Is there any legal justification for the US attack on Venezuela?

 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/03/is-there-any-legal-justification-for-the-us-attack-on-venezuela-trump-maduro

The experts the Guardian spoke to agreed that the US is likely to have violated the terms of the UN charter, which was signed in October 1945 and designed to prevent another conflict on the scale of the second world war. A central provision of this agreement – known as article 2(4) – rules that states must refrain from using military force against other countries and must respect their sovereignty.

“You would have to prove those drug traffickers were threatening the sovereignty of the United States,” Breau added. “The United States is going to argue vigorously that drug trafficking is a scourge and it’s killing many people, and I agree. But a lot of international law experts have been looking at this and there wasn’t even clear evidence that those drug traffickers were from Venezuela, let alone that they were governed by Maduro in any sense.”

The woman fatally shot by ICE in Minneapolis did not deserve to die

 https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2026/01/07/ice-minneapolis-shooting-deportaitons-escalation/

A Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman said the driver, identified as U.S. citizen Renee Nicole Good, attempted to “run over” law enforcement officers in an act of “domestic terrorism” that required an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer to fire three shots. Trump posted on social media that the driver “violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE Officer, who seems to have shot her in self defense.”

Yet, while additional information can always emerge, so far social media clips do not show a situation that would justify using deadly force. Disregarding instructions from police is unacceptable, and any violence against law enforcement ought to be prosecuted, but it’s unclear if the woman intended to hit anyone with her vehicle.

Trump officials scramble to sell skeptical lawmakers, oil execs on Venezuela plan

 https://edition.cnn.com/2026/01/07/politics/trump-officials-venezuela-oil-plan

Also unclear is the legal authority for such an arrangement, which administration officials have openly acknowledged is being negotiated with Rodriguez under the threat of paying “a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro” if she doesn’t agree, as Trump put it.

Within the administration, the push to manage the immediate aftermath of Maduro’s ouster has masked another looming problem: Despite Trump’s insistence that US oil companies would pour into Venezuela, officials have no ready plan for convincing firms to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in rebuilding the nation’s energy infrastructure.

The administration is “trying to sell us on engaging and getting in,” the energy lobbyist said. “It’s, ‘Hey look what we did for you. Now step up.’”

That push has been met with trepidation in public and even deeper skepticism in private, the industry sources said, driven by doubts that Trump can provide the stability and security needed for companies to set up operations — and that the potential profits will be worth the risk.

‘This is insanity’: Joe slams WH for threatening to invade Greenland

Trump’s credibility problem on Venezuela

 https://edition.cnn.com/2026/01/07/politics/trump-venezuela-justifications-credibility

In the run-up to ousting him, Trump and his administration repeatedly cast Maduro as the head of a drug-trafficking organization called Cartel de los Soles, or Cartel of the Suns.

The first Trump administration did so in its initial indictment of Maduro in 2020, and then again last year when the Treasury and State departments designated this supposed cartel as a terrorist organization. Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have also cast Maduro as the head of this cartel in recent days.

“They’re designating a non-thing that is not a terror organization as a terrorist organization,” former State Department lawyer Brian Finucane told CNN in November.

Similarly, Trump and his administration have in recent weeks set about accusing the Venezuelan government of stealing oil that the United States had a right to.

But the issue is a lot more complicated than that, as CNN’s David Goldman reported this week. And the indictment makes no mention of oil, much less Maduro’s or anyone else’s role in such purported theft.

Donald Trump is ADDICTED to power; planning, not so much

Trump escalates aggressive posture on Greenland

https://thehill.com/newsletters/morning-report/5676130-potential-greenland-seizure-trump/

The Trump administration is stepping up its rhetoric about potentially seizing Greenland following the U.S. military action in Venezuela and capture of the country’s leader, Nicolás Maduro.

President Trump has openly shared his desire for the U.S. to acquire Greenland, a semiautonomous territory from Denmark, throughout his second term. He’s argued it’s necessary for protecting national security

Trump drops DERANGED news on INVADING Greenland

US Job Market Weakens as Unemployment Reaches Four-Year High

Trump Addresses Nation on Venezuela Regime Change Operation

‘It’s rough out there’: Enten runs numbers on US job market

Trump says US will run Venezuela following Maduro's capture

 https://edition.cnn.com/world/live-news/venezuela-explosions-caracas-intl-hnk-01-03-26

President Donald Trump said Saturday that the US is “going to run” Venezuela in the immediate aftermath of the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

“We’re going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition,” he said during a press conference from his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida. “We don’t want to be involved with having someone else get in, and we have the same situation that we had for the last long period of years. So we are going to run the country.”

Trump did not offer a timeline for how long he anticipated such a transition of power would take.

Maddow’s instant reaction to Trump 'capturing' Maduro

Science vs Engineering Torah Scholarship Seems closer to Engineering

 Hi – I'm reading "The Things We Make: The Unknown History of Invention from Cathedrals to Soda Cans" by Bill Hammack Ph.D. and wanted to share this quote with you.

"Put another way, the two methods have different goals: the scientific method wants to reveal truths about the universe, while the engineering method seeks solutions to real-world problems. The scientific method has a prescribed process that we all learn in school—state a question, observe, state a hypothesis, test, analyze, and interpret—but it doesn’t know what will be discovered, what truth revealed. In contrast, the engineering method aims for a specific goal—an airplane, a computer, a cathedral—but it has no prescribed process. The engineering method cannot be reduced to a set of fixed steps that must be followed, because its power lies exactly in the fact that there is no “must.” The specialized skill of an engineer is to find the correct strategy to reach a goal, to select among, combine, and create the many rules of thumb that will lead to a solution. Most often a rule of thumb results in a numerical estimate of some quantity, but it also guides an approach to problem-solving. A common one that illustrates the flavor of this class of rule is “break complex problems into smaller, more manageable pieces.” Thus, the engineering method is best described as an attitude or approach or even a philosophy of creating a solution to a problem."

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