Summer Pockets rewatched:

I don't like Shiroha as much as the other heroines, so the series really drags whenever Shiroha is the focus.  But over half the series, Shiroha isn't the focus, and that half of Summer Pockets is amazing.  Umi interacting with Shiroha sort of averages out, between the best and worst character, but Umi interacting with Hairi is perfect.  I could watch that all day.  Overall I think my ranking of 114th is pretty accurate.  This gets me one step closer to my promise to rewatch all great anime to prove it's truly great.

Meanwhile, I edited 'Sophie' in chapter 17 of '100 Waifus' to be 'Sophie Lhant,' as it should have been, because that's her real name, not one I made up.  Once I found a mistake to edit, there was no reason to not edit other things, so I also reversed Kudryavka's name to be 'Kudryavka Anatolyevna Strugatskaya/Noumi' instead of 'Noumi/Strugatskaya.'  This lets all the Russian name be said at once, which is more euphonious.  Then I went ahead and switched two names out -- I added Sana from 'Tenshin Ranman' and Athanasia from 'Who Made me a Princess?' as two of Christopher's daughters, replacing Izetta and Perona.  Izetta is an anime that I'll soon be kicking out of my top 200 rankings, so it doesn't need representation in '100 Waifus' anymore.  Perona is sort of a villain, so her quality doesn't really compare to heroines like Sana or Athanasia.  Protagonists of great series will always have above average traits when compared to side characters or villains.  Both Sana and Athanasia are blonde-haired and blue-eyed.  They're as beautiful as girls can be.  And I love their personalities too.  Sana with her hopelessly-inept-attempt-to-be-a-tsundere, and Athanasia with her fluctuating selfishness and selflessness.  They're both so adorable you can never look away.

It's just editing names, not any content in the book, but I still think this is a marked improvement to the novel.  Well worth buying a new paperback version for.

Speaking of spending money, I spent another $66 on Heaven Burns Red.  Inori and Hisame got new SS Memorias, both schoolgirl uniforms, and I instantly bit.  As luck would have it I secured them both, as well as getting pirate Aina her level 1 limit break and diva Ruka her level 2 limit break.  I also got halfway to phantom thief Jamie's level 3 limit break.  Phantom thief Jamie and samurai Inori are my two heaviest hitters, so improving them is more important than anybody else.  Schoolgirl Inori doesn't directly aid samurai Inori, but she does indirectly help by giving her higher stats and new useful skills.  It's all for the sake of someday defeating the last boss, Anachrony Skullfeather.

I tested out my new level 2 limit break diva Ruka on the new score challenge boss, and what do you know she kicked ass, alongside the rest of Squad 31-A.  I got over 1,100,000 points, fulfilling the 'million point' title badge requirement for all six of my main character maidens for the first time.  The only other squad who's scored that well is my critical penetration squad (i.e., the one with Jamie and Inori.)  These two squads continue to outshine the rest of my army, so I keep steering more and more resources their way.

I wanted to give admiral Aoi a limit break, but my free quartz stupidly got me doctor Seika's level 1 limit break instead.  So close and yet so far.  It was a 50% chance it would be one or the other, so of course I got the other.  My new plan is to keep rolling for admiral Aoi until I reach 150 exchange points and then just forcefully cash in all my chips and get my limit break with no chance involved.

Congratulations to Indiana on their first ever national championship:

It was a thrilling game from start to finish.  The blocked punt was the one mistake that decided the game.  Miami's offense and defense got the job done, but their special teams were lacking.  They also missed a field goal.

I thought Indiana would dominate a lot more than it did, but it got the job done and that's all that matters.  The gutsy touchdown run by Heisman trophy winner Mendoza was a delight to see.

On the NFL front, we're down to 4 very good teams -- the Broncos, Patriots, Rams and Seahawks.  Bo Nix broke his ankle though, and the Seahawks completely dominated the 49'ers, so it looks like the Superbowl has already been determined -- Patriots vs. Seahawks.  And honestly it looks like the Patriots don't stand a a chance against the Seahawks either.  The Bills should have beaten the Broncos in overtime.  That was clearly a catch, not an interception, he was already down by the time the ball was stripped out of his hands.  But oh well.  The Bills would have lost to the Patriots in the next round anyway, so I guess it doesn't matter all that much.

