Good morning good morning. Hello. Hi. How are you? Feeling okay? No evil illness running through your family? Not the flu, not Covid. Maybe strep? Maybe Norovirus? Not sure. In any case, Jane hasn’t puked in 12 hours or so now, so I think we are out of the woods. Twenty hours of puking. Worst illness Jane has had of her life. Mind you, she hasn’t puked once since she was two, didn’t even remember what it was like. Emma tells me that Jane was losing her shit over night last night puking everywhere. But by the time I took over round 6:30, she was an absolute champ. She has been very good. Once or twice, through her illness and weakness, she said “I love you Daddy.” Some real Tiny Tim shit going on over here. We just gave her some nausea medicine for the first time (Emma: “The internet says not to give them any of those things,”) and a couple Cheerios. Set a timer to see if she can hold it down. Fever seems reduced but I gave her the Tylenol as well. Fingers crossed.

We are snuggled cozily upstairs in the playroom. She is watching a Youtube video of a man playing a coin flipping game. It is very soothing. I will endeavor to work.

I think I have one or two more year-end posts — I know I owe you guys a post on my leaving of Spotify. But I feel like writing, and I haven’t written a “real post” in a while. So. Let us write.

When I was on this holiday trip I endeavored to use my work-supplied laptop for work. It was a catastrophe. It was a five-year-old MacBook Air with the lowest amount of RAM and hard drive space. The processor was still great but the storage and RAM were killing me, it kept running out of RAM, using the hard drive for RAM swapping, and then filling up the hard drive, then apps would start crashing. It was bad and I thank my lucky stars I had no real work emergencies over the holiday.

But luckily, because of this, I had work purchase me a new laptop while I was on vacation, and it was waiting for me when I got home. And luckily, I decided to be a glutton for punishment and work all day Sunday to get ahead on the work week, and I also set up that new laptop. So luckily, I have something to actually do work on up here while sitting with Jane.

(Yes, I had work buy me a new phone and laptop for Christmas. It had been more than five years since they bought me either one. And only my second of each in nine years. And I am the boss. And we turned profitable. My little profitability treat.)

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We are not listening to any music today, alas. But we have had a good start on the year. Already listened to ten albums this year, and we have about 20 hours in our new “To Investigate” playlist. If you have any new music recommendations, send ‘em my way.

So. Venezuela. Let’s talk about it. I am sorry. This is going to be long. There is a lot to work through. My mind has been racing. I could say here why I know what I’m talking about here, my degree, my contacts, etc., but I don’t care if anyone listens to me, and I am not claiming to be an expert on every nuance. I am just trying to map out the main aspects for myself and the layperson.

Before I start, let us remind ourselves: we can hold multiple opinions about this, and various aspects of it. I, myself, hold about twelve.

We do have to start out with the “Maduro was a bad man” schtick. You start with this not because it is the only truth, not because it’s the most important truth, but because without this, there is no argument at all, no discussion at all. Remember that when they start talking about Greenland. Some sticklers for law insist this is irrelevant. It is not. I have talked to a few Venezuelans and listened to many more talk and they are universally psyched the guy is gone and hated the dude. We can’t ignore that completely. And indeed, it’s part of Trump’s genius, right? He often manages to get some new constituency on his side (RFK, the pro-lifers). It is a talent, gotta admit.

Many would say something along the lines of “well so what. What Trump did is illegal. You gotta do it the right way.” And they do, of course, have a point.

But my god, the complexity of that one sentence. There is so much there. And even then that is not the whole story. I don’t even think it’s the main story, the legality, the methodology. But it still needs to be addressed. Let us pause and talk just about the legality and methodology, while remembering that, again, it is not the main story.

The legality: broadly speaking, there are two areas of law relevant here: domestic and international. And both of these are insanely complex on their own. I will try and keep it simple.

International: Three areas of focus. Well, there are lots, bt let’s keep it to three":

1. The immunity of a head of state. Maduro was acting as head of state, so therefore probably should have immunity. But the US didn’t recognize him, which is probably not enough under international law to make it so. But basically no one else thought he was legitimate either, so it is quite possible that, in the end, some mythical international tribunal (would have to be the UN since the US does not recognize the ICC which we will get to in the moment) would find that Maduro was not a head of state. Quite possibly you could get away with it from this point of view

2. An act of war. I suspect this was undeniably an act of war, especially when you consider it within the larger context of our previous attacks on Venezuelan ships and ports. War is illegal. Mostly. This seems the clearest international crime.

