1.Attack Venezuela 2.???? 3.PROFIT!

No Sunday-Funday post tonight - things are just too serious right now. 

Hopefully next Saturday night we can laugh again...

There was world-wide reaction today to Trump's "regime change" war of choice against Venezuela. I'm focusing tonight mainly on  Canadian reactions and comments.  But first, remember the Underpants Gnomes? I'm afraid this will prove prescient:

So what is happening? Is the US setting up a puppet government? Extorting compliance from the remaining Venezuelan government? Setting up an occupation and Generalgouvernement? Honestly I’m really perplexed by what they think happens next. 1. Attack Venezuela 2. ???? 3. PROFIT!

— Shower Cat (@shower-cat.bsky.social) January 3, 2026 at 11:30 AM

And don't forget the oil which we're stealing to pay for everything.

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— Mike Masnick (@mmasnick.bsky.social) January 3, 2026 at 4:08 PM

Watch this. Watch again. "This incredible thing last night... We have to do it again [in other countries]. We can do it again, too. Nobody can stop us."

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— Olga Nesterova (@onestpress.onestnetwork.com) January 3, 2026 at 6:18 PM

Not looking forward to the 2044 controversy about whether a Dem president handled the withdrawal from Venezuela right

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— Nobody Can Stop Popehat (@kenwhite.bsky.social) January 3, 2026 at 1:55 PM

Here is a useful explainer from Adam Silverman at Balloon Juice:

Trump’s Gives Away the Venezuelan Game on Fox News: Nobody Can Stop Us…
... Why: The why is a bit more complicated. Lil Narco (my brother in law is a convicted coke trafficker) Rubio has had a theory for the better part of a decade that if you can topple the Venezuelan government, then the Cuban government will quickly fall. There’s no actual logic, rhyme, nor reason behind this, but Lil Narco believes it and he was never the sharpest knife in the wooden chopstick drawer.
The better explanation is that Stephen Miller needs an actual war with Venezuela so that he can order the DOJ and DHS to make another run at using the Alien Enemies Act to justify his anti-immigrant and anti-anyone who looks like an immigrant pogroms. From The New York Times reporting on 27 DEC 2025:

Mr. Miller told officials that if the United States and Venezuela were at war, the Trump administration could again invoke the Alien Enemies Act, an 18th-century law, to expedite deportations of hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans the administration stripped of temporary protected status. He and Mr. Rubio had used it earlier in the year to summarily deport hundreds of Venezuelans to a notorious prison in El Salvador, only to be stopped by court rulings.
Mr. Miller told White House officials in the spring to explore ways to attack drug cartels around their home countries in Latin America. Mr. Miller wanted attacks that could draw widespread attention to create a deterrent.

This is why of the five people behind Trump at his press conference this morning, only one was not a constitutional officer – nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate – and that person was Stephen Miller. He’s not supposed to have this kind of power as a Deputy White House Chief of Staff, but as long as Trump backs him up, Miller’s running the show....

I think Silverman will be proven to be right about the primary motivations for this war, regardless of how nutty they really are.

Trump just handed Russia and China all kinds of pretext and precedent to take illegal, unilateral action. We are headed into very dangerous times.

— Greg Pinelo (@gregpinelo.bsky.social) January 3, 2026 at 9:30 AM

one reason people are already talking themselves into dumb conspiracies about why this is happening is because the actual reality is extremely hard to wrap your brain around

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— GOLIKEHELLMACHINE (@golikehellmachine.com) January 3, 2026 at 6:21 PM

This is ominous, isn't it:

Meanwhile Stephen Miller’s wife is posting stuff like this

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— The Tennessee Holler (@thetnholler.bsky.social) January 3, 2026 at 5:34 PM

Moving on to Canada:
This was sorta funny, sorta not:

Mark Carney turns off geolocation on phone just in case

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— The Beaverton (@thebeaverton.com) January 3, 2026 at 11:36 AM

Headline: "Poilievre further reinforces fears that he would serve Canada up on a platter to Emperor Donald I."

