmony at the zoo.

Recommend Death by Lightning on Netflix. Historical fiction on the nomination and election and assassination of James Garfield. Well acted period piece. Politics, corruption, characters of the 1880s. Dawn of the gilded age. You can even make analogies to today. Title references the probability of an event occurring.

I could rant and rave on the number of College Bowl games. There are far too many pointless games. The Xbox bowl in Frisco TX drew just over 7000 attendees. Our high school games drew more than that. BTW, NIL will ruin college football.

Just as streaming is messing up the transmission of sports. Cable is dying fast. It is hard to get the games you want to watch. Signed up for a free 24hr Fubo TV subscription just to watch the Spurs/Thunder game. Watched another game courtesy of some glitchy shady site my youngest son tapped into. Felt like I had to scrub the laptop of digital VD.

Now I’m back to the real world. Blech!

Reply

2

Jen says:

Monday, 5 January 2026 at 08:07

Blergh. I am not ready to get back to work yet. I continue to believe that society would be better off if we normalized people in their 50s taking a sabbatical. I am burned out! The news is not helping. I now think these fools are actually going to make a play for Greenland, and probably Cuba as well.

Reply

7

charontwo says:

Monday, 5 January 2026 at 08:19

https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3mbohqpwjhk2k

New in PN: Trump’s Venezuela coup sends America down a dark path

“As Elizabeth Saunders said, ‘we have the foreign policy of a personalist dictatorship’ — and the dictator’s preference is watching TV shows in which the military blows things up at his whim. What could go wrong? We’ll soon find out.”

https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:4llrhdclvdlmmynkwsmg5tdc/post/3mbncs3ndns2k

Trump in a single gaggle on Air Force One just threatened:

— a second strike against Venezuela

— Cuba

— Mexico

— Colombia

— Iran

— Greenland (which in turn would be an attack on the EU and Denmark)

Reply

2

Joe says:

Monday, 5 January 2026 at 09:35

It occurred to me when Trump first asserted “we” would be running Venezuela that they had already gotten to VP Delcy Rodríguez and concluded they could work (with) her. I even wondered whether she or her people helped lead the US to Maduro at the right time and place.
Despite her denunciations, I still suspect that may be true, though I do have an opinion about to what level. But if that is true, it cannot help her to have Trump or anyone else say the quiet part out loud. It would ruin the entire game if she were viewed as complicit or a U.S. puppet. She needs to denounce the U.S. to maintain any hope of keeping the presidency. But it is just like Trump to blow by that important nuance.

Reply

2

Jen says:

Monday, 5 January 2026 at 09:39

@Joe:

She needs to denounce the U.S. to maintain any hope of keeping the presidency.

She already has. And yes, Trump snapped back.

Sigh.

Reply

3

Kathy says:

Monday, 5 January 2026 at 09:56

@Jen:

I continue to believe that society would be better off if we normalized people in their 50s taking a sabbatical.

Oh, hell yes!

I’m still hoping for one effing weekend off. The latest looked good, until the anal-retentive manager decided we, meaning I, had to fix the unfixable market price study. With five scenarios with different brands in each….

Sure, no problem. it’s just 520 products, 2/3s of which we don’t handle often and don’t know well. So, there went the weekend. I wound up cooking rather late on Sunday.

Reply

2

charontwo says:

Monday, 5 January 2026 at 10:00

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/04/world/americas/delcy-rodriguez-venezuela.html?unlocked_article_code=1.CFA.XIpr.lFSxZAIr7seq&smid=url-share

(Gift linky)

On Saturday, Ms. Rodríguez described the U.S. intervention as being “without a doubt, Zionist in character,” a provocative comment likely to draw backlash.

Such positioning suggests that Ms. Rodríguez might not be the dispassionate technocrat some in the Trump administration see as willing to strike pragmatic business deals. She is now, after all, thetorchbearer of a movement forged nearly 30 years ago by Mr. Chávez, the leader who sought to use oil revenues to fuel socialist-inspired change.

“People in Washington tend to think there’s no other political motivation, no ideological motivation, or that there’s nothing left of the Chávez project,” said Phil Gunson, a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group who lives in Caracas. “I don’t think that’s true. They still see themselves as leading a revolution. They can’t afford to be seen to be turning Venezuela into a simple satellite of the U.S.”

Ms. Rodríguez is viewed as relatively competent in terms of economic management, which is largely why the Trump administration did not stand in the way of her ascending to the presidency.