Meanwhile, I added Genkai to my wonderful hall of fame.  She's Yusuke's mentor in Yu Yu Hakusho and the coolest old lady in anime.  I especially like her youthened look that she can take on at will and her passionate romance with the villain Togoro in her heyday.  It added a lot to both her character and the villain's.  She's the 1408th fictional character to reach my hall of fame.  I gave her Over the Fence from Gettysburg because she bravely risks her life in a hopeless battle just like the song.  Meanwhile Kanna from Cafe Stella got the beautiful and calm song 'Luca' from FF10, which better fits her role as a heroine in a dating sim.

In Heaven Burns Red I've gotten a few more limit breaks, but sadly not the ones I was aiming for -- base Niina got her level 1 limit break, fireworks Yuki got her level 4 limit break, kimono Tama got her level 2 limit break, fireworks Miya got her level 2 limit break, and perhaps others I've forgotten.  I really would have preferred more limit breaks for diva Ruka or admiral Aoi, but some of these will help regardless.  The free recruiting session celebrating the New Year is sadly over, so it will be more difficult to get limit breaks moving forward.  I have a better shot getting to the new max level cap and fighting Skullfeather with what I already have.

I did get Isuzu's skill evolution and Risa's master skill.  They're great girls, just not remotely good enough to take on Skullfeather.  But for easier fights like Flat Hand they can succeed.

Currently I have 15 playable level 4 limit break Seraphs.  After that is just 5 playable level 3 limit break Seraphs.  Then 9 playable level 2 limit break Seraphs.  Weaker than that and you can't really deploy them in serious fights.  You would think with 29 deployable girls I could find a good strategy to take down Skullfeather with, and maybe I can once they're all max level. . .

I'm also about 2/3 of the way through Clair Obscur Expedition 33.  Maelle's the most attractive character by far.  The gameplay is pretty addictive, but I'm not exactly sold on the plot or setting.  It's certainly an original idea.  I'll figure out how I feel once I've finished the game.

The newest Princess Principal Crown Handler oav has come out, and like usual it was good.  Not as good as the previous ova, but that's a high bar.  Ultimately Princess Principal is going to be amazing, but I think it's ridiculous to only release one ova a year.  Anime should not take this long to make.

DanMachi S5 is available in bluray with English subtitles for the first time, so it would be wise to acquire it for archival purposes like I have.

The Winter Olympics start in two weeks, preceding the Super Bowl which finishes off football season, giving us a seamless epic sports experience for the foreseeable future.

Winter 2026 Anime First Impressions:

These first impressions apply only to new series whose first episodes were good enough to merit continued viewing:

Eris no Seihai:  I like the normal, nice, pretty noble and the sharp but thorny ghost who possesses her.  I like the setting, something like the court of Louis XIV.  The budget is high so everything looks great.

Yuusha Party wo Oidasareta Kiyoubinbou:  Normally I dislike the trope of 'I was thrown out of the hero's party, but quickly became better off as a result.'  But this story combines that trope with tutoring cute young girls to become great adventurers, so it's like Koujo Denka.  Kouja Denka is so great that if you're even remotely similar to it you're also worth watching.

Champignon no Mago:  I like the ethereal art style, it really gives a distinct feel to this anime.  The quiet and conscientious witch heroine is adorable.  The surreal magic gives the whole work a sense of levity that helps counter the heavy, dark themes.

Tamon-kun Ima Docchi?:  Idols are only human, outside of work they have their own problems and needs.  So it's nice to see a fan who doesn't demand perfection from her boy idol during his off hours, but instead resolves to do whatever she can to help him.  I also like her comically over-excited arousal over every little thing he does.  It's nice to think there are girls out there who are actually attracted to boys -- albeit idol boys with impossible good looks and fame.

Omagoto:  It's very clever that she was a chosen hero meant to defeat the Maou (like Rokka no Yuusha), but nobody could figure out what her ability did so she was totally useless.  Through a quirk of fate, she was forced by a sadistic slaver to grab hold of a cursed sword, whereupon she finally understood what her 'reverse' gift did.  Like the reverse wood of Xanth, cursed items count as blessed items to her, so she gets huge bonuses upon equipping them.  Then she used her reverse ability to quickly reverse her fortune, and help out a nearby unfortunate girl as well.  She killed the slaver and rejoined society, now aware of how to become the strongest.

