"Might Is Right" - Analyses Re- Venezuela and MSM & AI Failures
Just found several articles on Consortium News that answer a number of my questions re- the (il)legality of Trump's actions w.r.t. Venezuela et al. and also point out the ways in which the media are (unintentionally?) helping to normalize Trump's and other oligarchs' "might is right" ethos:
1. "A Lawless Presidency" (https://consortiumnews.com/2026/01/08/a-lawless-presidency/ ): Judge Napolitano has often appeared on Fox; but he does a great job explaining exactly why Trump's actions have been clearly and completely illegal, concluding that "[t]he catastrophe we all witnessed in Caracas — the result of expanding presidential power — is a body blow to the U.S. Constitution."
2. "MSM Bias on Russian Tanker & US Sanctions" (https://consortiumnews.com/2026/01/08/msm-bias-on-russian-tanker-us-sanctions/ ): Joe Lauria sets out a conversation he had with Grok, revealing how the AI repeatedly draws on MSM sources that merely echo Trumpian rationalizations, no matter how illogical or easily disproved – in the course of the conversation also explosing how inept the MSM's reporting has been.
3. "White House Can’t Make Venezuela Attack Legal" (https://consortiumnews.com/2026/01/06/white-house-cant-make-venezuela-attack-legal/ ): Marjorie Cohn discusses in greater detail the ways in which Trump's actions w.r.t. Venezuela have violated international law. One point I found helpful, among others:
But the U.S. has never owned Venezuela’s oil or territory. In 1976, Venezuelan President Carlos Andrés Pérez nationalized Venezuela’s oil industry. In a process contemporaneously described by The New York Times as “peaceful and orderly,” U.S. and European oil companies that had previously been operating in Venezuela were compensated with about $1 billion.
...{But even} if Trump’s bizarre claim that the U.S. owns Venezuela’s oil were true, that would not provide a legal basis for his military attack.
4. "4 Observations on Maduro Kidnap" (https://consortiumnews.com/2026/01/07/jonathan-cook-4-observations-on-maduro-kidnap/ ). Jonathan Cook makes some valuable, additional comments along the same lines; e.g.,
Instead we’re being subjected to ridiculous debates about whether Maduro is “a bad man,” or whether he mismanaged the Venzuelan economy.
Sky News used an interview with Britain’s former Labour Party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, to harangue him, demanding he condemn Maduro. Why?
Precisely to deflect viewers from the actual story: that in invading Venezuela, the U.S. committed what the Nuremberg trials after the Second World War judged to be the supreme international crime of aggression against another state. Where have you seen any establishment media outlet highlight this point in its coverage?
Cook also mentions among other things how Maduro’s predecessor, Chavez restored democracy, economic independence, equitable distribution of revenues, and an end to political corruption in Vensuela, which "reduced extreme poverty by more than 70 percent, halved unemployment, quadrupled the number of people receiving a state pension and schooled the population to reach literacy rates of 100 percent."