3. The International Criminal Court, or the ICC. From this perspective, the kidnapping of Maduro is an interesting one. We don’t actually know if Maduro has a sealed indictment under the ICC. He may well! And there is precedent, in Adolf Eichmann, of trying someone in the ICC who has been kidnapped to bring them to trial. It might be legal! This would apply to just the kidnapping, though, not the war. And most ironically, Trump is violently against the ICC. And there is US law prohibiting them from aiding the ICC. So if theoretically (a man could dream), Trump got tried before the ICC, his defense for the specific crime of kidnapping Maduro could, if the ICC had a sealed indictment and warrant, actually be legal! But then he’d be US law! A fun pickle.

(Also now we have Stephen Miller saying we should do the same thing to Greenland where literally none of these legal quirks are applicable, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Seems obvious all of this is a charade.)

We have those out there who say “well imagine if France or China did a deal with JD Vance to invade the US to kidnap Trump” and my god, don’t tempt me. I personally might take that deal. BUT from an international law standpoint, it’s complex: if there was an ICC warrant against Trump, and if they could pull it off without committing an act of war, then a) yes legal under International Law (which is why Republicans are so afraid of the ICC, they like war crimes) and b) yeah, I might be okay with it, assuming he went to trial. But my answer is moot, because we didn’t just kidnap, we started a war illegal from an international law standpoint (never mind domestic, which we’ll get to next). So if China had to start a war with us to pull it off, then no, that’s bad. And Trump absolutely should not have (re)set that precedent.

Domestic law: A few areas, I think:

1. Maduro has several indictments in US courts. He is a wanted man in the US. This has happened before with, to pick the closest analog, Manuel Noriega.

2. It is a fucking debacle in any law enforcement operation to have 100ish collateral deaths and someone should be tried for it, if they’re gonna continue this charade.

3. The courts found that Noriega was not the head of Panama, and will probably do the same if we ever see a public trial of Maduro. There are differences, though, those differences matter, and it’s not a guarantee (until it gets to our Supreme Court which, yeah.). This means, in the end, it’s probably legal to apprehend him from a domestic law point of view.

4. BUT: How you apprehend him matters. It is patently absurd to call this a law enforcement operation, and it is patently absurd to say that it is legal to start a war to bring a single random citizen to trial. No way, no how. If he is not head of state, you are basically saying the US can start a war whenever it feels like kidnapping anyone wanted under US law, anywhere on the planet. This is stupid.

5. It is also patently absurd to say that our newly named Department of Fucking War did not commit an act of war against Venezuela, which means congressional approval should absolutely have been required. This also the case with Noriega, though one niggling difference is that Panama had declared war on us (that was dumb). This seems pretty open and shut.

6. If the ICC had a secret warrant and Trump ever tries that defense, he will be breaking the US law prohibiting him from aiding the ICC which would just be the funniest thing.

7. The Trump administration says Maduro is going to stand Trial and my god, I hope so. But keep in mind: there’s lots we don’t know, and Maduro would deserve a fair trial like everyone else, which means he’s allowed to do discovery and collect evidence and, boy, I suspect that will be a giant mess and I am deeply dubious he will ever stand trial. But, then, Trump loves the 80’s and is obviously mimicking Panama here, so, maybe. Please, please, let’s have a trial.

All in all, if I had to weigh in, I would say this is illegal domestically. The kidnapping is probably defensible under international law. Or at least theoretically defensible. The war is not.

I think, too, we need to remember that “international law” is not really a thing. It’s a patchwork of treaties, many of which we are party to, many of which we are not. I have seen several people talk about how we are ending an era where the US used its power to prop up international law, but that is simply not true. We have not been on the vanguard for international law for a long time, are actively hostile to several aspects of it, and have not signed on to many, many of the main treaties involved.

I should now say that in my personal opinion, we should follow international law! We should be part of the ICC!

NOW. ALL OF THAT, everything you just read, that is the argument going on ad infinitum on Twitter and Bluesky and Threads: he was a bad man! It doesn’t matter! We shouldn't break a law!

And both sides have a point!

I think lots and lots and lots and lots of Americans, almost everyone, believes in their heart of hearts that the law should occasionally be broken when something is really important. I think ever since the Republicans abandoned their pretense of respecting the rule of law, Americans as a whole have started respecting the abstract, immutable concept “law” less and less. I think almost every American thinks there are stupid laws and laws that don’t really count and laws that shouldn’t count.

