2026 American Political (ob-?)Scene

Bombs over Caracas. Reddit showing video of chinooks flying over the city as explosions are happening. Videos of heavy gunfire on the ground
 
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Reports, as of 4:23am ET, that Maduro (and his wife) was captured by US forces and flown out of the country.

Posted a thread for this event:
Ironduke

Thread 'Maduro captured by US forces'

Just being reported now, that the White House has stated that Nicolas Maduro and his wife were captured by US forces in Caracas early morning, and flown out of the country. Amid airstrikes, "dozens of helicopters", many of which were Chinooks, were filmed flying over the Venezuelan capital.
 
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Red Team said:
Out of curiosity, I referenced DOJ's use of force policies:

Per https://www.justice.gov/jm/1-16000-department-justice-policy-use-force#1-16.200



They may be circling the wagons now but when push comes to shove, Trump is going to be more than willing to spit roast this ICE agent to save his image.

WRT immigration enforcement, I understand the need to enforce immigration law but always understood enforcement to have an emphasis on targeting criminals rather than working families. And as a naturalized citizen, I have serious concerns about these recent denaturalization quotas and tacit approval from the Supreme Court allowing the feds to use ethnicity as a factor to justify a stop.
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I'm from eastern North Carolina where tobacco and sweet potato farming still require manual labor to harvest and not once have I ever seen a white man or black man in the fields harvesting. I'm not seeing cops going to arrest the landowners. Everyone knows what has existed for decades, they know the houses the migrants live in and the person that owns said place is public record, the migrants are taken to the fields in converted buses, they get driven to Walmart once a week for supplies. No one's getting arrested, which speaks to this is focused only on certain areas as opposed to being a blanket "get everyone" operation.
 
The logical (?) conclusion from the latest garbage spewing out of the White House is that the US no longer believes it should support law and order, democracy, freedom, culture, art, Europe, Africa, Latin America, East Asia, counter-terrorism, cyber security, economic and social development, cooperation, science, geography, history, trade, peace, civilization, energy, equality, the fight against climate change, arms control, cotton, lead, zinc, timber, water in general and the oceans in particular.

Here is a list of all the agencies that the U.S. is exiting, according to the White House:


United Nations organizations

— Department of Economic and Social Affairs

— U.N. Economic and Social Council, or ECOSOC — Economic Commission for Africa

— ECOSOC — Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean

— ECOSOC — Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific

— ECOSOC — Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia

— International Law Commission

— International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals

— International Trade Centre

— Office of the Special Adviser on Africa

— Office of the Special Representative of the secretary-general for Children in Armed Conflict

— Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict

— Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Violence Against Children

— Peacebuilding Commission

— Peacebuilding Fund

— Permanent Forum on People of African Descent

— U.N. Alliance of Civilizations

— U.N. Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries

— U.N. Conference on Trade and Development

— U.N. Democracy Fund

— U.N. Energy

— U.N. Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women

— U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change

— U.N. Human Settlements Programme

— U.N. Institute for Training and Research

— U.N. Oceans

— U.N. Population Fund

— U.N. Register of Conventional Arms

— U.N. System Chief Executives Board for Coordination

— U.N. System Staff College

— U.N. Water

— U.N. University


Non-U. N. organizations

— 24/7 Carbon-Free Energy Compact

— Colombo Plan Council

— Commission for Environmental Cooperation

— Education Cannot Wait

— European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats

— Forum of European National Highway Research Laboratories

— Freedom Online Coalition

— Global Community Engagement and Resilience Fund

— Global Counterterrorism Forum

— Global Forum on Cyber Expertise

— Global Forum on Migration and Development

— Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research

— Intergovernmental Forum on Mining, Minerals, Metals, and Sustainable Development

— Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

— Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services

— International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property

— International Cotton Advisory Committee

— International Development Law Organization

— International Energy Forum

— International Federation of Arts Councils and Culture Agencies

— International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance

— International Institute for Justice and the Rule of Law

— International Lead and Zinc Study Group

— International Renewable Energy Agency

— International Solar Alliance

— International Tropical Timber Organization

— International Union for Conservation of Nature

— Pan American Institute of Geography and History

— Partnership for Atlantic Cooperation

— Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in Asia

— Regional Cooperation Council

— Renewable Energy Policy Network for the 21st Century

— Science and Technology Center in Ukraine

— Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme

— Venice Commission of the Council of Europe



Source: https://apnews.com/article/trump-administration-global-organizations-un-daaa4c9f459d7a492536a1a4e3b7697c
 
Cannot speak about NGOs but what exactly has UN orgs did except to give diplomats cozy jobs and $10K expense accounts? Funded in large part by the US.
 