But she must still find ways to appease powerful figures like Diosdado Cabello, the interior minister, and Mr. Padrino López, the defense minister, who between them control the armed forces, the police, paramilitary cells and most of the intelligence services, Mr. Gunson said.

…

But Mr. Rubio, in another television appearance on “Meet the Press,” said the United States would maintain its blockade on sanctioned oil tankers going in and out of Venezuela until Ms. Rodríguez shows progress in responding to the Trump administration’s demands. He also said the U.S. would keep striking boats suspected of carrying drugs.

Late Sunday, Ms. Rodríguez issued a statement that appeared an attempt to adopt a less antagonistic approach. “We extend an invitation to the U.S. government to work together on a cooperation agenda, oriented toward shared development, within the framework of international law, and to strengthen lasting community coexistence,” she said.

Adding to the tumult in Venezuela, Edmundo González, the exiled former diplomat who is widely viewed as the legitimate winner of the 2024 presidential election there, released a video statement on Sunday referring to himself as the president of Venezuela and commander in chief of the country’s military.

Reply

2

Neil Hudelson says:

Monday, 5 January 2026 at 10:01

@Joe:

This weekend the Wall Street Journal had a report that contained one paragraph alleging that Rodriguez had been back channeling with the U.S. for the last couple of weeks, presenting herself as an alternative to Maduro, and one who would work with the U.S. Frustratingly I cannot find which article this was, and I keep running into paywalls.

Reply

1

Kathy says:

Monday, 5 January 2026 at 10:05

@Joe:
@Jen:

Maybe El taco has a case of Achillean Prophecy.

Imagine the choice thus: you can either 1) accomplish great things for the country and maybe the world with very little effort, but get little attention or recognition; or 2) wreck the country and maybe the world, again with little effort, be constantly in the spotlight, and get recognition from people who are even more ignorant than you.

Note: Yes, this definitely constitutes and insult to Achilles. But he was also a big jerk and deserves it.

Reply

1

charontwo says:

Monday, 5 January 2026 at 10:16

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/05/business/energy-environment/venezuela-oil-us-chevron.html?unlocked_article_code=1.CFA.00ZR.RR0PnbbiVqvS&smid=url-share

(gift linky)

“Not many companies are going to rush to go into an environment where there’s not stability,” said Ali Moshiri, who oversaw Chevron’s operations in Venezuela until 2017 and now runs a private oil company that has interests in the country.

Chevron, the largest private oil producer in Venezuela, and smaller operators could potentially help increase the country’s oil output to as much as 1.5 million barrels a day within 18 months, Mr. Moshiri said. That would cost up to $7 billion, assuming an estimated current level of around one million barrels a day, he said.

Still, that would leave Venezuela producing little more than 1 percent of the oil the world uses and less than half of what it was pumping in the late 1990s.

Further expansion most likely would take years. That is because a lot of Venezuela’s oil infrastructure is in disrepair, and even if producers express interest in returning, it would take time for them to negotiate contracts and reestablish a footprint in the country.

“So much depends on politics and who’s in charge,” said Daniel Yergin, a Pulitzer Prize-winning energy historian and vice chairman of the research firm S&P Global.

…

For now, Venezuela’s oil industry remains under U.S. sanctions, crippled by an aggressive campaign against many of the tankers used to export the country’s oil. Those restrictions will remain as the United States leans on the Venezuelan government to make policy changes, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Sunday.

“That’s a tremendous amount of leverage that will continue to be in place until we see changes, not just to further the national interest of the United States, which is No. 1, but also that lead to a better future for the people of Venezuela,” Mr. Rubio said on “Face the Nation” on CBS News.

Only Chevron has been able to regularly export oil in the weeks since the United States seized a vessel, called Skipper, on Dec. 10, according to TankerTrackers.com, which monitors global shipping.

The company holds a unique license from the Trump administration that has allowed it to continue operating in Venezuela and sending oil to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast. For that reason, it is widely seen as best positioned to increase production should conditions in the country stabilize

…

Mr. Moshiri, the former Chevron executive, said that as a first step toward encouraging more foreign investment, the Trump administration would need to lift sanctions on Venezuela.

“The only silver bullet for turning around the economy today is oil investment,” he said.