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— Joshua Hind (@joshuahind.bsky.social) January 3, 2026 at 11:31 AM

Canadians generally found Anand's response unimpressive:

Please see my statement on the situation in Venezuela:

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— Anita Anand (@anitaoakvilleeast.bsky.social) January 3, 2026 at 9:45 AM

Note that Anand's statement on Venezuela does not mention the US at all, just as similar Foreign Affairs statements on Palestine do not mention Israel.

— Alison Creekside (@alisoncreekside.bsky.social) January 3, 2026 at 12:38 PM

But here is one thread I thought was excellent:

I think now might be a good time to step back just a little bit and have a look at the much bigger picture here. Last month Carney made a deal with Smith to start planning a pipeline - which no one thought we needed, or wanted 1/x

— Mike D Treacherous Canadian- I guess. (@michaeldonaldson.bsky.social) January 3, 2026 at 11:22 PM

See this ( I’m all out of gift links, sorry) that pipeline looks a lot more viable today. 2/X www.theglobeandmail.com/business/art...

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— Mike D Treacherous Canadian- I guess. (@michaeldonaldson.bsky.social) January 3, 2026 at 11:22 PM

In December Carney announced a 300,000 strong civil defense force. USA has just taken over Venezuela. Katie miller just posted a photo on X showing Greenland as an American state with a one word caption “soon” Then there’s this 3/X

— Mike D Treacherous Canadian- I guess. (@michaeldonaldson.bsky.social) January 3, 2026 at 11:22 PM

www.economist.com/europe/2025/...

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— Mike D Treacherous Canadian- I guess. (@michaeldonaldson.bsky.social) January 3, 2026 at 11:22 PM

Then today Carney posted this

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— Mike D Treacherous Canadian- I guess. (@michaeldonaldson.bsky.social) January 3, 2026 at 11:22 PM

The situation today is much bigger than Venezuela- it’s bigger than opening your official statement by acknowledging Madura is a bad guy. What is big though, is stating we support the rule of law- and I believe that’s important to recognize. 4/X

— Mike D Treacherous Canadian- I guess. (@michaeldonaldson.bsky.social) January 3, 2026 at 11:22 PM

I believe it’s important to continue to plan to defend your sovereignty. Any leader that isn’t 100% behind that plan needs to step down, immediately. I can think of at least two. Maybe three.

— Mike D Treacherous Canadian- I guess. (@michaeldonaldson.bsky.social) January 3, 2026 at 11:22 PM

Because now the US government, or elements in it, are thinking they can get all the oil they need from Venezeula so they won't need Canadian oil anymore and screw you canada - they are delusional:

Katie Miller, political advisor/spouse of White House deputy chief of staff for policy and advisor in homeland security Stephen Miller, quotes someone saying "Canada just lost all leverage with the USA" and adds "Free trade is over" #venezuela #cdnpolitics

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— Andrew Kurjata (@akurjata.ca) January 3, 2026 at 12:14 PM

I'm not sure Alberta is cheering Trump now. Here are a couple of posts from a good thread about Canadian oil prices:

A note for Canadians: export of Venezuelan heavy crude (similar to WCS from Cnd oilsands) was down to 100-200kbpd to Gulf Coast refineries. In absence of pipeline constraints, today will have little effect on differential between WCS and WTI. Longer-term, it may depress price of WCS.

— Shannon Phillips 🇨🇦 (@sphillipsab.bsky.social) January 3, 2026 at 11:07 AM

It’s likely there will be a risk premium in the next few days for WTI/Brent and maybe WCS (a temporary upward bump), but because gulf coast refineries haven’t really been importing Ven heavy for some time now, and there’s no/few pipeline bottlenecks getting our stuff down there

— Shannon Phillips 🇨🇦 (@sphillipsab.bsky.social) January 3, 2026 at 11:22 AM

Next, some good commentary:

