quote:

for air drop to the pro-Guaidoitems?

If someone comes up with a way to be sure they get to the right destination...I always thought the world of Eden Pastora up in Nicaragua, and at today's prices X2 would be no problem. In fact, the mags and ammo I'd send would be of excellent quality, but they'd come straight out of my "Oh, no, Hillary might get elected!" stash - which, in karmic terms, would be the finest sort of penance for my lack of faith.

quote:

Originally posted by 220-9er:
Venezuela is likely to be a big story in the next year and beyond. Just a matter of time until things spiral out of control and it's not going to be pretty.
I'd much rather see our efforts be on central and South America to get them somewhat straightened out in the next decade or so. All of those countries south of our border could be prosperous without the corrupt governments and a little development that a stable political situation could advance. That would help out the illegal immigration problem much more in the long term.
Now that we can exist without middle east oil, let's back out of some of those overseas shitholes we have been dumping money and our soldiers lives on for decades. Get our southern neighbors on the right track and let the Russian thugs, Chinese commies and European Socialists see if they can deal without our help for a while.

Amen! The US has missed several opportunities since wwii to more poisitvely influence our hemisphere.

I hope those commie swine in power get Caucescu’d.

Venezuela on the Edge of a Precipice
Will dictator Maduro survive against his most determined opposition yet?

Maduro will not engage in any “inclusive and credible political dialogue” with the opposition as Secretary General Guterres has urged. Maduro certainly does not care about what comes out of the UN, knowing that Russia and possibly China will block any serious Security Council actions against his regime. Maduro has already endured economic sanctions and can probably weather even more stringent sanctions imposed by the U.S. and its allies as long as Russia and China continue providing him with economic lifelines. He could care less about popular opinion or street protests so long as his military and security forces continue to stand by him. The military declared its firm backing for Maduro on Thursday. For Maduro, it is all about holding onto his power at any cost.

Massive protests alone are unlikely to oust Maduro unless the military and security forces do an about face and decide to stand down or join the revolt. With pervasive intelligence units embedded in the military overseen by Cuban intelligence advisers, however, an outright military revolt is unlikely to succeed. One such attempt was put down on Monday. President Trump has not ruled out the military option. However, direct military intervention could well lead to further friction with Russia and to potentially disastrous unintended consequences.

As if we needed any reminding, Venezuela’s descent from prosperity to abject poverty under two socialist leaders demonstrates that socialism is a sure path to economic ruin and political oppression. We can only hope that the Venezuelan people are finally able to escape their long nightmare.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/f...ecipice-joseph-klein

This reads the history of Haiti, all over again.

There is no one more keenly aware that socialism is a road to ruin than the Russians and Chinese "helpers". in my opinion, they are counting on it. The more Maduro is dependent on the commies, the better their chances to secure the true wealth of Venezuela.

When you need foreign mercenaries for protection... your days are likely numbered:


Maduro Urges Supporters To Hit Streets As Russian "Security Contractors" Arrive In Venezuela

Update: Maduro - now backed by Russian military contractors, has urged his supporters to take to the streets to defend the legitimacy of his government. The Venezuelan leader has vowed that his country won't turn into a "Syria or Libya" situation, and that the Venezuelan military must prepare for an invasion.

According to Reuters, Maduro says he's willing to travel to New York to discuss the situation with the UN Security Council.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news...zuela-protect-maduro

quote:

Originally posted by chellim1:
According to Reuters, Maduro says he's willing to travel to New York to discuss the situation with the UN Security Council.

And when he arrives, have him arrested by the UN, and then transferred on an overnight flight to the Hague.

Oh, that Danny Glover and Sean Penn could be there now!

quote:

Originally posted by Aquabird:
Oh, that Danny Glover and Sean Penn could be there now!

Crickets from those two chuckle buckets...

quote:

Oh, that Danny Glover and Sean Penn could be there now!