Kizoku Tensei:  A young prince with a remarkable affinity for a legendary cursed sword is able to do good in a world largely dominated by evil.  The princes are amoral, the populace is amoral, good people are bullied, defrauded, sexually harassed, etc.  Only our protagonist and his magic sword can save the day and restore justice.  I like that he meted out justice by killing a scumbag in ep 1, but he was way too soft towards the group of thugs in ep 2, sparing them.  I want him to act like Yagami Light and just kill everyone.

Majutsu-shi Kunon wa Mieteiru:  A blind boy uses his remarkable aptitude for magic to make up for his physical impairment.  (Sort of like Daredevil.)  He's gentlemanly towards women, which I really like.  He's already got a princess for a fiancee, which I really envy.  Then again, I'd rather be able to see than have a princess fiancee, so I can spare him this much.

You Can't be in a Rom-Com with your Childhood Friends:  Imagine 100 Kanojo except no one is honest with each other so nobody ever confesses.  They just keep trying to get the other party to confess, while the girls try to spoil each others' chances.  It's shuraba, but the funny and lewd type so okay by me.

Okiraku Ryoushu no Tanoshii Ryouchi Bouei:  This young lord turns out not to have fire magic affinity like his father or deceased mother, so his father banishes him to a remote province in need of development.  The young lord has many servants who feel a deep sense of loyalty to him, so they're all relocating to the province too.  It will be fun to see him excel with the 'production magic' his father looked down upon and bring prosperity to his new land.

Hell Mode:  A hardcore gamer accepts a 'hell mode' difficulty game and is transported to another world as a baby with the summoning skill.  The summoning skill is overpowered but hard to master.  What I like more about the story is how loving his family is rather than the typical power-trip stuff.

29-sai Dokushin Chuuken Boukensha no Nichijou:  An orphan who survived the streets raising himself is finally financially secure enough to start taking care of others, and what do you know he meets a cute orphan girl who's in as precarious a position as he was when he was young.  He swoops in to raise his new daughter and everyone's happy.

Dead Account:  This series reminds me of jujutsu kaisen.  Typical shonen jump fare, a group of exorcists have special powers they use to preserve the peace in modern day Japan.  The twist being that ghosts today are due to social media accounts left behind by dead people.  It's a clever idea, and a very modern one, I'll give it that.

Kirei ni Shite Moraemasu ka:  A cute girl runs her own business, a laundromat.  I've learned more about laundromats than I ever thought possible from this show, but I do wish it would move on to something a little more interesting.

Mayonaka Heart Tune:  Like Love Hina or Nisekoi, a boy was in love with a girl in his youth, but they were separated.  Now he doesn't know exactly which of four girls is his true love from the past, so has to seduce them all while figuring out which one is his actual target.

Yuusha Party ni Kawaii Ko ga Ita node, Kokuhaku shitemita:  One of the four demon generals of the Maou decides he prefers humans, and especially the priest girl from the hero's party, so he defects.  Unfortunately the priestess doesn't return his affection, so he's decided to become such an admirable fellow that she can't help but fall for him.  So begins his long journey through the social status hierarchy of mankind.

Jingai Kyoushitsu no Ningengirai Kyoushi:  An enviable man gets to be the teacher of an all-girls school, except even better, they're all demihuman girls.  The demihumans have to avoid humans normally so they're all very excitable around him, to make his situation even better.

Tensei shitara Dragon no Tamago datta:  This reminds me of 'So I'm a Spider, So What?', except much worse.  Still, Spider was very good, so a ripoff of Spider might also be worthwhile.

Arne no Jikenbo:  I don't like mysteries, normally speaking.  But when the main heroine looks and acts like Emiliko from Shadows House, I suddenly become interested.  I wouldn't say I'm totally sold on this story, but I'll keep watching for now.