Reply

1

Joe says:

Monday, 5 January 2026 at 10:18

@Jen: This is kind of my point. Assuming Rodriguez’ complicity, she is trying to keep it out of view and Trump keeps putting it center stage. Rubio, in turn, tries to pose Rodriguez as being forced bend to the U.S. will despite her protestations and she is sending signals that maybe she can be forced. But being forced is different from cooperating.

Reply

1

charontwo says:

Monday, 5 January 2026 at 10:19

@Neil Hudelson:

https://archive.md/yQfEI

Article in the Telegraph, dunno how reliable Telegraph is.

In a meeting room in Doha, some 7,500 miles away from Caracas, officials were busy discussing the future of Venezuela without its dictator Nicolás Maduro.

A senior member of the UAE royal family was acting as a “bridge” between the regime and Donald Trump, who was building an armada to pressure the Venezuelan leader to surrender.

Except Mr Maduro had no part in the secret meetings in Doha. Instead, it was his deputy, the then vice-president Delcy Rodríguez, and her brother Jorge, who were leading the talks.

According to reports in the Miami Herald, which has strong contacts in Latin America, Ms Rodríguez, who now rules Venezuela with the approval of Mr Trump, had reached out to Washington to present a “more acceptable” alternative to the Maduro regime.

Reply

1

DK says:

Monday, 5 January 2026 at 10:22

@Jen:

I now think these fools are actually going to make a play for Greenland, and probably Cuba as well.

Meanwhile, Americans are still waiting for them to make a play for affordable housing and healthcare. These deranged oligarchs will waste our money and time on everything but that.

Reply

7

CSK says:

Monday, 5 January 2026 at 10:46

Tim Walz isn’t going to seek re-election.

Reply

1

Kingdaddy says:

Monday, 5 January 2026 at 11:07

Given the current DOJ’s appalling track record on recent prosecutions, not to mention avoiding pissing off judges, what are the odds that prosecuting Maduro will go anywhere?

Reply

1

Sleeping Dog says:

Monday, 5 January 2026 at 11:08

@CSK:

you beat me to it. here’s the link to the stib article

https://www.startribune.com/tim-walz-announcement-governor-mn/601557990

He was never going to survive 10 months of, Walz let the Somalies steal millions, so it’s for the best. One rumor is that Klobuchar will run, better a governor than in the rats nest senate. The current Lt Gov is running for the open senate seat held by the retiring Tina Smith. I wonder if she’ll switch, though the scandal talk would only shift to her.

Reply

2

Scott says:

Monday, 5 January 2026 at 11:08

@charontwo:

That would cost up to $7 billion, assuming an estimated current level of around one million barrels a day

I will be reminding my pro-Trump Senators Cornyn and Cruz that every dollar spent on Venezuela and increasing supply (therefore lowering the price/barrel) will be one less dollar spent in Texas. Texas oil field economy is already under pressure because of the lower oil prices.

Reply

5

Neil Hudelson says:

Monday, 5 January 2026 at 11:22

@charontwo:

Thank you! And yes, if its the Telegraph breaking the story and not WSJ that changes the trustworthiness.

Reply

1

charontwo says:

Monday, 5 January 2026 at 12:14

Some discussion in another thread of the legalities re: the Venezuela excellent adventure, but I’ll post this here:

Really long piece, just a few brief excerpts:

https://open.substack.com/pub/harrylitman/p/the-administration-plays-whack-a?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

The problem was never technical. It was categorical: the administration tried to solve a criminal problem with military tools, then retrofitted legal theories to catch up. It is now attempting the same maneuver in reverse—solving a foreign policy problem with domestic law enforcement tools.

The reframing depends almost entirely on a single legal move: the resurrection of a 1989 Office of Legal Counsel opinion signed by then–Assistant Attorney General William Barr. The Barr memo advanced two propositions the administration now treats as settled law: that the president may order extraterritorial law-enforcement actions even when they violate international law and treaty obligations, and that such actions are permissible under domestic law so long as they enforce federal criminal statutes.

..

International law often carries a whiff of aspiration and malleability. Not this international law. Article 2(4) of the U.N. Charter prohibits the use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state. Both the United States and Venezuela are parties. Under domestic law, Article VI of the Constitution, treaties are part of the “Supreme Law of the Land,” no less than the Constitution or federal statutes.

Accepting the administration’s theory would eliminate any limiting principle. A U.S. criminal indictment would function as a worldwide arrest warrant, enforceable wherever the president chooses to deploy military force. That is not law enforcement; it is a claim of global jurisdiction enforced through lethal force.