I wish that they and all of our Democrat socialists could learn this important lesson:

quote:

As if we needed any reminding, Venezuela’s descent from prosperity to abject poverty under two socialist leaders demonstrates that socialism is a sure path to economic ruin and political oppression. We can only hope that the Venezuelan people are finally able to escape their long nightmare.

When socialism takes over... those who know better suffer along side of the 'useful idiots' who are duped into accepting the 'free shit'.

Why Democratic Socialists Support Totalitarian Regimes
History: In Venezuela, Echoes of Nicaragua

When it comes to understanding the crisis in Venezuela, the new self-proclaimed democratic socialists revert to the old trope of Stalinist era lefties. In the old days of the Cold War, the horror that emerged after the Soviet takeover of Eastern Europe—discussed in great depth in Anne Applebaum's Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe—was "explained" in this manner by the fellow-travelers of the Old Left: The purge trials, arrests of dissidents, their torture and years of imprisonment may have been harsh, but were all necessary to preserve socialism and prevent a "fascist" takeover from occurring. And if people they knew to be innocent were caught up in the net, they told everyone they were guilty because the "people's democracies" only arrested the guilty.

In the '60s, the New Left acted in the same way as their descendants, justifying the brutality, the firing squads, and the torture of prisoners engaged in by Fidel Castro's revolution by noting the hostility of the United States to an independent people's revolution against the tyrannical Batista regime. Whatever subsequent infringements on freedom took place, they too were necessary to protect the revolution from CIA attempts to destroy it. Any criticism was unjustified, since it too helped America's imperialist agenda.

The old democratic socialists and social-democrats of that era, however, never went along with that warped logic. True to their belief in democracy as the only system of government worth preserving, day in and day out in their small publications, such as Partisan Review and Dissent magazine, they did what they could to bolster the opposition to Communist tyranny and did not let cries that they were helping "McCarthyism" stop them. So, when it came to the Cuban revolution and Castroism, unlike the New Left, they had no illusions about the supposedly wonderful socialist paradise Castro was creating in Cuba.

And this brings one to Venezuela today, and the reaction of the new socialists and the left in general. As Noah Rothman points out in Commentary, almost in unison, the response of the democratic socialists—from Bernie Sanders to AOC and Ilan Omar and Rashida Tlaib—has been shameful. Even worse is The Nation magazine, which has always been steadfast in defense of left-wing totalitarian regimes, from the Soviet Union on to today. They highlight a column by historian Greg Grandin, who is not the slightest bit satisfied with what he sees as a weak response from the base, and shock that the liberals by and large are with the Trump administration in opposition to Maduro. Bernie Sanders "botched his response," because before opposing U.S. policy, he correctly called Maduro an illegitimate president. The left of the Democratic Party, he proclaims, "needs to sharpen its crisis-response message." Even Grandin, however, gives the cat away when he says the subdued response occurs because "the Maduro government is hard to defend except in the abstract."

His Nation colleague George Ciccariello-Maher, a longtime supporter of the Chavista revolution, condemns the United States for its "attempted coup underway in Venezuela." And he refers to Juan Guaido as a "relatively unknown second-string political from the right-wing Popular Will party," which as Venezuelans well know, is a centrist social-democratic party affiliated with The Socialist International.

Today's young and historically illiterate American socialists and leftists do not realize how they are echoing the apologias for Stalin's defenders so many decades in the past. They take pride in their reflexive anti-Americanism, tweeting and arguing that America is trying overthrow a revolutionary democracy.

https://freebeacon.com/nationa...otalitarian-regimes/

More looting in Venezuela:

“… Socialist revolution leader Hugo Chavez’s oldest daughter Maria Gabriela is rumoured to be Venezuela’s richest woman, with a personal fortune of more than 4 billion dollars, hidden in bank accounts Europe.

The 38-year-old earned looted her vast fortune while acting as first lady to her socialist President father, former Lieutenant-Colonel Hugo Chavez, after he divorced his second wife…”

https://mol.im/a/6667889

Photos emerge showing Venezuela's 'Death Squad' with lifeless bodies, victims described as anti-government protesters



In what Venezuela experts call a sign of President Nicolas Maduro's desperate attempts to cling to power, special National Police squads dressed in black masks and uniforms this year apparently began targeting protesters.