Altogether the winter season looks like this:

Here's the good anime that's currently airing this season and is worth at least a try, in the order of how exciting each episode is week to week (not in the order of how good the series is overall, which would favor older/longer series too much):

1.  Oshi no Ko S3

2.  Sousou no Frieren S2

3.  Fate/Strange Fake

4.  Medalist S2

5.  Kimi to Idol Precure

6.  Eris no Seihai

7.  Yuusha Party wo Oidasareta Kiyoubinbou

8.  Champignon no Mago

9.  Tamon-kun Ima Docchi?

10.  Omagoto

11.  Boku no Hero Academia Vigilantes

12.  Kizoku Tensei

13.  Majutsu-shi Kunon wa Mieteiru

14.  You Can't be in a Rom-Com with your Childhood Friends

15.  Okiraku Ryoushu no Tanoshii Ryouchi Bouei

16.  Hell Mode

17.  Jigokuraku S2

18.  29-sai Dokushin Chuuken Boukensha no Nichijou

19.  Dead Account

20.  Kirei ni Shite Moraemasu ka

21.  Mayonaka Heart Tune

22.  Yuusha Party ni Kawaii Ko ga Ita node, Kokuhaku shitemita

23.  Jingai Kyoushitsu no Ningengirai Kyoushi

24.  Tensei shitara Dragon no Tamago datta

25.  Arne no Jikenbo

25 good series airing all at once is a bonanza.  A cornucopia.  I think I've had this many series to watch in a single season before, but this could well be the record.  2025 was such a bad year for anime, I'm glad to see 2026 setting off on the right foot.  It's time to get back to what Japan does best.

Heaven Burns Red Chapter 5 Part 2 beaten:

Too short!  Part 2 was too short!  Only six days long in-game, the story is left on a cliffhanger for both Tsukasa and Karen.  Presumably Part 3 covers the actual dénouement of this arc.  But how long will it be until Part 3 comes out?  There was around a six-month gap between Part 1 and Part 2.  So now I have to stew in this cliffhanger for six months.  Arghhh.

Tsukasa and Karen's alternate personalities take center stage in this short segment of the main story.  I got to know Karen and 'original' Tsukasa a lot better.  Of course I already liked them, so it was simply gratifying to get to know better someone you already like.  It's hinted that maybe someday we'll get to fight with cute Karen instead of psycho Karen.  That would be awesome.

The boss at the end of this short story segment was sadly too strong for my plot party to handle.  The plot has it that Squad 31-A fought this tornado boss in Shikoku, but I've nurtured Squad 31-A to be a powerful fire squad, and the tornado boss had down 75% to fire damage.  I tried to fight the boss with the light-element versions of 31-A, but the boss healed itself so often I was barely making any headway, and like usual I ran out of exclusive abilities.  After that, no matter how much longer I fought, my dps couldn't exceed its healing so I gave up.

So I gave up on following the plot and deployed my dark squad to handle the boss, who was vulnerable to dark.  I finally got to make use of tuxedo Megumi, who has a special ability that permanently prevents enemies from healing for the rest of the battle.  With the boss no longer healing itself, and taking 150% additional damage from my dark attacks, it quickly succumbed to my ministrations.  Even so, before I won the boss managed to break swimsuit Karen, so even my ideal squad to handle the situation didn't have much leeway.  It was a well-earned victory, the fruit of all my training over the past year and all the thousands of dollars I spent to power up my seraphs across-the-board.  (As you can see, if I had concentrated on squad 31-A, and specifically fire-element 31-A, I would've been stymied by this boss.)  The versatility that came from developing a powerful squad of every element and gathering all sorts of special abilities from different SS Memorias like 'permanently prevent enemy healing' paid off in this moment.  That versatility comes at a very steep price.  ^_^.  But it's nice when my efforts are rewarded.

The plot also had Squad 30-G scouting a meteor impact.  There wasn't any particularly powerful boss in this segment, but the fights were still tough because I followed the plot and deployed only the 5 members of 30-G who are still alive at this point in the story.  And one of those 5, Monaka, is my weakest character in the game, so basically I had to handle everything with only 4 characters.  On the bright side, the remaining 4 seraphs of 30-G I all have at max level 4 limit break -- Hisame, Yuina, Chie and Miya.  I couldn't have asked for a more reliable group than that.