Officer of Engineers said:
Cannot speak about NGOs but what exactly has UN orgs did except to give diplomats cozy jobs and $10K expense accounts? Funded in large part by the US.
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It might has slipped past without your notice, but ever since these institutions were established, the global poverty rate crashed like never before since the invention of fire (or earlier). Coincidence? Maybe.
Then again, the military guys always say that a lack of cooperation is a precondition to war.
 
DOR said:
It might has slipped past without your notice, but ever since these institutions were established, the global poverty rate crashed like never before since the invention of fire (or earlier). Coincidence? Maybe.
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The invention of the Dollar Store has more to do with that and that has more to do with China than any UN org.

DOR said:
Then again, the military guys always say that a lack of cooperation is a precondition to war.
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Full co-operation is neither a prevention of war. Both France and Germany were each other's largest trading partners before Hitler crossed into Belgium. And France and England co-operated further by giving Hitler the Sudetenland.
 
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Officer of Engineers said:
The invention of the Dollar Store has more to do with that and that has more to do with China than any UN org.
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Not sure if you're saying the dollar store alleviates poverty, but my observations of rural areas not sharing in economic growth seen in metropolitan areas, this is assuredly not the case. They drove two grocery stores out of business in an area where I have family, places that employed many more people with semi-decent jobs for the area, and besides that, dollar store prices are deceptively expensive.

It is almost always cheaper to buy fast moving consumer goods elsewhere, the stuff that looks "cheap", the dollar stores typically package smaller quantities at higher prices per ounce or 100g of product, and their prices on goods sold in regular quantities are typically more expensive too.

They don't sell anything really healthy either as far as food goes, everything's processed, canned, frozen, salted, fatty, and/or junk food, and the family I speak of now has an 8-mile drive to the nearest proper grocery store, and a 25-mile drive to relatively inexpensive grocery stores. Where before there were grocery stores a few blocks and 4 miles away.

Generally dollar stores mostly exist in impoverished areas, and begin to pop up in areas undergoing impoverishment, and when they do, they tear apart what remains of the local small business fabric, putting local retailers out of business, reducing the number people employed, and no longer selling any products at all that are locally or regionally sourced.

The few employees they do employ, it's all part-time, minimum wage, with one employee responsible running the store and stocking shelves at a time, which introduces an element of danger for robbery and shoplifting elements that can escalate. No benefits, no retirement, nothing. Dollar stores, in my opinion, are essentially one of the last nails in the coffin for suffering rural economies.
 
DOR said:
It might has slipped past without your notice, but ever since these institutions were established, the global poverty rate crashed like never before since the invention of fire (or earlier). Coincidence? Maybe.
Then again, the military guys always say that a lack of cooperation is a precondition to war.
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In the case of some, correlation does not imply causation.

For example, the UN has an outer space-oriented agency. A section of which per when it was inaugurated in the past 10 to 15 years I think was for representation in outer space affairs for countries that don't have their own space agencies. (There is an office that acts as secretariat for all out the outer space-derived treaties, UNOOSA, I'm not talking about that.) I'm sorry, of all the issues in the world, where would democratizing outer space for poorer countries rank in importance? Go talk to random person in a not well off country and ask "what would you rather have, your state having an impact in space or clean water?" For starters, the power in outer space affairs comes from the countries and private businesses that have launch and flight capacity and the internal infrastructure to build, not from any UN agency. It's also ridiculously expensive which automatically puts it out of the grasp of any country without a certain level of per capita GDP. Why not close that agency and instead take the money earmarked for it and put it toward an important task that dollar for impact (or euro, pound, yuan, West African franc, etc.) would have significantly more effect to the whole of the world's population? The UN can't do everything, and some agencies with limited to zero impact on their mandate getting shutdown to focus on the UN's more important missions is not a bad thing for a person that actually believes in the UN. But the UN was a body that resisted ever changing due to bureaucratic inertia, and for that reason where required change was staring them in the face and they refused to do it, they're now having change imposed on them by someone hostile to the body. (Same issue going on with the U.S. government. You want to leave politics, that also describes everything going on with American collegiate sports. I see a lot of similarities between the UN and NCAA - they're both omnipresent institutions that in reality are incredibly weak because their membership dictate everything and don't want to ever be punished.)

Overall statement on the impact, some of the withdrawals will be severe and negative, some won't, but this is representative of how the administration view international relations. They believe in 1-on-1 negotiations, not doing things on a panel.
 