Since January, more than 40 deaths – many of which occurred during the mass protests against Maduro - have been linked to the special police force, which uses military weapons and is known as the “Death Squad.”

They also are known as the FAES —the Spanish acronym for the Bolivarian National Police’s Special Action Forces.

Marino Alvarado, investigations coordinator for PROVEA, one of Venezuela’s leading human rights organizations, says that the squad initially was established about two years ago to be an elite unit with military training that would respond to “extraordinary” situations such as hostage-taking, or a mass public safety threat that police with routine training were ill-equipped to handle.

But last year, Alvarado said, the squads targeted people in situations that hardly were extraordinary. They started pursuing and killing people linked to petty crimes. Alvarado said the squads killed 205 people.

“Every time they got involved, it ended in a fatality,” Alvarado said to Fox News. “They massacred about four or so people every week.”

“Here was a military-level elite unit theoretically created to save lives, but the reality is that they extinguish lives,” Alvarado said. “Their mission now is to take up arms against the Venezuelan people, against those who express dissent.”

On Friday, the Trump administration announced new sanctions through the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) against five Venezuelan government officials, including FAES director Rafael Enrique Bastardo Mendoza.

“Treasury continues to target officials who have helped the illegitimate Maduro regime repress the Venezuelan people. We are sanctioning officials in charge of Maduro’s security and intelligence apparatus, which has systematically violated human rights and suppressed democracy, including through torture and other brutal use of force,” said Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin in a written statement. “We are intent on going after those facilitating Maduro’s corruption and predation, including by sanctioning the President of PdVSA (state-owned oil company) and others diverting assets that rightfully belong to the people of Venezuela.”

"As a result of today’s action, all property and interests in property of these individuals, and of any entities that are owned, directly or indirectly, 50 percent or more by such individuals, that are in the United States or in the possession or control of U.S. persons are blocked and must be reported to OFAC. OFAC’s regulations generally prohibit all dealings by U.S. persons or within (or transiting) the United States that involve any property or interests in property of blocked or designated persons."

The agency's press release about the sanctions said: "FAES has been branded as Maduro’s 'extermination squad,' known for its brutal methods and masked appearances, carrying out nighttime raids throughout Caracas."

Efforts by Fox News to get a response from the Venezuelan Ministry of Information in Caracas were unsuccessful. A Maduro ally, Diosdado Cabello, who is head of Venezuela’s Socialist Party, has said accusations of FAES acting as a death squad are manufactured lies disseminated by political opponents, according to Reuters.

A few weeks ago, FAES pushed back against the accusations on social media, saying: “Our struggle is against all criminals that ravage our communities. If you fear the FAES it’s because you’re a criminal.”

While lawmaker Juan Guaido's recognition by dozens of countries as Venezuela's rightful president has renewed the opposition's hope of gaining power after two decades of a socialist rule, it also has riled up Maduro's still sizable pro-government base.

Pictures and videos posted on social media show the squad acting aggressively against protesters and also show members near apparently lifeless bodies.

The Caracas Chronicles, an independent news outlet founded in 2002, has run blistering essays and stories about FAES.

“They break into your room and drag you from your house,” the newspaper reported in late January. “If you resist, they murder you in your own living room. They don’t care that your family’s right there watching, they don’t care that the neighbors can hear when they beat you senseless with steel tubes filled with cement.”

“Silent and deadly, the FAES are police Death Squads in all but name.”

In an editorial published Thursday in the Washington Post, Francisco Toro, the Chronicles founder, assailed the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee for holding a hearing on the socio-political crisis in Venezuela that did not devote enough attention to human rights abuses in the South American nation.

“The spread of death-squad tactics has been one of the most stomach-churning aspects of this year’s political crisis,” Toro wrote, “with mass fear spreading through poorer areas and just a handful of victims daring to come forward and tell their stories on the record.”