…

At this point the administration is not even defending the Maduro operation as lawful under the Constitution or international law. It is effectively saying the law is being ignored—and that there is nothing anyone can do about it, least of all Maduro.

In fact, Maduro will not be able to defeat the prosecution by arguing that his seizure was illegal. That’s a result of the Supreme Court’s Ker–Frisbie doctrine, which generally forecloses challenges to a criminal case based on the manner in which a defendant is brought before a U.S. court.

…

We have seen this film before. “Mission accomplished” moments have a way of dissolving once the moving parts stop moving—and once the harder questions of governance, legitimacy, and responsibility come due.

And our apparent indifference to the strictures of international law can only harm our standing on the world stage, where so much of American power depends on moral probity and the persuasive value of legal compliance. It’s fair to conclude that the snatching of Maduro was greeted with a certain cynical glee in Moscow and Beijing, knowing that it sharply undermines our ability to preach against similar violations of sovereignty in Ukraine and Taiwan.

And what is the grand strategic payoff that justifies this legal pap and the further surrender of the United States’s higher moral ground? As much as anything, it seems like a vanity project for Steve Miller and Marco Rubio and a path to billions of dollars for Chevron.

Regime decapitation rarely produces democratic success. In occasional cases it can fracture elite cohesion and open space for transition. Far more often, it yields repression, factional struggle, or external manipulation. History offers many more examples of botched regime change than of clean democratic transitions, especially when criminal accountability is mistaken for political strategy

Reply

4

Scott says:

Monday, 5 January 2026 at 12:34

I wonder if they will be cheering when they get told to leave the US and return to Venezuela. After all, Temporary Protected Status was ended 4 months ago and now there is no reason to stay, is there?

Houston-area Venezuelans celebrate capture of President Nicolás Maduro

Outside the Latin Market in Katy, a group of Houstonians danced in celebration of the U.S. capture of controversial Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

Music blared, Venezuelan flags were prominently displayed alongside the U.S. flag in a show of unity. Many wore both flags around their necks as a cape, a show that the results from a U.S. military operation conducted early Saturday morning were cause for mass cheer and optimism.

Reply

2

CSK says:

Monday, 5 January 2026 at 15:05

Senator Mark Kelly has had his military pension slashed, and Hegseth says Kelly will face “administrative action” as a result of his “sedition.”

I wonder if this is being done not just to punish Kelly but as a warning to others: “See what happens to you if you defy Donny?”

Reply

2

charontwo says:

Monday, 5 January 2026 at 15:12

This Paul Singer guy has long been a big Marco Rubio supporter:

Reply

1

gVOR10 says:

Monday, 5 January 2026 at 15:13

We’ve often noted here the now obvious structural flaws in our institutions. But that begs the question of why they seemed to work fairly well for 200 years, the early 1860s excepted. Via Balloon Juice, one Robert Black on Bluesky offers an answer and Jamelle Bouie elaborates with what I believe is the biggest factor.

Robert Black
@hurricanexyz.bsky.social
Right. If you want a good explanation of why the American system of government worked well enough for 200 years and then suddenly stopped, it’s because Republicans in Congress suddenly started letting their partisan interests COMPLETELY override their institutional interests

jamelle
@jamellebouie.net
yep. i can identify any number of structural issues but at the end of the day the basic problem is the republican party. this has been apparent for at least 20 years. it is also an incredibly unpopular observation to make among “serious” people.

Reply

6

Joe says:

Monday, 5 January 2026 at 15:43

@CSK: Why on earth do you simply wonder?

Reply

CSK says:

Monday, 5 January 2026 at 15:54

@Joe:

I was being cute. Of course it’s a threat.

Reply

2

DK says:

Monday, 5 January 2026 at 16:01

@CSK:

Hegseth says Kelly will face “administrative action” as a result of his “sedition.”

Administrative action? So Hegseth will write a strongly worded letter and place it in Kelly’s permanent military file, to be removed in a few years by President Newsom’s non-alcoholic defense secretary. A bit anticlimactic.

Wonder what happened to the courts-martial and sedition trials promised by Hegseth and President Pedo. Maybe a JAG told Pete that repeating standing law doesn’t break the law. Or did he just sober up for a few hours?