I also finished mission 4 of Operation Perseus.  My hoverbike has a crazy high level that lets me curbstomp everything I come across now.  (the hoverbike buff only applies to foes in the operation Perseus zone).  That feeling of invincibility is pretty nice, and I also enjoy spending time with Nanami.  It's a rare treat.

I also finished Aina's event.  Aina is pretty but I don't like her speech mannerisms or her fixation on oceanography.  I think studying sea life is a giant waste of time with no useful application to humanity, who after all lives on land.  Anyone who studies sea life for a living is therefore a parasite contributing nothing to mankind while still sucking up precious resources so they can continue to 'study' useless things.  Of course, Aina is now a warrior saving the world from Cancer, so she has a respectable job now, but most of the event story was about her past and her mother who was also an oceanographer.

So in the space of a few days I cleared all the new content in the game.  *sigh*  I wanted to keep playing Heaven forever, but now I have to go back to comparatively dull stuff like the new winter anime season and the NFL playoffs.

Of course, I still need to grind levels and skills so that someday I can defeat Anachrony Skullfeather, the current last boss of the game.  But I can only do that when I have life points, and I only get 1 life point every 4 hours, so it's not exactly something that can occupy me all day.  An hour a day at best. . .

Heaven Burns Red Chapter 5 Part 2 now live:

It's what we've all been waiting for -- the continuation of the main story of HBR.  By completing the first day of the new segment, all of your characters' unit levels and memoria levels gain +5 to their maximum cap.  This means, suddenly, all my characters are underleveled again.  New boosters did become available, but they weren't actually stronger than the old boosters.  To be safe I bought six of them anyway, because they might be useful in some circumstance or other, and there's no other real use for gp.

It will take months to get all my characters to their new max level, but if I prioritize the characters I think I'll need to beat Skullfeather, maybe I can use this power boost to beat Skullfeather in a slightly shorter timeline.

A new class type has arrived, Admiral, that's insanely strong.  You're only allowed one admiral per squad because they'd be too overpowered otherwise.  So at the same time, they're basically saying you should always have at least one admiral in your squad.  With the help of $86 and some good luck, I acquired all the new SS Memoria that came out alongside Chapter 5 Part 2, including admiral Aoi.  The new SS Memoria were graffiti Iroha, admiral Aoi, undersea Aina and healer Seika.  Healer Seika looks pretty strong, but I don't like Seika, Iroha, or Aina so I have no intention of using them.  I do like Erika, and admirals are strong, so I immediately poured my resources into her.

I gave admiral Aoi an eternal daphne and fully upgraded her memento, which gives a sizable boost of +25 to all her stats.  I also upgraded the mementos of diva Ruka, pajamas Hisame, phantom thief Jamie, samurai Inori and fox Miya.  You can tell most of my upgrades are geared towards my critical penetration squad -- since the mechanic is so overpowered it's my only squad that can actually deliver when the going gets tough, so I reward it appropriately.

Admiral Aoi gives all my characters auto-crit as a passive ability, for the entire battle.  Previously Seira could do that as an active ability, but it cost all her sp to keep refreshing her ability.  Aoi can use her sp for other purposes while also giving everyone auto-crit.  That's not all.  She also buffs people's attack power and increases everyone's skill usages by 1.  She also gets an extra free skill slot for herself.  With a single limit break she would also have an ability that reduces the cost of everyone's moves by -1 sp for the entire battle.  In long fights the cumulative savings would be enormous.  It's insanely stronger.

Diva Ruka gives only frontline units auto-crit, and only for 5 turns at a time.  So a maximum of 20 turns in all.  But her song buff is good for multiple other things -- it gives my seraphs lifelink (heal themselves for 30% of the damage they deal), gives them unlimited extra uses of their skills so long as the song is playing (one of the reasons I lost to Skullfeather is the fight was so long I ran out of exclusive skills to fight it with, so this is very important.), and gives +2sp to everyone in the frontline so long as Ruka is in the frontline and the song is playing.  So even though she isn't an admiral, her ability is so powerful and versatile she may as well be one.

I also got via a free SS Memoria ticket white tuxedo Shiki, another brand new memoria.  I don't like Shiki so I'll probably never use it.