Toro targeted Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Minnesota Democrat, for ignoring the killings of protesters in Venezuela during her questioning of the Trump administration’s envoy to Venezuela, Elliott Abrams, during the hearing.

He expressed outrage over learning that “rather than standing up to Maduro’s death squads, Rep. Ilhan Omar had used an exchange with the Trump administration’s envoy to pressure the United States to do nothing at all to rein them in.”

“In a grotesque display of contempt for the Venezuelan mothers grieving for their children, the Maduro regime has murdered in recent weeks, Omar chose to use her stage to attack the U.S. envoy, Elliott Abrams, for decades-old abuses in Central America.”

Despite having the world's largest oil reserves, Venezuela is suffering soaring levels of malnutrition, disease and violence after 20 years of socialist rule launched by the late President Hugo Chavez. Critics accuse Maduro, a former bus driver and Chavez's hand-picked successor, of unfairly winning an election last year for a second six-year term by banning his popular rivals from running and jailing others. PROVEA says that currently Venezuela has just under 1,000 political prisoners -- more than at any other time in its history.

Opposition leader Juan Guaido, who claims to have assumed presidential power as head of the opposition-led National Assembly last month, has worked to push aid through Venezuela’s borders in an attempt to further pressure Maduro’s regime and restore democracy in the country. The 35-year-old lawmaker has received overwhelming backing from roughly 40 countries led by the United States.

The Treasury Department press release about the sanctions against the FAES director said: "Since Guaidó assumed his position as Interim President, FAES has been accused of dozens of extrajudicial killings targeting the opposition. On January 31, 2019, in the middle of Guaidó’s news conference on his economic plans, Guaidó said that FAES were in his home threatening his family."

Experts on Venezuela say that FAES’s brutality in the poorest neighborhoods, where Chavez enjoyed some of the strongest support, shows how threatened Maduro feels.

“FAES is effectively one the main pillars of the Maduro regime,” said Guillermo Zubillaga, head of the Venezuela Working Group for Americas Society/Council of the Americas. “It’s one of the few remaining security forces in Venezuela willing to follow the orders they receive from Maduro. Other security forces are not following orders, knowing the rejection of Maduro by many Venezuelans. But the rule of law does not apply to FAES, they act with impunity.”

“If there’s still any doubt about whether the Maduro regime is a dictatorship, FAES should prove that it is.”



https://www.foxnews.com/world/...overnment-protesters

This Maduro guy needs to assume room temperature ASAP

quote:

Since January, more than 40 deaths – many of which occurred during the mass protests against Maduro - have been linked to the special police force, which uses military weapons and is known as the “Death Squad.”

By comparison, HeyJackass says there have been 32 shot and killed in Chicago so far this year, but not a single protest against Rahm Emmanuel.

By now we can be fairly certain that Emmanuel will leave office at the end of his term. The FAES isn't just a problem but a harbinger of things to come.

This is why you fight tooth and nail to keep and bear arms. When you have the ability to shoot back the government is far less likely to try and murder you for disagreeing with it. Venezuela is the paradise the leftists dream of in the USA.

Another glimpse into the corrupt ruling regime. This character made surprisingly good coin for being a couple notches down in the pecking order. Just more in your face evidence to reject socialism (and it's often corrupt leadership(s)), and protect the second amendment at all costs. Looking forward to Maddow covering this story in one of her hard-hitting news segments regarding corrupt leadership and systemic inequality!



Feds auction off prized horses of ex-Venezuela treasurer who got rich as socialist country crumbled



MIAMI -- As Venezuela's path of socialism was going bust and millions of people were drowning in poverty without access to adequate healthcare or even food, a small group of military leaders, politicians and businessmen siphoned billions from the government that went straight into their pockets.

One of the worst offenders is Venezuela's former national treasurer Alejandro Andrade, who teamed up with other shady characters to pilfer more than $1 billion from his government's coffers. Andrade had been the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's best friend and personal bodyguard before rising to the role of treasurer and hitting pay dirt.

With his country crumbling around him, Andrade took his money and moved to the exclusive South Florida enclave of Wellington where he and his family lived like royalty.

