Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Kelley Beaucar Vlahos

“Comparisons to potential action in Venezuela fall apart and furthermore, we took the wrong lessons from 35 years ago anyway.” (11/10/25)

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/panama-invasion-venezuela/

Source: The American Prospect
by David Dayen

“My colleague Bob Kuttner has ably explained the particulars and the political dynamics of the sudden surrender on the government shutdown from eight Senate Democrats (with Chuck Schumer’s tacit support), what I’m calling the Cave Caucus. Senators dissatisfied with this deal are going to deny unanimous consent to draw out the conclusion, in part to let the situation sink in for the House, where the reaction has been sharply negative. But House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) only needs his own party members to get the bill passed, and he has delivered tough votes throughout the year. I don’t think House Republicans will rescue the Cave Caucus. I share a lot of the frustrations expressed all over social media. But the biggest one for me comes on page 12 of the continuing resolution that advanced in the Senate last night.” (11/10/25)

https://prospect.org/2025/11/10/most-frustrating-thing-about-shutdown-cave/

Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob

“Talk about a blowout: a few days ago, Texans overwhelmingly supported Proposition 16 to amend their state constitution to clarify that noncitizens of U.S. cannot vote in state and local elections in Texas. The vote: Yes, 72%; No, 28%. Not everybody is happy. Jeff Forrester, who happens to be running against Rep. Candy Noble, a major sponsor of this very amendment — just a coincidence I’m sure — professes confusion about why anybody would care about this question. He asserts that the state constitution already prohibits noncitizen voting and has flung himself into a major Twitter‑X tussle over the matter with the group I lead, Americans for Citizen Voting.” (11/10/25)

https://thisiscommonsense.org/2025/11/10/a-puzzling-protest/

Source: The American Conservative
by Joseph Addington

“[T]he risks inherent to any kind of ‘regime collapse’ approach are numerous and severe, and far outweigh any potential benefits. Most pertinently, when any government collapses, the resulting power vacuum is necessarily unpredictable and chaotic, and leaves room for all kinds of actors, state and nonstate, bad and good, to exert their will. Such a situation is not generally conducive to an orderly transition of power of any kind, let alone a transition to democracy. Here the expected comparison is usually Libya, after the bombing campaign that destroyed the Gaddafi regime, but Venezuelan society is not comparable to that of Libya; it is not characterized by a fractured, tribal society and fundamentalist revolutionaries. Instead the major danger is that Venezuela becomes a mid-20th century Colombia: a weak state inundated by brutal organized crime, incapable of defending itself or of disrupting the conflicts between cartels and narcorevolutionary groups fighting over disputed territory.” (11/10/25)

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/regime-collapse-is-not-a-serious-approach-to-the-venezuela-problem/

Source: Orange County Register
by Sal Rodriguez

“Once upon a time, a real estate developer named Donald Trump understood the folly of the war on drugs. ‘We’re losing badly the war on drugs,’ he said at a luncheon held by the Miami Herald in April 1990. ‘You have to legalize drugs to win that war. You have to take the profit away from these drug czars.’ … If President Trump had any guts, he would be channeling the Trump of 1990 and pushing for a complete overhaul of American drug policy prioritizing treatment and reducing the harms of drug abuse. Instead, he is going all-in on an illegal policy of executing people who happen to be on boats in the Caribbean and declaring that he’s saving tens of thousands of lives each time.” (11/09/25)

https://archive.is/p3ABe