So now what, and what did we actually do?

Yesterday, early, the Armed Forces of the United States staged a commando raid and removed Maduro et ux from Venezuela.

The raid was loss free, which has caused one knowledgeable person I know to speculate that the Venezuelan military was in on it, and that it basically amounted to a coup in favor of  Delcy Rodríguez of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela.

Pity poor Maria Corina Machado, the opposition leader we supposedly favored.  I guess she's yesterday's news.

Anyhow, yesterday the senile illegitimate occupant of the White House, Donald Trump, came on and gave a rambling press conference full of weird diversions and babble, but he indicated "we", i.e.,  the United States, was going to run the country.

A commando raid an occupation does not make.  Venezuela remains in control of the Venezuelan military and the United Socialist Party of Venezuela.

And Rodríguez rejected the assertion that Maduro has been replaced.  No doubt a United Socialist Party isn't going opt accept the doddering old fool's suggestion that the country's oil is going to be taken back over by American oil companies, which aren't really American, but are international for the most part.

So what actually happened?

Well, if we look at it positively, a really bad guy was replaced by somebody we don't know all that much about, but who shows every sign as being just as much of a socialist as Maduro.  Maybe she'll be better simply because she's educated.  And perhaps she'll try to take Venezuela out of the drug business, although there are no doubt powerful forces that would resist that.

Maybe that's all we were trying to achieve, but based on the babble, Trump apparently believed that we were actually going to take over the country.

If the Administration was trying to do that, it fell way short of it, or so it would appear, and we're going to have to come up with some cover story for our failure, or we're going to have to outright invade the country.

I don't see that latter thing happening.

Which brings me to this.  I don't think there was ever a plan to take over the country.  I think the military needed a way out of this expensive endless project and this is what they came up with.  Donny was told the results would be that he could install Marco Rubio as Maximilian I of Venezuela.  Rubio probably went along with the whole thing as well.

Frenchy would be emperor of Mexico, Ferdinand Maximilian Josef Maria.

So now the project is divert Don while the sailors and soldiers are sent to new projects.

But, a military in the hands of the senile remains pretty dangerous to everyone, including the nation they are supposed to serve.

2028 Election, Part I. The Preview of Coming Attractions Editions.

December 19, 2025

 And the 2028 Presidential Season has begun.  Erika Kirk of Turning Point USA has endorsed J. D. Vance.

And yes, it's way, way, early.

But perhaps its not surprising.  Trump's mentally departing the stage and chance are good that he'll be out of office in the next few months, Vance is probably looking towards his future right now.  His best chances for that position, of course, would be if Trump is escorted out of the building babbling about being the greatest and sent to a gilded retirement home.

But if that doesn't occur, the knives will be coming out before 2028.  Marco Rubio will not have sat through four years of soul corrupting dementia not to take a run at the White House.  No doubt others are in the wings.

One who may be in the wings, if I'm wrong on his being too demented to carry on in any fashion, is Donald Trump. Everyone keeps noting that he's constitutionally barred but he has no regard for the law in the first place and his threads to run need to be taken seriously.

On Vance, he's a true NatCon, although a recent convert to the philosophy, and his being backed by Turning Point means something, assuming that Turning Point doesn't fly apart or become highly diminished (which I think it will).  It's hard to know exactly what's going on, but it might be suspected that it's probable that Kirk's coming out now has the backing of other significant NatCon figures, who know that they need to put their man in power now (Trump really isn't their man, but their tool).  A figure like Rubio would turn the clock back.

And so the race is on.

December 22, 2025

It wasn't until listening to the weekend shows that I learned that Marco Rubio has endorsed Vance as well.

That's really interesting, and frankly surprising.

Cont:

And now the rumors are circulating, probably correctly, that Ted Cruz will be running.

Moreover. . . .

The NatCon nerve center and author of Project 2025 starts to come unglued as the Trump Administration does:

Top Heritage Officials Flee to Mike Pence’s Nonprofit as Think Tank Fractures

The conservative movement continues to splinter about how to deal with its most controversial voices

I've always thought Roberts' organization would maneuver to put Vance in power in 2026 and shove aside the Pine Tree flag folks, who don't have the intellectual capacity to run a government.  The risk has always been that they'd hold the hand they were dealt too long.

They may have.

And Pence, who didn't look like a good candidate before, is starting to with some folks.