1. From the the Democratic Party senator – Mark Warner – vice-chairman of the the Senate Intelligence Committee. Hard to put it better . .

• “Trump’s Venezuela strike risks unleashing global chaos”.
• “Donald Trump is dragging America down”.
• “This isn’t about strength or justice. It’s about shredding the Constitution and lighting a match under the global rulebook”.

Warner reminded the country that the Constitution gives Congress — not one impulsive president — the authority to decide when America goes to war. “Our Constitution places the gravest decisions about the use of military force in the hands of Congress for a reason. Using military force to enact regime change demands the closest scrutiny, precisely because the consequences do not end with the initial strike,” Warner accurately reminded Americans.

The Democratic Senator then pointed out exactly what some of those consequences could be. “If the United States asserts the right to use military force to invade and capture foreign leaders it accuses of criminal conduct, what prevents China from claiming the same authority over Taiwan’s leadership? What stops Vladimir Putin from asserting similar justification to abduct Ukraine’s president? Once this line is crossed, the rules that restrain global chaos begin to collapse, and authoritarian regimes will be the first to exploit it,” Warner warned.

Warner’s criticism of Trump’s actions didn’t prevent him from acknowledging the reality of the kidnapped Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro’s history of abuses against his own people. “None of this absolves Maduro. He is a corrupt authoritarian who has repressed his people, stolen elections, imprisoned political opponents, and presided over a humanitarian catastrophe that has forced millions of Venezuelans to flee. The Venezuelan people deserve democratic leadership, and the United States and the international community should have done far more, years ago, to press for a peaceful transition after Maduro lost a vote of his own citizens. But recognizing Maduro’s crimes does not give any president the authority to ignore the Constitution,” the Senate Intel Committee Vice-chair stated.

And then Warner dropped the hammer on Trump for his blatant inconsistencies. “The hypocrisy underlying this decision is especially glaring. This same president recently pardoned former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who was convicted in a U.S. court on serious drug trafficking charges, including conspiring with narcotics traffickers while in office. Yet now, the administration claims that similar allegations justify the use of military force against another sovereign nation. You cannot credibly argue that drug trafficking charges demand invasion in one case, while issuing a pardon in another,” he said.

In other words, you can’t have it both ways. You don’t get to pardon convicted drug traffickers on one hand and launch invasions over drug allegations on the other. That’s not justice. That’s lawless power politics.

Warner closed with a warning every American should take seriously: “America’s strength comes from our commitment to the rule of law, democratic norms, and constitutional restraint. When we abandon those principles, even in the name of confronting bad actors, we weaken our credibility, endanger global stability, and invite abuses of power that will long outlast any single presidency.”

2. Expert(?) political commentary.

3. It’s been said that events of the last year or so have demonstrated that the American experiment in democracy has failed. This might be going too far. But it has to be true that a Constitution which effectively allows a corrupt, power-mad autocrat to do what he likes must have a serious flaw. Because there can’t be checks and balances when Congress is cowed by a man who would be a medieval king and – in the interests of himself and his cronies – abuses all the power given to him by said Constitution, with impunity.

I might be wrong but I can’t see this being possible under the (unwritten) British Constitution. Which would make it superior, I guess . . .