Black Cloud Six: Unscripted

America Crosses the Line in Venezuela
...So now, the US is the dog who has caught the car. If Trump is to be believed, the United States will assume control of the Venezuelan government and will “run” Venezuela until a suitable transition to a mythical local authority can be maintained. Further, Venezuela’s oil industry is to be run by American oil companies. It’s a page right out of Putin’s playbook and an egregious example of naked aggression and an obvious violation of all international norms.
More ominously, Trump “hasn’t ruled out” placing US troops on the ground. We’ve seen this exact scenario before: the US runs roughshod over a developing country’s decrepit military, topples its authoritarian government in the name of “freedom”, finds it needs to control events on the ground so it moves troops in, and quickly loses that control because the population doesn’t want the Americans there and is very well armed. Thus, while it was easy for the US to operate in Venezuelan airspace with impunity due to the nearly non-existent capability of the Venezuelan armed forces, the situation longer term may not be as easy. In common with other dictatorships, the Maduro regime created a large “popular” militia, one armed with small arms and the like. The conditions are ideal for an insurgency should even small numbers of Venezuelans oppose a US presence.
All of this is before tackling the larger issues. Trump appears to have gone into Venezuela under his (hilariously named) “Donroe Doctrine”, whereby the US claims to have a free hand to defend its interests anywhere in the Western Hemisphere. Never mind that the “threat” from Venezuela was virtually non-existent, might makes right as far as Trump is concerned. That Maduro was head of state of a sovereign country was of absolutely no consequence; extraterritoriality of US law was what mattered. The US not only withdrew from the ICC, but has criminalized cooperation with it and sanctioned its officials — making its sudden embrace of universal jurisdiction deeply cynical. By US logic, Canadian helicopters can land on the White House lawn, seize Trump and his wife, fly them to Canada, and haul them in front of a Canadian court to face some invented criminal changes. But of course, this “right” only applies to the United States.
So what next? Well, it is obvious that there was no plan for what was to happen after Maduro was deposed. The shape and form of whatever US control Trump will assert over Venezuela has yet to be seen. Are US oil companies really going to go in, seize production assets and simply take over? What will be the US military’s role? Will Trump and the US face any consequences for this profoundly illegal act? Somehow, I doubt it.
Meanwhile, the rest of the Western Hemisphere looks on nervously, wondering who will be next. Marco Rubio, the US Secretary of State, has made it quite clear that his long-time ambition of toppling the Cuban government means Cuba is next on the list. Or will it be Greenland, to which Trump recently appointed a special representative to manage a US takeover? Or will the US attempt to destabilize Canada by offering support to separatists in Alberta?
Regardless, Trump and his administration have shown that they have literally no regard for international norms or for the international community. Appeals to multilateral organizations like the UN or the Organization of American States will amount to nothing. Sanctions are impossible and the US military remains – by far – the most capable and technologically advanced on the planet. Since I started this page, I’ve been calling for Canada – and the rest of the world – to take the threat from Trump and his cronies seriously. This is why.

Marcel Arsenault / Marcel's Substack

Polievre congratulates Trump on Venezuela overthrow!
So now Pierre Poilievre is out here congratulating Donald Trump for taking out Nicolás Maduro. Let that sink in for a second. The supposed defender of freedom and sovereignty is cheering on a U.S. backed regime change like it’s a UFC highlight reel.
Democracy, apparently, is great, unless it’s inconvenient, foreign, or not approved by MAGA headquarters.
And then, because the internet is a cursed place, I scroll the comments. What do I see? Some absolute galaxy brain posting, Come get Carney.
Ah yes. There it is. The mask fully off.
Let’s be crystal clear about what’s happening here. Poilievre congratulating Trump for overthrowing a foreign leader whether you like Maduro or not, is not some throwaway comment. It’s an ideological tell. It says, power matters more than process. It says, might makes right. ell. It says, power matters more than process. It says, might makes right. And it says Poilievre is perfectly comfortable aligning himself with authoritarian ideology long as it hurts the people he hates.
Because that come get Carney line isn’t a joke. It’s not edgy humour. It’s a threat adjacent fantasy rooted in the same poisonous idea, that political opponents aren’t rivals, they’re enemies. That if voters don’t cooperate, maybe someone should step in. Preferably from the south. Preferably with tanks.
This is how democracies rot. Not with one dramatic collapse, but with applause for the idea that elections are optional and violence is strong leadership. First it’s Venezuela. Then it’s globalists. Then it’s central bankers. Then it’s your prime minister....

