We now know the lengths to which President Donald Trump will go to draw attention away from the Epstein files. All done up while we slept, in the wee hours of (for many of us) a cold Saturday morning, the attack on Caracas was timed to mess with news cycles and to give the administration room to hone its lies, all the while giving insiders a way to adjust their stock portfolios before the inevitable “worry crash” on Monday.

Though utterly unprovoked, the invasion is being sold as a necessity: a drastic measure taken on our behalf, for an “emergency” that never was. In the course of patting himself on the back for a job well done, Donald Trump indicated that, up next, “something will have to be done about Mexico.”

If the question that some of us are now asking is: “Is there no last straw when it comes to the abuses of this administration?” The answer we need to drill into our heads is: “No. There’s never a last straw. Not until you make it one.” We are now facing that moment. America under Trump is a rogue nation. The evidence has been there for some time, but now it comes with a slap in the face, with ignorant bullies, invested with power, daring the world to say otherwise.

The lies defending the invasion will be brazen. We already know what they will be, and how they won’t add up. The invasion of Venezuela cannot be about fentanyl because Venezuela is neither a source nor transit country for fentanyl. It cannot be about America needing oil because America produces more crude oil than any country, ever. Nor can it be about replacing an autocrat with a democratic leader because, thanks to a sycophantic Congress and radicalized

© Common Dreams