I hope everyone had a lovely visit with family and a good Thanksgiving dinner. I certainly did. Now, back to work …

One of the first news stories I saw this morning had Trump announcing that his land invasion of Venezuela will start “very soon.” Oh, goodie. The headlines aren’t using the word “invasion,” of course. It’s an “action” against “drug trafficking networks.” But the bottom line is that Trump intends to order the U.S. military to do something within some other nation’s sovereign territory without that nation’s agreement. Maybe the something is bombing raids rather than boots on the ground, but IMO hat’s an invasion. And the Trump Administration wants us all to know that the Commander in Chief is not bound by some old war powers law that requires him to get permission from Congress to do, you know, war stuff.

It’s still not absolutely clear to me why Trump is so obsessed with Venezuela. I understand there are other Latin American countries with more drug smuggling rings, notably Mexico Colombia, Bolivia, and Peru. Everything with Trump is personal. Did Nicolás Maduro call Trump a bad name?

Complicating Trump’s plans, it appears Putin is standing with Venezuela. The Times of India reports today that “At the 19th session of the Russian-Venezuelan intergovernmental commission, Moscow reaffirmed its support for Venezuela’s sovereignty and strengthened its strategic partnership with Caracas.”

About the second thing I noticed this morning was Paul Krugman’s new substack, Getting Ready to Party Like It’s 2008. In brief, a Trump appointee to the Federal Reserve is working to weaken banking regulations to allow riskier financial moves, similar to what caused the financial meltdown in 2008. And there are members of Congress — including some Democrats — promoting the wider use and loose regulation of crypto.  Between that and widespread concerns that the stock market is being propped up by a tech bubble, this is no time to be bullish.

Meanwhile, Trump is so delusional that he’s been musing that his wonderful tariffs will enable us to eliminate income taxes.

On the plus side, Gallup has Trump’s approval rating at 36 percent. How low can he go? And see also …

Michael Tomasky, The New Republic, The Great MAGA Crac-up Has Begun

Paul Waldman, Public Notice, Why MAGA Is Coming Apart at the Seams

Trump is not acting as if he knows his own political jeopardy. Maybe that’s because he only knows one way to act. Maybe that’s because he honestly doesn’t know, or refuses to accept, how much his political base is cracking. In any event I can’t imagine he’s going to do anything that would substantially bring his approval back up.

Getting back to Venezuela, if he does bomb or otherwise assault the sovereign territory of Venezuela, it’s predicted this will cost him some support even of the MAGA die-hards. His promise to avoid getting entangled in foreign military misadventures was a major reason a lot of the low-information Right supported him. It’s a reason right up there with releasing the Epstein files.

Regarding the shooting in DC and the tragic death of Specialist Sara Beckstrom of the West Virginia National Guard, I agree with Josh Marshall —