Cole Bennett / Cole.notcole

When the Pirate Ship Looks Like Salvation
Venezuela and the World After Maduro
... for millions of Venezuelans, today represents one victory, a moment to breathe, after years spent underwater.
And let’s be clear: the Trump administration is not acting out of altruism. This is about power, leverage, and resources, particularly oil. But Maduro was no different. He sold off Venezuela’s future piece by piece, striking deals with Russia, China, and Iran that enriched his regime while delivering nothing to the Venezuelan people. The country’s wealth was never used to lift its citizens, only to entrench authoritarian rule.
What matters now is the ripple effect.
Because Trump’s actions don’t stop at Venezuela.
This morning, speaking to Fox News, Trump was asked whether the United States might carry out strikes in Mexico, where he claims drugs are flowing into the U.S. He confirmed it was possible. He accused Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, of not actually running her country, claiming drug cartels were in charge.
In the same breath, Trump mentioned Canada and the northern border.
This is his pattern. Canada is always folded into the narrative as a “security threat,” often using drugs as the justification, the same justification he uses for tariffs, pressure campaigns, and threats. He has been calling Canada the “51st state” for well over a year now. What once sounded like bluster is starting to look like groundwork.
The threat to Mexico feels very real. You could see it today in Claudia Sheinbaum’s public statements, noticeably more frantic than usual. The calm, measured leader we’ve come to know did not appear calm today. The reality is setting in: this Trump administration is unhinged, impulsive, and openly willing to violate international law.
Canada’s response so far has been timid at best.
That’s not surprising coming from the Carney government, which appears desperate to stay out of whatever comes next in Venezuela. Silence, distance, and caution seem to be the strategy, whether that will protect us or simply leave us unprepared remains to be seen.
The conservative reaction has been… revealing.
Pierre Poilievre was quick to celebrate the fall of Maduro. Danielle Smith’s chief of staff did the same, somehow managing to turn the entire situation into an argument for building another pipeline. In Alberta UCP logic, everything eventually becomes a pipeline justification.
Yes, there is a legitimate conversation to be had about Venezuelan heavy crude potentially returning to global markets and what that could mean for Alberta. But that conversation is premature. Right now, the reality is uncertainty. Corporations are wary of the erratic Trump administration. They’re wary of a country that could descend into civil conflict in days or weeks. And they may be equally hesitant to invest in Canada’s oil sector if Venezuelan supply re-enters the market in a meaningful way.
For now, it’s a wait-and-see moment....

This may be a little hyperbolic - but maybe not:
The Planet Democracy: Unfiltered North

Breaking: Why Trump Bombing Venezuela Is A Wake-Up Call For Canada
The U.S. President just, bombed Venezuela and kidnapped Maduro and his wife in a midnight raid. If this doesn't terrify you as a Canadian, you aren't paying attention.
...Trump justified this raid by claiming he has the right to intervene anywhere he sees a threat to American interests. His administration has spent the last year talking about “securing resources” and protecting the homeland from “foreign threats
Well, look at a map. Who has the water? Who has the oil? Who has the minerals the U.S. desperately needs?
We do.
Some people have spent the last year joking about the “51st State” rhetoric coming from the MAGA camp. Some people laughed when Trump made comments about “liberating” Canada from its “socialist” policies. But last night proved it’s not a joke.
If Trump feels entitled to kick down the door of a sovereign nation and extract its leadership because they wouldn’t bend the knee, what makes you think the 49th parallel is going to stop him?
We are seeing tensions ramp up in the Arctic right now. Russia is bristling with missiles on one side, and the U.S. is demanding we let them “secure” our North on the other. Trump has reportedly threatened to “take” Greenland in the name of security. Do you think he sees Nunavut or the Northwest Territories any differently?...

Finally, this post has nothing to do with Canada, but I'm sharing it because its absolutely priceless:
JoJoFromJerz / Are you f'ng kidding me?

