General Discussion

My excerpts below begin around 25:40:

When you look at this moment, this is a huge crisis for the United States of America, not just for Venezuela, and it is a huge crisis for the world because of the breakdown of that rules-based international order that has kept us from a war since World War II. Not, you know, we've had local wars, but we've not had a world war, a war in Europe, for example.

Um, and it is a direct attack on the US, another direct attack on the US Constitution. So, don't be fuzzy about what happened here. And this would be a great moment to speak up to your Congress people, especially your Republican Congress people.

The Democrats have already come out and said, "Excuse me, what are you doing here?" But they are not in the majority. And a lot of the Republicans started out, even the the the um the far right ones started out by saying, "Hey, You wait a wait a second here. This doesn't look legal.", and they're already starting to come around because generally wars make a president more popular and they don't want to buck Trump and say um uh, you know we're going to back Maduro on this because again Madora is a bad guy.

Um, call light up these freaking phones because I think if you've listened to me before, you've heard me say that we're facing a crisis. Um because Trump has gotten more and more and more and more cornered. And as I've been saying and wincing the next three months, which I said three days ago, are going to be hideous as he and his people try to to maintain control because it's coming down to the line here. Either they are going to grab control and turn the United States into a dictatorship, or the American people are going to take our system back and we're going to make it based in the law again and not in personalities and we're going to start to enforce the laws against corruption and we're going to enforce the constitution and with luck we're going to make this country and its rules and laws more responsive to everyday people. You can see that building.
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This is the moment for the next, like I say, three months is the time I give it. I'm, I'm thinking we're going to have an answer by May as to what's going to happen to the Trump regime. But now is not the time to roll your eyes and say, "Ah, we always go into Latin America." The United States has a terrible history with Latin America going way going back to the 1840s at least. Um that's a rabbit hole someday that I well not even a rabbit hole. Someday I'll do a whole episode at least on that. But this is not that usual. This is an attempt to side with Russia to overturn the rules-based international order and align the United States with Russia rather than with Europe, rather than with democracies, rather than with the idea that countries should have their own right to sovereignty. And once we have given that up, we have not only given up the sovereignty of all nations because all it takes is somebody with more muscle to come take you over. We will also have given up a significant portion of the American Constitution and given the president the ability to take the US military and do whatever he wants with it without oversight by Congress.
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On that note, please speak up. Uh this is, this is it. Um, and it's going to get worse. I you know, I've maintained this all along. It's going to get worse. But the vast majority of Americans want the Constitution. They want rules. They want laws that apply equally to everybody. They want to be treated equally before the law. They want to have a right to a say in their government. And they want to have equal access to resources. And my friends, that is not a radical position. That is the same position that FDR had in the 1930s. It is the same position that Teddy Roosevelt, a Republican, had at the turn of the last century. It is the same position that Abraham Lincoln, took in the 1860s. That's what it means to be an American. And this is our moment to try and protect that for the 21st century.
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That's what's at stake in the US strikes on Venezuela.

US Congress phone (202) 224-3121