Other than the new SS Memorias, I also got phantom thief Jamie her level 2 limit break, base Erika her level 3 limit break, swimsuit Yuina her level 4 limit break, reindeer Bon Ivar her level 1 limit break, base Akari her level 1 limit break and santa Misato her level 3 limit break.  My dark and ice squads are slowly catching up to my thunder and fire squads in raw power.

I got Muua her master skill, which gives her an extra sp every turn she's on the frontline.

I got Nanami's hoverbike above level 80, which activates her passive skill that increases her up to skill attack buff.  I also finished the third part of operation Perseus, enjoying more time with her.  There's still part 4 of operation Perseus, a new event featuring Aina (her first time in the spotlight), and the main story for me left to play.  I'm basically set for the rest of January.  If I go silent for a while, it's because I'm busy enjoying Heaven Burns Red.

Koikari After Hours finished:

Now I've read in full all the visual novels listed in my hall of fame.  I wouldn't endorse them to others if I wasn't willing to read them myself.  Unlike American foreign policy, I'm not a hypocrite.

As expected the remaining Koikari content wasn't very good.  It wasn't horrible or anything, just overall pointless.  Renai 0 Km should be coming out later this month, but until then I still have Happiness 2, so my visual novel marathon has no visible end.

I added two Bleach Espada to my wonderful hall of fame -- Ulqiorra and Starrk/Lilynette.  I find these villains were compelling, a lot more interesting and empathy-stirring than the Quincies have been.  Of course, Soul Society had the coolest 'antagonists,' since they actually thought they were doing the right thing.  But these Espada stood out when it came to coolness too.  I also just love Ulqiorra's character design.  He looked so strong when transformed, and his moves were so flashy.  The fight with him was the height of shonen action, in all of Bleach it's never been matched.

Ulqiorra got 'Answers' from FF14 as his theme song, which is especially appropriate since he liked constantly grilling Orihime with questions.  Starrk/Lilynette got 'Toto'Haha Island' from Octopath Traveler 2 as their theme song, which is also appropriate.  Toto'Haha stands for 'Father/Mother,' the two islands that were connected but separate from each other with their own designated gender -- that's exactly the situation with Starrk and Lilynette.  It's like the song was made for them.

Chihiro from Spirited Away was given 'Kaze no Toorimichi,' the theme song of Totoro, which is appropriate because they're both Studio Ghibli films with the same composer, Joe Hisaishi.  My version is sung by Sarah Brightman which makes it even more beautiful, though.

I'm really enjoying the winter anime season.  There are many more worthwhile shows than I expected.  The season hasn't remotely finished its debuts and I'm already watching 13 different series.  I could see reaching 20 by the end.  I did say this was going to be a fantastic season of anime and it looks like I was right.  Once everything has come out I'll say something positive about everyone at once.

The brief pause of football games ends today.  For the next four days it's back to playoff football, the best type.  I don't count the holiday season over until the Super Bowl.  :).  Then there's the Winter Olympics and March Madness, so really the holiday season doesn't end until April. . .

'We Will Run Venezuela':

Trump's words were worse than his deeds.  Kidnapping the sovereign of another nation is of course illegal, but basically meaningless, because the Venezuelan government is still entirely intact and in charge of Venezuela.  All that happens is now the Vice President is President.  If Trump had wanted to pull a stupid stunt and take out Maduro for whatever personal reason that would be one thing, but what he said America was going to do moving forward from here is entirely another.

'We will run Venezuela.'  How?  With what army?  You can't run Venezuela remotely with a Zoom link.  No one is currently taking your orders.  There are no police to enforce your decisions.  If you want to run Venezuela, you would have to send in the army and occupy the country of 40 million, presumably all hostile guerrillas who will kill your soldiers at every given opportunity.  Venezuela is a massive country, bigger than Texas.  It's 50% larger than Ukraine, and we've already seen how difficult it is to occupy Ukraine.  In order to police it all you'd need at least a million soldiers.

The current Vice President of Venezuela's father was tortured to death by CIA-affiliated thugs.  She has nothing but disdain for America.  You're not going to run the country through her.  So what is Trump's plan?  As usual I don't think Trump has a plan, he's relying on magical thinking:

1.  Kidnap Maduro.

2. ???