You Don’t Get to Break the Constitution Just Because the Bastard Had It Coming
Because “he deserved it” has never been a constitutional argument
...Unchecked power doesn’t become virtuous just because it lands on someone who deserves to bleed. Rage is not authority. Vengeance is just another drunk excuse.
Donald Trump has been watching a tyrant hollow out a nation for years. And instead of recoiling, instead of being horrified, he took fucking notes. Because Maduro managed something Trump never could: he lost and stayed anyway. He cemented himself into power after the people told him to get out. He didn’t leave. He didn’t blink. He didn’t pretend. He just crushed the system until it bent around him and called it sovereignty.
Trump didn’t get that ending. He lost and got shown the door. He lost and had to watch the locks change. He lost and spent years screaming into mirrors and microphones, trying to claw his way back into a building where power used to answer when he snapped his fingers. And it’s not a stretch to say he hates Maduro for all of it — hates him the way insecure men hate anyone who pulled off the thing they failed at most publicly.
So when Trump looks at Maduro, he doesn’t see a cautionary tale. He sees a missed opportunity. A version of himself who didn’t have to slink off and sulk. A man who proved you can lose and still rule if you’re ruthless enough and nobody stops you. That’s the lesson Trump absorbed. Not justice. Not freedom. Not law. Resentment.
And now he’s trying to rewrite his own ending with bombs and kidnapping and spectacle, daring history to give him a second draft.
The “explanations” came fast and stupid, not because anyone had a plan, but because noise is Trump’s favorite anesthetic. One lie overlapped another until the whole thing became a fog of excuses thick enough to hide the absence of law.
JD Vance couldn’t even drag himself to the golf motel invasion bash — just sprayed out oil tweets like desperate sexts to a couch he’s already defiled, treating human suffering like a crusty patch on the upholstery he’ll make someone else clean. Marco Rubio looked like he was trying to unzip his own skin and crawl into witness protection, caking lipstick on this pork disaster with the haunted optimism of a man selling meat sweatsicles from a trench coat at a funeral. Pete Hegseth stumbled in reeking of bourbon, face slathered with so much Fox News pancake makeup you could carve your initials in it, eyes wild and sweaty, ranting about destiny and drugs like a substitute teacher on day three of a psychotic break, waving his arms and spitting out conspiracy theories between mouthfuls of complimentary shrimp cocktail, convinced the minibar is a CIA honeypot.
None of them had a plan — just a projectile-vomit jamboree of oil, drugs, war, and whatever else their brains horked up, praying the noise would drown out the reek of how spectacularly they’d shat the bed and set it on fire.
...Trump drifted through it all half-upright, eyelids sagging, body swaying — falling asleep while standing up — delivering threats, announcing war, declaring ownership, while consciousness checked out like it wanted plausible deniability. The “commander in chief” nodding off mid-empire, too bored or too empty to stay awake for the violence he’d just ordered.
Then Trump’s mouth did that thing where history just fucking dies. He announced the “Monroe doctrines” — plural — like he was misreading a Cheesecake Factory menu. Corrected himself to the Monroe doctrine, told us we’d all forgotten it, and then declared that people now call it the “Don-roe documents”, like he’d just branded a knockoff grill at a flea market. That wasn’t a gaffe. That was a man pissing on a 200-year-old foreign policy doctrine and waiting to see who’d flinch.
Of fucking course Pam Bondi tried to duct-tape this f’ng mess together, calling the whole thing an “arrest with military support,” pawing through a 1934 firearms law like someone desperately googling is this illegal after the sirens had already started.
If any of this were lawful, nobody would be inventing charges after the bombs fell.
....So no, this isn’t America standing up to tyranny.
This is America trying it on in the mirror.
Republicans didn’t lose control. They handed it over. Again. Punching themselves in the dick for a former reality-TV game-show host who would be staring at a charging document instead of a camera if he weren’t sitting in the Oval Office.
You don’t get to suspend the Constitution because the target makes you feel morally satisfied. You don’t get to shrug at the law because the headline scratches an itch. The moment we decide outcomes matter more than process, we’ve already handed the keys to the next bastard — and we won’t get to pretend we didn’t know better when he uses them on us....

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