He's not in Venezuela

 

Well, no one's going to exactly miss Maudro and his regime but the casus belli of Trump's new war - narco terrorism? - is flimsier than a piece of Andrex.  It's interesting that he says the US is now going to run Venezuela as going to war used to be a decision that could only be made by Congress.  Also regime change is an illegal war aim... Keir Starmer is slithering round as usual trying to avoid saying that the US attack on Venezuela is anything other than a flagrant breach of international law.  I mean, who ever heard of narco-terrorism?  Well, actually it seems the term was coined by United States Attorney General William Barr who accused Maudro of it... Although what it consists of I'm not sure? Nose powder of mass destruction?  Surely hardly an issue going to war over?  Previous the US Justice Department put a huge bounty on Maduro leading to people teasing them that "I think he's in Venezuela".  Well, he's not any longer...

I wonder what the MAGA base will make of their new illegal war and colony?  This has been on the horizon for a long time with the US making gruesome unprovoked attacks on shipping.  I guess with Canada and Greenland not turning out to be pushovers, Trump went for the weediest child with the least friends in the class...

I see the usual US apologists are abroad telling us International Law never really existed despite the fact modern international law is a US invention born out of Woodrow Wilson's 14 points.  And they certainly made a big song and dance about it in 1945...

Keir Starmer of course has the spine of a jellyfish 🪼 and is all "we need to see all the facts".  And of course there's the classic "it's not for me as a political to interpret International Law".  Top tip: that's what you have an Attorney General for.

In case anyone's still in doubt that it's all about oil, Mr Eyeshadow spells it out for you...

The president offered multiple off ramps, but was very clear throughout this process: the drug trafficking must stop, and the stolen oil must be returned to the United States. Maduro is the newest person to find out that President Trump means what he says.

Kudos to our brave… pic.twitter.com/b1fqkdbB4x

— JD Vance (@JDVance) January 3, 2026

Tarrifs

I was just sitting on my golden toilet the other day when I started to wonder what happened to Donald Trump's "Liberation Day" Tarrifs.  After a stock market meltdown in May and a recalibration of policy with reality .... It seems Donald has backed down from his original position of hitting everyone with like 25-50% and things have settled down now at 10->15% for most countries except those who are on the US Naughty Step like China, Iraq and Iran...

According to the Trump Administration's United States Trade Representative (USTR)  the tariffs "are calculated as the tariff rate necessary to balance bilateral trade deficits between the U.S. and each of our trading partners", aiming to "drive bilateral trade deficits to zero" which came as news to Australia which has a baseline tariff of 10% despite the US running a trade surplus.  

Reuters Reported on November 14th that Trump on Friday rolled back tariffs on over 200 food products, including coffee, beef, bananas and orange juice, in order to head off inflation and many tarrifs are not yet in full effect (see here).  Other factors such as the current orders looking like they may be struck down by the Supreme Court as executive overreach some time soon may be keeping a lid on things... and it's hard to get a full picture of the US economy because of the government shutdown a few months back but ... things don't seem to be as awful as predicted... partially because Trump has chickened out.  Although small businesses don't seem that happy...

Inequality Street

 

When I was a child we were brought up not to "accept sweets off strangers" so it's always interesting at Christmas to observe the Royal Family doing the exact opposite.  This isn't a one off and I've often wondered what becomes of these gifts.  I kind of used to imagine that for security reasons MI5 would quietly and swiftly whisk any boxes of sweets or chocolates off to some DSTL laboratory like Porton Down where lots of men in white biohazard suits would spend hours analysing them for traces of novichok, anthrax or cyanide before destroying them in a hospital waste incinerator for good measure... as the position of food taster seems to have gone out of fashion. 

That said apparently President Obama definitely had a food taster so they haven't died out completely (occupational hazard?) but.... then again according to a policy published on the Royal Family website Family members are indeed allowed to have a good chow down on these gifts... so that they can come to learn what Sainsbury's food tastes like as opposed to just Fortum and Mason and M&S.

They are also allowed to give them to charity which raises the spector of some foodbank customer somewhere just keeling over because they've scoffed a box of Quality Street containing a deadly nerve agent... but personally I still reckon they go to a DSTL laboratory.... which would kind of make giving the Royal Family children sweets a next level pointless gesture...

Who'd have ever thought that ...

...one day taking up smoking would be cheaper than posting letters?

 

Blue Origin's Dress Code

Does anyone know why passengers on Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin Amazon rocket have to wear a blue uniform?  Why can't they just wear their own clothes?  I was just about to pay £235,000 for a trip into space but Bezos started telling me that I needed to wear some shit Spandex spacesuit.  "Fuck off, mate," I said.  "There's nothing wrong with a rugby top and jeans.  I'm not going into space looking like Jimmy Savile? Can we compromise on a business suit?". "No," he replied.  Honestly you don't see this on Star Trek ... So anyway I decided to stay home.  But it just goes to show Prime membership gets you nothing....