Betting on Trump lying feels like a safe bet to be sure, and nothing about it is out of character for American foreign ops. But that’s not confirmation of anything. And the problem is, I have no more confidence in the other side of this equation.

In more grounded terms, If two known liars both give you their side of the story, and both sound plausible there is this overwhelming feeling of exhaustion and melancholy that hits me every time. What’s the point? Even if one of you is telling the truth, it was probably so distorted as to be worthless.

I don’t know if I was just naive or raised by naive people, or if something has genuinely changed in the modern age - but it pains me greatly that we don’t even pretend to value integrity anymore.

That’s a good point - if the mercenaries are identified accurately, that could be a trail someone could follow.

This is one of those frustrating situations where we will simply never know what actually happened.

Could Venezuela’s government have made this up? Possibly. They have motive and they are not the most honest people, to put it mildly.

On the other hand, Trump and his Goons have be been bragging about bombing boats, talking not at all coyly about land invasions, and said openly they had people operating in Venezuela.

So did those agents get caught? Or did Trump give the Venezuelans the idea to perform this hoax by running his fucking mouth?

The CIA’s not going to admit anything. Neither side has any credibility to speak of. I guess maybe a third party investigator with the press or a foreign intelligence agency could try, but that’s going to be one source at best. I’ll have been dead like 20 years before it comes out what actually happened, if anything.

Even if you don’t get it - start at $30 bucks. The current is $16.50. If you get negotiated down to $20/hour you just gave every body on the bottom a more than 20% raise. I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect New Yorkers to live on $40k/year but it’s a hell of a lot more reasonable than $33K/year.

I understand why minimum wages need to be monitored closely, and doled out with forethought and compromise. I get that raising up the bottom very suddenly tends to just be accompanied by price increases that ultimately still benefit the wealthy.

But it’s also just true that feeding money into the bottom of the system always pays greater and more impactful dividends than trying to somehow feed even more to the top. It’s been proven time and time again, and yet we’re always told it’s pointless to try it this time, because Rich people will just find a way to get it back. Duh, that’s what Rich people do. They use their advantages to gain more advantage. But the more people’s hands that money flows through on the way back to the wealthy, the better off we all are.

For the record, and I know I’m not the first to say it, this woman committed NO crime. She didn’t overstay a visa, she didn’t protest illegally. She wrote something the administration didn’t like.

For that, she was arrested by 8 masked officers in the middle of the street, in broad daylight. She was thrown in the back on an unmarked SUV. She’s received no legal representation. No trial. Not even charges, because again, she committed no crime.

Americans, you realize you’re watching the death of your rights and the rule of law, right? You have no illusions about the fact that you are defenseless? There is no longer any guardrail between you and an El Salvadoran prison camp. In something that reminds me very much of Stalin, an accusation is now a conviction.