Reply

4

Jen says:

Monday, 5 January 2026 at 17:07

@gVOR10:

it’s because Republicans in Congress suddenly started letting their partisan interests COMPLETELY override their institutional interests

And this happened when redistricting became pretty much the sole focus of the Republican party.

Reply

2

CSK says:

Monday, 5 January 2026 at 17:11

@DK:

Hegseth has formally censured Kelly. He says that the administrative action will consist of a
reduction in rank and retirement pay.

Reply

Kathy says:

Monday, 5 January 2026 at 17:46

@DK:

Could Kelly demand a court martial?

Reply

Scott says:

Monday, 5 January 2026 at 18:32

@CSK: @DK: @Kathy: @CSK: This is a US Senator. If I were Schumer, I would basically shut down the entire Senate and tell Thune to stand up for the institution.

I doubt that will happen because the vast majority of Senators are lapdogs.

Anyway, Senators Cornyn and Cruz are going to get a few of my thoughts tomorrow morning. Not that they care.

Reply

3

Kathy says:

Monday, 5 January 2026 at 18:37

Aside from being the first regime non-change action, El taco’s adventure is about to answer an age old question: what if you claimed to seize a country’s oil, and no oil companies were interested in doing anything about it?

This can change, naturally, once El Taco begins insulting oil company CEOs, and threatening them with whatever’s handy (can you imagine a Taco carbon tax?).

Or maybe El Taco can go full capitalist and set upa government-owned oil company.

Reply

1

Michael Cain says:

Monday, 5 January 2026 at 19:24

@Scott:

I will be reminding my pro-Trump Senators Cornyn and Cruz that every dollar spent on Venezuela and increasing supply (therefore lowering the price/barrel) will be one less dollar spent in Texas.

Counter-point… Added Venezuelan oil will lower the price of heavy crudes and increase the crack spread for Texas’ Gulf Coast refineries that are specialized for heavy crude. Whether that will lower the price of light crudes is open for discussion. The frack’ed oil from Texas’ Permian basin, for example, is light crude. From 100,000 feet, the US exports light crude that we don’t have the capacity to refine, and imports heavy crude for which we have (relative to domestic production) an excess of refining capacity.

If I put on my old state government budget analyst hat, I have no idea whether a dollar spent for Texas crude is worth more or less to the state than a dollar spent for refined products coming out of the refineries.

Reply

1

Jax says:

Monday, 5 January 2026 at 20:27

Cheers, OTB’ers! I am officially an Oregon property owner. It feels kinda anticlimactic, after all the work of finding the place, due diligence, and closing through Docusign and wire transfers.

But it’s mine!

Reply

8

Gregory Lawrence Brown says:

Monday, 5 January 2026 at 23:03

@Jax:..But it’s mine!

Oregon’s state motto is “She Flies With Her Own Wings”

You are a match made in The Beaver State!

Reply

1

DK says:

Tuesday, 6 January 2026 at 00:40

@Scott:

I doubt that will happen because the vast majority of Senators are lapdogs.

Or because Secretary Drunkard’s performative bloviating is not going to do any permanent material harm to Sen. Kelly and thus is not worth shutting down the Senate.

Reply

DK says:

Tuesday, 6 January 2026 at 00:42

@Michael Cain:

Added Venezuelan oil will lower the price of heavy crudes

How long will that take?

CBS News:

Although Chevron already operates in Venezuela, oil companies including Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips no longer have a presence in the country after former President Hugo Chavez effectively ejected them by nationalizing their assets in 2007.

As a result, it would take new entrants to the Venezuelan market several years to build out their operations, requiring long-term — and thus riskier — calculations about the cost of production and oil prices…

Perhaps most daunting is the sheer level of investment required to modernize Venezuela’s oil infrastructure — an effort that could take a decade and cost up to $100 billion…

…Venezuela’s aging pipelines for transporting oil from wells to refineries haven’t been upgraded in roughly 50 years. As of 2023, that network consisted of 25 operational pipelines and is prone to daily spills…

Oh.

Relatively certain the Dem replacing Trump in 2029 will redirect American resources towards clean energy production in the US, away from helping the Trump Crime Family extort the Zombie Chavez-Maduro Regime and exploit Venezuelan fossil fuels.

Anyway, are Trump and Vance ever gonna get around to lowering prices and ending wars, like they were supposed to do 50 weeks ago? Can we have America First affordable healthcare and housing or nah?

Reply

2