James Carville thinks that the operation in Venezuela is more distraction from the Epstein files. He’s most likely on to something. Rachel Maddow theorizes that this operation paves the way to use some normally judiciously-used federal statute to deport U.S. citizens of Venezuelan descent, and perhaps from other places as well. She’s most likely on to something, too. Jon Stewart posits that the recent action in Venezuela is just the latest shot across the bow from a President who plans on using the military as he pleases, as if it is his own personal army.

Whatever just unfolded in Venezuela, under the pretense of removing an illegitimate leader and drug kingpin, is perhaps all these things, and more—a thirst for oil, a distraction from a scandal that seems unlikely to go away, and an excuse for deporting more dark-skinned people.

So this is what America First looks like– a Stephen Miller wet dream come to fruition, an ill-advised, American-backed coup, with the “assurance” that we will run Venezuela for the time being.

In what universe does this kind of thinking fly?

Trump just says stuff, most likely at the behest of somebody, and then leaves it to people like Miller, Rubio and… Hegseth? to work things out. I think Mr. Carville, Mr. Stewart, and Ms. Maddow are all barking up the right tree—all of this is a continued effort to shift attention away from the lowering boom of Epstein files and Jack Smith’s investigation, along with groundwork for ethnic cleansing and authoritarian aspirations. Imagine that.

And one more thing: the highly praised special forces success in extracting Maduro and his wife might be likened to walking into a daughter’s bedroom and stealing a couple figures out of a doll house. The whole scene reeks of someone bringing a nuclear bomb to a 5^th-grade shoving match. Definitely not anything to be proud of, or impressed by, as if the efficiency of the operation is the only takeaway here. We’re looking at a military apparently ready to do a rogue leader’s bidding, warming up for further “acquisitions.”

And they probably already have some deal worked out with Maduro to make it look like he’s in big trouble. Maybe he and his wife will enjoy a little R&R with Ms. Maxwell. Or they’ll find a place for Nicolas in Trump’s Cabinet. Ooh, how about the FDA?

I‘ve touched on this before, but I have to try and flesh it out again: namely, the absurdity of being alive.

Here we are, all 8 billion-plus of us, thrown into the mix at some point, with absolutely no say in whether or not we came to exist, all trying to make it through the day, all expected to cope, to work, to serve and protect and be responsible and get along and find a way to survive. We had no say in any of these matters—whether or not we even wanted to take it all on. Oh, many of us do once we’re here, but the initial event of our arrival and existence was out of our hands.

It reminds me of the story my father told us about how he learned to swim—his dad threw him in a pond by their house, when he wasn’t even two years old. I don’t know if that’s true or if I dreamed it at some point, but he could swim like a fish, so maybe even at that tender age he decided he’d rather swim than sink. Or maybe he was just naturally buoyant.

I guess the thing I keep wrestling with is that there is a certain coldness to human existence. We may have the luxury of feeling entitled, we may get lucky and be born into stable families with loving parents, our ways being paved, certain rough edges being smoothed along the way. But there is enough misery and pain and unwarranted suffering to get one thinking that life isn’t a gift, our presence here on this tiny orb isn’t some pre-ordained miracle—it wasn’t “in the stars” or destiny or anything else that makes for a shmaltzy Hallmark movie.

Parents watch their 3-year-old daughter fade away from cancer, or get word that a shooter has taken the life of their 4^th grader at school, or grandparents die in the rubble of bombed out housing because religious zealots and warmongers refuse to work things out. Or another slaughter unfolds somewhere in sub-Saharan Africa because there are too many people living on terrain which can’t sustain them, and because humans are just more sophisticated animals with basic instincts for survival and an urge to dominate.

There’s nothing magic about this life. There are no givens, which doesn’t mean we can’t feel loved, or be inspired, or awestruck, or moved by the beauty of a sunset or the serenity of a warm Spring day. It just means that, from the get-go, there is no fairness, no blue print beyond being born, living some sort of long or abbreviated life, and dying. What happens to us between the beginning and the end is dependent on a million different things.

I’m not waiting until I cool down. For some reason, I had a small meltdown in the midst of trying to make it through an interview on PBS News Hour between Amna Nawaz and the Trump-appointed chairman/director of the Kennedy Center.

Yes, I purposely left out Donald Trump’s name because it does not belong there. I know that, you may know that, and most everyone else on earth who gives a rat’s ass knows that. Trump and the people who position themselves always in close proximity to his huge posterior are among the only ones who don’t. I have no intention of honoring this unwarranted and totally egocentric move, which may have been at the behest or suggestion of cellar dwellers like Stephen Miller or Russell Vought, or maybe Trump himself.

What’s gotten under my skin is the tenor of the conversation between Nawaz and this person supposedly in the know about changes at the Center since Trump decided to appoint himself chief cook and bottle washer. Nawaz asked some pointed questions and this guy predictably took offense to every one. Just like Donald would do. He blamed Nawaz for being biased. Yawn. And he talked over her as she tried to get clarification on pretty much everything he was saying– some hogwash about economics and Trump’s peerless fundraising capabilities.

I’m to the point of no longer offering the benefit of the doubt to any Trump crony. I held little hope that this would be an enlightening give and take, and my doubts were confirmed. The playbook is to discount PBS, to discount any spokesperson who works for a “woke’ network, and to make them all look like the bad guys.

Kudos to PBS for extending the invitation to someone who was just gonna shit all over the gesture.

You’re on the defensive for a reason, buddy. What’s it like working for a POTUS who never grew up? You getting any REM sleep?

We just keep ignoring the elephants. We keep going about our business, hungry for stability, putting one foot in front of the other, looking for the silver linings, putting lipstick on the same pigs. We keep trying to get through the day, somehow oblivious to, yet fully cognizant of the dissonance—as if nothing is changing when everything is changing.

We’re trying to hold onto “better days” like we hold onto our Christmas traditions and feelings, all the while aware of the challenges we face: a President and Cabinet who couldn’t care less about traditions and feelings, who are possessed of a diabolical vision and insistent on feeding us a line, who are constantly overmatched and out of touch, who are bought and paid for by fossil fuel magnates and tone deaf Silicon Valley rich kids with weird takes on what makes for a great society.

We just keep trying to live our lives without risk, hellbent on climbing onto a hamster wheel of interminable, self-interested striving, trying to bring to fruition some incredibly shallow, naive, mythical, and nebulous American Dream.

Fingers in ears, humming “la, la, la…”