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Officer of Engineers said:
The point is inexpensive goods coming out of China has done more to alleviate poverty than any UN org.
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I think the 1990s are just this one-shot unique moment in history that will never be repeated and people mistakenly believed that would be normal forever. What made it unique was the internet making global instantaneous communication possible and the fall of communism as an economic philosophy, both of which incredibly opened up the world. It was possible to build a widget in India dictated by a person in Detroit throughout the whole process and it could then be shipped overseas cheaper, and that could all work seamlessly like never before, all while raising standards of living everywhere. That didn't really stop until the global financial crisis of the mid-to-late '00s, at which point nativism arguments started becoming more widespread as standards of living globally have stagnated as we're past massive easy growth stage and now it's more to add some here you take away some there, aided by the aftereffects of another one-shot unique moment in history in Covid. It all goes back to economics.

To find a parallel, the 1990s changes in how the world works rising all boats is the modern day version of the industrialization of the late 1800s, and what happened after the easy growth of industrialization was over? We got World War I. It's part of why I think there's so much hope in this AI sh*t because they're desperately looking for a new 1990s to increase productivity and economic activity, the alternative is global economic stagnation and currency debasement robbing everyone of their life savings, which makes common people desperate...and that leads to people like Trump getting elected to start with and then proceeds to wreck the global order because the global order is not working for normal people. (His solutions would be different, but a politician like Bernie Sanders would make the exact same argument.) Trump's solution is he's going to use how omnipresent the U.S. is globally and either allies' dependence on our military or the military can do any operation in most countries and they won't fight back to in his opinion improve the U.S. and make it even more a hegemon. Great solution for the short-term in theory, medium to long-term I think it just leads to war because all those countries we're doing these things all to are going to become more desperate.
 
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Officer of Engineers said:
The invention of the Dollar Store has more to do with that and that has more to do with China than any UN org.
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If poverty is defined as: Lacking essentials like food, clothing, shelter then I don't think a Dollar Store sells those, and so wouldn't help anyone in that condition around the world, which is what DOR was referring to. If people are lacking those three essentials then most of the time it has to do with lack of money and they aren't going to buy doodads from a Dollar Store or from anywhere else before food.
 
DOR is referring to the UN and the UN did shit all to alleviate poverty. For Pete sakes, it took Bush Sr to militarily intervene disastrously in Somalia. Do people actually think that the UN did better without the Americans there? It took the Chinese and their cheap goods which includes cheap food to flood the world that alleviate poverty more than ANYTHING the UN has done.

I used the dollar store as an example of how the Chinese has dominated the cheap goods area.
 
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US justice department opens criminal probe into Fed chair Jerome Powell​

Federal prosecutors have opened a criminal investigation into Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, he said on Sunday.

In a video announcing the probe, Powell said the US justice department served the agency with subpoenas and threatened a criminal indictment over testimony he gave to a Senate committee about renovations to Federal Reserve buildings.

He called the probe "unprecedented" and said he believed it was opened due to him drawing Donald Trump's ire over refusing to lower interest rates despite repeated public pressure from the president.

The Fed chair is the latest to come at odds with Trump and then face criminal investigation by the US justice department.

The justice department and White House has not yet commented on the apparent investigation.

"This is about whether the Fed will be able to continue to set interest rates based on evidence and economic conditions, or whether instead monetary policy will be directed by political pressure or intimidation," Powell said.

"I have deep respect for the rule of law and for accountability in our democracy. No one, certainly not the chair of the Federal Reserve is above the law, but this unprecedented action should be seen in the broader context of the administration's threats and ongoing pressure," he went on to say.

The probe, which prosecutors have not confirmed, would signal a fresh escalation in Trump's ongoing dispute with Powell, who the president nominated for the role as Fed chair in 2017.

Trump has repeatedly threatened to remove Powell, who he has criticised for not cutting interest rates as quickly as the president would have liked. In the second half of 2025, the Fed cut interest rates three times.

The president has consistently blamed his predecessor, Joe Biden, and the central bank interest rates for economic struggles in the US.

Critics have raised concerns that Trump's pressure to oust the Fed chair would muddy the institution's authority to set interest rates independently from presidents.

North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis, a Republican who is a member of the Senate Banking Committee, said he would oppose the nomination of Powell's replacement by Trump, and any other Fed Board nominee, "until this legal matter is fully resolved".

"If there were any remaining doubt whether advisers within the Trump Administration are actively pushing to end the independence of the Federal Reserve, there should now be none," Tillis said in a statement.

"It is now the independence and credibility of the Department of Justice that are in question," the senator said.

Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat, said she believed Trump's plan was to push Powell off the Fed board for good and "install another sock puppet to complete his corrupt takeover of America's central bank".

"This committee and the Senate should not move forward with any Trump nominee for the Fed, including Fed Chair," she said.

Powell's investigation will be overseen by the US Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia, according to the New York Times, which first reported the probe.

Trump previously took aim at Lisa Cook, a governor at the US central bank, whom he tried to fire over alleged mortgage fraud.

The case was blocked by a US federal court and will be heard by the Supreme Court later this month.

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Going to be a long few years
 
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