The Donroe Doctrine. That’s what they’re calling the latest desperate attempt to distract from the Epstein Files. Because that’s what he wants them to call it. And who could possibly say no to even his slightest self-exalting whim?

“Finance Industry eyes investment opportunities in Venezuela” — Wall street Journal headline. Hey, it’s not a war crime or an act of blatant imperialist aggression. It’s just one big investment opportunity.

For some reason I’m reminded of this editorial from the 2016 campaign:

And this from the 2024 campaign:

The present stupid has deep roots in the past stupid.

J D Vance defended the attack on Venezuela, and the apparent kidnapping of its president, by reminding us that the latter has “multiple indictments” against him. And there’s no way that the USA could possibly allow such a person to remain in a position of power. I mean heck, it’s possible he would have even been convicted for some of the things of which he was accused. And it’s utterly unthinkable to let any nation have a president who’s a convicted criminal.

Meanwhile, Pam Bondi announced the putative charges to be brought against Maduro (on X-Twitter, of course, what else), and they include something called “narco-terrorism conspiracy”, which sounds like a good name for a band. Oh, and there’s also possession of a machine gun and “destructive devices”. In his own country. Can we get someone to file charges against the president of the U.S. for owning destructive devices like her?

Getting back to the Wall Street Journal, it featured an op-ed by Mike Johnson in which he crooned that 2025 was “one of the most productive first years of any Congress in our lifetimes.”

It’s no secret that Every. Single. Agency. of the federal government now has as its prime directive the daily proliferation of insane MAGA propaganda and talking points. In fact, that often seems to be pretty much all they do. Sometimes their posts and tweets and emails are really, really creepy. A case in point is the image at the top, which combines echoes of Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, and Ayn Rand cloud cuckoo land. But what really takes the Stupid Cake is this one from DHS:

It’s hard to know whether the folks in Noemsville (When is someone going to do an image of Kristi Cosplay as a Borg?) are really so stupid as to give away their hand like this, or they just don’t care. If “besieged by the third world” doesn’t alert you to the ignorant racism, try “100 Million Deportations” on for size. With no more than 45 million immigrants in the country, the only way to achieve that target would be to deport 55 million U.S. citizens. And guess what “world” their ancestors will have come from. By the way, we’re not sure what’s supposed to be so comforting and inviting about an old car abandoned on a pristine (and apparently eerily deserted) beach, but it looks as if a tsunami is, appropriately enough, about to wipe out everything.