President spends Saturday at Mar-a-Lago 'weighing options' for war with Venezuela.

The President spent Saturday at his golf course in Florida. He spent Saturday afternoon in his golf cart. He spent Saturday evening, by all reporting, in the dining room at Mar-a-Lago, with paying members of the club, weighing what CNN called “the most consequential foreign policy decision of his second term.”

The decision is whether to escalate the United States military campaign against Venezuela from international waters into the actual country of Venezuela. The current force posture in the Caribbean is twelve warships, fifteen thousand sailors and Marines, the Gerald R. Ford carrier strike group, and an inventory of Tomahawk land-attack missiles sized for a multi-day air campaign. That is not a deterrent. That is the kit you pack for the trip.

Hon. The man is making the call from the dining room. The dining room has piped-in club music. The booth next to him is paying nine hundred dollars a plate for shrimp.

There is no resolution from Congress. There is no specific authorization for the use of military force against Venezuela. There is the same 2001 AUMF that has been getting laundered through every overseas adventure for almost a quarter century, and there is the President’s stated belief, on television and on social media, that he does not require permission. The Constitution does not say the same thing the President says.

The Venezuelan government, whatever you think of the Venezuelan government, is the legal government of a sovereign country with twenty-eight million people in it. A war there would not be small. The country has terrain. The country has resistance. The country shares a long, porous land border with Colombia, which is our ally, which has not been asked. Brazil, which has not been asked, has the largest military in South America. Mexico, which has not been asked, has fifty million people of Venezuelan-adjacent diaspora interest. None of these countries have been consulted on what the man at the booth is weighing between holes.

The strikes on the boats are continuing while the decision is being made. The strikes are the on-ramp to the bigger thing. By the time the bigger thing arrives, the on-ramp will look like the path that was always being walked.

You ever notice how the great deal-makers always seem to be making the great deal in a room where the only people getting consulted are the ones who agree with them.

That ought to concern you.