During Trump's first term Maduro stayed in power after an illegitimate election.

The MSM/Democrats repeatedly claimed that Maduro remaining in power was proof that Trump was "Putin's puppet."

Everyone in this video will now be condemning Trump. It's so pathetic. pic.twitter.com/EpCcOxESNP

— MAZE (@mazemoore) January 3, 2026

The headline is a rhetorical question.

Every now and then—the last was the assassination of Charlie Kirk—all the masks come off and anyone capable of objectivity can see exactly who the unethical, untrustworthy and dishonest among us are. Unfortunately, most people are not capable of objectivity, because bias makes you stupid. One would think, however, that at least those who present themselves to the public as skilled and independent analysts would take some care not to expose their double standards, lack of integrity and hypocrisy for all to see. One would be wrong to think that, as the video compilation above vividly demonstrates.

But why, oh why, do otherwise intelligent people continue to trust these hacks?

Well, you can decide whether that is a rhetorical question or not.

Meanwhile, here is the first part of an incomplete collection of telling reactions to the U.S.’s perfectly executed incursion into Venezuela to remove an illegitimate ruler and his wife who were both under U.S. indictment.

1. Two lawyer bloggers, Ann Althouse and Jonathan Turley, who I respect and often reference here, made it clear—Turley a bit more expressly than Ann—that the U.S. action was legal and justified. Althouse went back over her previous comments on Maduro—gee, why didn’t Jen Psaki do that?—to find her expressing sympathy with the plight of Venezuelans and the absence of U.S. action, as in her discovery of a post from 2019:

When Trump was pleading with the Venezuelan military to support Juan Guaido, I wrote: “I was surprised that on the channel I was watching — Fox News — the analysis after the speech was about the 2020 presidential campaign…. People in Venezuela are suffering. They’re starving. We need to help. I thought Trump was trying to get something done, but the news folk rush to talk about the damned campaign, as if that’s what sophisticated, savvy people do. I found it offensive.”

Turley has posted twice already explaining that the action was legally justified, with some other useful analysis today, including a pointed reference to Axis hypocrisy:

…Some of us had written that Trump had a winning legal argument by focusing on the operation as the seizure of two indicted individuals in reliance on past judicial rulings, including the decisions in the case of former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio and General Dan Caine stayed on script and reinforced this narrative. Both repeatedly noted that this was an operation intended to bring two individuals to justice and that law enforcement personnel were part of the extraction team to place them into legal custody. Rubio was, again, particularly effective in emphasizing that Maduro was not the head of state but a criminal dictator who took control after losing democratic elections.

However, while noting the purpose of the capture, President Trump proceeded to declare that the United States would engage in nation-building to achieve lasting regime change. He stated that they would be running Venezuela to ensure a friendly government and the repayment of seized U.S. property dating back to the government of Hugo Chávez.

… [Trump]is the most transparent president in my lifetime with prolonged (at times excruciatingly long) press conferences and a brutal frankness about his motivations. Second, he is unabashedly and undeniably transactional in most of his dealings. He is not ashamed to state what he wants the country to get out of the deal.

In Venezuela, he wants a stable partner, and he wants oil.

Chávez and Maduro had implemented moronic socialist policies that reduced one of the most prosperous nations to an economic basket case. They brought in Cuban security thugs to help keep the population under repressive conditions, as a third fled to the United States and other countries.

After an extraordinary operation to capture Maduro, Trump was faced with socialist Maduro allies on every level of the government. He is not willing to allow those same regressive elements to reassert themselves.

The problem is that, if the purpose was regime change, this attack was an act of war, which is why Rubio struggled to bring the presser back to the law enforcement purpose. I have long criticized the erosion of the war declaration powers of Congress, including my representation of members of Congress in opposition to Obama’s Libyan war effort.

The fact, however, is that we lost that case. Trump knows that. Courts have routinely dismissed challenges to undeclared military offensives against other nations. In fairness to Trump, most Democrats were as quiet as church mice when Obama and Hillary Clinton attacked Libya’s capital and military sites to achieve regime change without any authorization from Congress. They were also silent when Obama vaporized an American under this “kill list” policy without even a criminal charge. So please spare me the outrage now.

My strong preferences for congressional authorization and consultation are immaterial. The question I am asked as a legal analyst is whether this operation would be viewed as lawful. The answer remains yes.

A couple items in that analysis warrant special attention, like…

• “[Trump]is the most transparent president in my lifetime.” That is absolutely true, yet the narrative being pushed by the unscrupulous Axis is that he is a habitual liar of epic proportions.
• “….most Democrats were as quiet as church mice when Obama and Hillary Clinton attacked Libya’s capital and military sites to achieve regime change without any authorization from Congress.” Indeed, this is the gold standard of double standards that should be shaken in the faces of the reflex Trump-haters like a terrier shakes a rat.

2. 2024’s Ethics Hero of the Year Elon Musk called the elimination of Maduro “a win for the world.” Well, the Good Guys of the world, anyway. Russia, China, Iran and Cuba, as well as neighboring South American leftist states like Columbia and Brazil and drug cartel-run states like Mexico, condemned Trump’s action. Gee, wouldn’t that collection provide the Mad Left a big clue regarding the distribution of bad Guys and Good Guys on this issue? No, because to the Trump Deranged and the anti-Americans, wherever Trump is automatically is the House Where Evil Dwells.

3. Speaking of Ethics Villains, here’s the revolting Senator Adam Schiff:

Of course, it does not erode America’s standing on the world stage, but enhances it. The contrast would be Biden’s botched withdrawal from Afghanistan, Obama’s shrug when Russia took the Crimea, President Carter’s disastrous attempt to rescue the Iran hostages, and President Biden’s weak response to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

4. Here’s another of the worst Democratic Senators who never let facts get in the way of their attacks on Trump, Maryland’s Chris Van Holland.
Trump didn’t put any Americans in harm’s way, and that why no American were harmed. There is no war, because Venezuela has no capability or stomach to fight with the U.S., and as Turley mentioned, Democrats have a creatively flexible concept of  war powers depending on whether they control the White House or not. The bit about Trump’s “billionaire buddies” is pure Trump Derangement narrative for idiots.

5. There are pro-Maduro, anti-Trump protests in Portland, New York City, and Boston, with many protesters holding professionally-printed placards and signs. The “Hands Off Venezuela” protests are organized by “The People’s Forum,” an NGO that has received over $20 million dollars from a billionaire who lives in China with ties to the CCP. China has been dependent on Venezuelan oil. Here’s a shot from Massachusetts:

(What “blood”?)

5. Yes, Pete Buttigeig is still regarded as a prime contender for the 2028 Democratic Party Presidential nomination. Think about that for a moment. The first post was when he was running in 2020, and condemning President Trump for not doing anything about Venezuela. The one beneath is from yesterday.

6. Predictably, two of the worst, most ethically-inert conservatives extant, Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens, the first a principle-free huckster and the latter bat-house crazy, oppose Maduro’s removal. Owens:

Zionists?

6. United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres condemned the arrest. This is one more in the long line of reasons why the United States should reduce its support of the U.N. to a bare minimum. He’s says he’s “deeply concerned” that the rules of international law have not been respected. That’s because international law is a joke, and the U.N. has neither the means nor the guts to enforce it. All of your Trump-Deranged social media pals blathering about “international law” do not know what they are talking about. There is no international law because there is no world government, and the “law” is constantly warped by bad actors. “International law” holds that Israel can’t defend itself against a terrorist government, but it is toothless when those bad actors stage a sneak murder and rape attack on Jewish civilians.

***

Yikes! That’s a lot already, and Part 2 is on the runway!