When you tell someone it doesn’t matter if it was right, it was illegal, all you are really saying is that you, personally, find this batch of laws important. The other person does not. You both have points. It’s not a real conversation.

It feels very clear to me that this act broke the law. It had no congressional authorization. That makes it illegal. I, personally, think congressional authorization is a good law! I support it! BUT I recognize lots of people in America think that the president should be a king.

It makes me very, very, very sad that there are no charismatic active proponents of the merits of living in a society of laws these days in the US. No one is making awesome Tik Toks. Legal dramas are essentially fantasy. So many people take the rule of law for granted in this country and think it is eternal and safe and not prone to abuse or crumbling. And so many more people think the US is already a kleptocracy and everything is just window dressing. This all makes me very sad.

The history we teach now is the action movie of history. And we focus on the failings of the framers of the constitution - I know I do. There is no consensus in America for a respect for the concept of law anymore.

It should not be surprising that plenty of Americans think “well he was a bad man so this is fine.”

And, it should be said, if Trump wanted to get congressional authorization, he would have gotten it. I think we all know this. He basically got it in his own way. Not in the legal way, but effectively. He followed the spirit of the law, not the letter. And I hate the guy and I will whine about it, but I also gotta recognize that, yeah, it’s not the main problem.

“Rick you are really starting to sound like a defender of this action,” you might be thinking by now.

But oh no no no. Not at all.

I don’t think the legality of this action is the problem. I think the problems here are that it is monumentally idiotic and monumentally corrupt.

It is obviously corrupt. Trump has explicitly said so: he told oil companies his plans before he fucking told congress. He claims we are running the country. The US has an officially recognized winner of the last Venezuelan election! Trump is not even pretending that guy should be president. Nor is he pretending that the woman who would obviously win the next election should be president. Nope. From his own mouth, we are gonna keep the entire corrupt government as-is, we did a deal with the VP, and she is gonna run the country the way we want it to be run.

This is where I think we as Americans have more insight into this than the Venezuelans who are happy about this. They know their country, but we know Trump. We know what happens to people who do deals with Trump. Venezuelans are only just learning.

Machado is naive to try and work with him.

Rodriguez is naive try and work with him.

The Cubans (they are rife throughout the Venezuelan government and intelligence services) are naive to try and work with him, assuming they did. Or maybe they were just clueless and useless. They did, after all, get a bunch of themselves killed. I am 55-45 on this, but I suspect they tacitly let Trump do a deal with Rodriguez.

Machado has already been burned. Perhaps irreparably so. Rodriguez will find out soon enough.

It is useful to us to keep Venezuelan oil out of Chinese and Russian hands, but we do not want or need the oil, the oil companies do not want to spend billions of dollars and years developing all of this. It looks like at this point Trump will bribe them (with our money) to try and develop the oil fields, which is obviously stupid on so many levels. It is also cosmically hubristic to think we will ever manage to get the project off the ground.

It is very obviously Trump stuck in the 80’s like he is with trade deficits.

I would have more respect if he said “you know what? Just leave the Venezuelan oil in the ground. It’s an environmental nightmare and it’s enough to just keep it from the Chinese and Russians. We’ll pay you, Venezuela, to not drill.” I could maybe get behind that.

Venezuelans are going to find this will not end well. A friend of mine said “well this is different from Iraq because it is a stable democracy and doesn’t have factions,” and, well, yes and no. I mean, aside from the fact that half the government is run by Cuba and aside from whatever other officials not aligned with Rodriguez are trying to seize the moment and aside from the drug cartels… maybe? But there is more than enough powder that it is not inconceivable that the keg should blow. Especially if we aren’t gonna put boots on the ground. And Trump knows he can’t put boots on the ground. But Trump may well be putting boots on the ground. “Advisors.” Vietnam.

Then, of course, we have the spheres-of-influence bullshit and China and Putin and whatever deals were made there and the radically increased chance of an invasion of Taiwan and Trump’s obvious heartfelt desire to abandon Ukraine and boy I sure am confused why a country that basically dominated the world is excited to cede three-quarters of the world to Russia and China aside from some nostalgia for the good-old spheres-of-influence days. Real fuckin bright, that one.

I have run out of steam but I think that’s about it.

I will not be attaching a photo of my daughter to this missive. But she has held down her Cheerios for the hour it took me to write this. Hallelujah. We are making progress.