The Weekly Sift

Observe how quickly the Peace President becomes the War President. Saturday morning US forces raided Caracas and seized Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who will face drug charges later today in New York. In the wake of that move, confusion reigns. Secretary of State Marco Rubio paints the attack as a simple law enforcement operation, while President Trump frames it as a successful conquest, saying repeatedly that we will “fix” and “run” Venezuela now.

Certainly I’m in no position to resolve the uncertainty about what’s happening or is about to happen in Venezuela. But instead I want to focus on what this episode means for America: Trump has once again sidelined Congress and ignored its constitutional powers. If checks and balances were working the way the Founders intended, Congress would defend its role by launching an impeachment. Obviously, that’s not happening.

Today’s featured post is going to flesh all that out. I haven’t titled it yet, but I’ll predict that it posts between 10 and 11 EST.

That leaves quite a bit for the weekly summary: reviewing all the year-end looking-ahead/looking-back articles, Jack Smith’s testimony to Congress, and the growing fault lines in the MAGA movement. Additionally, I want to raise the question of what the Democratic Party’s message to small-town and rural voters should be. I’ll try to get that out by 1.