3.  Profit.

Remember when he said he would obliterate the Houthis?  How did that work out?  He's all talk.

The American people certainly aren't going to support sending a million ground troops to 'run Venezuela' when they've never done anything to us and we could just leave them alone, which has worked for the first 250 years of America's existence.  Such a massive undertaking would require congressional approval and obviously the Democrats wouldn't give it.  The New York Times has already condemned Trump for the much smaller crime of kidnapping Maduro.

But Trump goes on, his ambitions extending further and further into extradimensional space, with no attempt to explain how any of these would actually work -- 'We can do this to anyone.'  So now he says all nations on Earth are subject to American approval.  If we don't like your government we will replace it with a puppet to our liking.  The American military doesn't even have the ability to occupy Venezuela, but now he's declared his intent to occupy the whole world.  How will that work?  Does he not think there will be any pushback to this new regime-change-world-order?

'Columbia should watch its ass.'  'We need to do something about Mexico.'  'I wouldn't feel safe if I were Cuba right now.'  So that's a declaration of war on three more states -- when we still haven't actually beaten Venezuela, or achieved anything meaningful at all.  This on top of his threats to Nigeria, Canada, Panama, Denmark, Yemen, Iran, Palestine, etc., etc.  He hasn't succeeded in any of his threats and he just keeps issuing more.  Blank checks of aggression towards virtually everyone on Earth.  We don't have the military or economic force to cash any of these checks.  With China curtailing rare earths, we can't even build any modern weapons anymore.  All we've got is whatever we have in our stockpile, which isn't much, considering Biden shipped it all off to Ukraine.  We couldn't even beat Afghanistan, who fought with Ak-47's and camels.  What is the plan to take on the entire world?

America is $38 trillion in debt, and rising every day.  25% of our tax proceeds go towards servicing interest on the debt.  We are already completely tapped out.  There is no surplus that can be used towards endless foreign adventures.  How are we going to fund a war with half the world?  Go into more debt?  Trump was elected because America was tired of hyperinflation.  How would more debt not lead to hyperinflation, and thus the complete discrediting of the Republican party?

If you attempted to seize Venezuela as a profit-making endeavor, the expense would be upfront, but the profits from the oil would take decades to materialize.  The decrepit infrastructure of Venezuela would take years and hundreds of billions of dollars to rebuild before you could get one cent of its oil.  Plus it's easy to imagine that the natives would sabotage all attempts at rebuilding as resentment for being a conquered populace.  Even if in the cosmic scale of time it would be profitable to annex Venezuela, the American voters will long before then vote out the war party for the upfront inflation costs that the plan requires.

Trump has already alienated most of his base and most of the country, which was firmly against more foreign wars.  63% of Americans opposed war with Venezuela.  If he sticks to his dumb kidnapping stunt, fine, everyone will forget this happened by the midterms, but if he actually tries to follow through with anything he's said he will lose the midterms so badly that I could see him actually being impeached and convicted in the Senate, and then convicted in a court of law for his endless crimes and sent behind bars for the rest of his short lifespan.  This is a more likely turn of events than 'We will run Venezuela.'

Why can't America return to its peaceful policy from 1782-1898, where we never went abroad in search of enemies?  Was America not prosperous and happy during this period of time?  Were we not completely secure from foreign invasion during this time?  Was there anything actually wrong with life in America that needed fixing, that our lack of invading the outside world was causing?  Trump ran on a promise of a return to that foreign policy, and now has become the most insane warmonger in American history -- issuing more threats to random innocent countries than all other presidents combined.  I have to believe that at some point J.D. Vance will invoke the 25th amendment as Trump is clearly insane, at which point we can have an actual believer in peace in office.  J.D. Vance was nominated by Trump to appease the Tucker Carlson wing of the party, who believes in no foreign intervention.  He's a close friend of Tucker.  He is the genuine article, unlike Trump who has been a liar and a charlatan his whole life.  (Cheating on his wives, defrauding his business partners, and doing the opposite of his campaign promises.)

Perhaps when a few of these wars of choice go south, the cabinet will agree with J.D. that it's time to pull the plug on this obviously unhealthy in mind and body walking corpse.  The 25th amendment was made for moments like these.