They had sprawling mansions, flew in private jets and owned a fleet of luxury cars including a 2017 Mercedes-Benz GLS 500 and a Bentley Continental convertible. The family wore Rolex, Hublot and Patek Philippe watches and bought an expensive stable of European show horses. Andrade's son Emanuel, an Olympic equestrian, rode them in international show-jumping contests and they were the talk of the town.

That all ended after Andrade pleaded guilty to a massive money laundering scheme and was sentenced in November to a decade behind bars. Now, the most garish symbols of his greed - Anastasia Du Park, Bonjovi, Hardrock Z and Tupac De Vrombautshoeve Z, to name a few - have been seized by the feds and are up for auction February 19-26.

Starting Tuesday, buyers can bid on the stable of stallions, mares and Belgian warmblood geldings Andrade bought with money he siphoned from the Venezuelan government. Since being seized in 2017, the horses have lived a similarly pampered life in U.S. custody.

They have been housed at the Delray Equestrian Center, a 100-acre full-service concierge farm in Palm Beach County, where they roam in large grassy paddocks, spend time on the treadmill and get air-dried, clipped and ridden daily.

Bidding on each horse begins at $50,000 and the profits could net the government north of $9 million, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security in Miami told Fox News.

It's a humiliating end for the 54-year-old who federal prosecutors say helped push his own nation into financial free-fall.

His sentence begins Feb. 25 - one day before the auction of his prized horses ends.

Andrade admitted to taking more than $1 billion in bribes from co-conspirators including Raul Gorrin, the owner of Venezuelan TV network Globovision, who U.S. authorities say is on the run.

The feds are seeking forfeiture of seven of Gorrin's New York City apartments worth $40 million.

The corruption case also ensnared Gabriel Arturo Jimenez, a 50-year-old Venezuelan and former owner of a bank in the Dominican Republic. Jimenez, who lives in Chicago, admitted to conspiring with Gorrin and others to buy the bank used to launder bribe money, U.S. prosecutors said.

"One of the enduring ironies of Venezuela's socialist experiment is that even as the country's economy collapses and its people flee from hunger and disease, a small coterie of well-placed Venezuelans has grown astonishingly rich from corruption," Michael J. Camilleri is director of the Peter D. Bell Rule of Law Program at the Inter-American Dialogue said. "There are millions, if not billions, of dollars in dirty money that Chavista insiders and generals have stashed abroad."

As part of Andrade's plea agreement, he agreed to a forfeiture judgment of $1 billion and has to give up his jets, jewelry and multiple real estate holdings in posh Palm Beach County including two equestrian mansions, an oceanfront home and two farms near the Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge.

He also promised to cooperate fully in the ongoing probe and cut ties with the Venezuelan government, which is seeking his extradition.

"I made some very bad choices when I was treasurer, and for that, I am very sorry from the bottom of my heart," Andrade said in court.

It is unknown if Andrade will be extradited. The Department of Justice did not respond to a request by Fox News seeking comment on the matter.

Andrade got his start in politics as Chavez's bodyguard. The two first bonded during a baseball game when Chavez accidentally hit him in the eye. Andrade was by Chavez's side during his failed coup in 1992, and when Chavez ran for president and won in 1998, he hired Andrade. The prodigy rose quickly through the ranks to become Venezuela's treasurer - a position he held between 2007 and 2011. Shortly before Chavez died of cancer in 2013, Andrade packed up his family and moved to Florida.

His day of reckoning comes as Venezuela spirals into a deepening crisis that's left millions hungry and led to a staggering inflation rate that's projected to hit 10,000,000 percent in 2019.

U.S. authorities have been pushing a public corruption probe targeting the so-called Venezuelan “boligarchs," or elites like Andrade, who amassed huge fortunes during Chavez’s Bolivarian revolution and lived in luxury even as the situation in his home country devolves.

Rigid currency controls in place in Venezuela for over a decade have been a major driver of graft, allowing a privileged few to purchase hard currency from the government at the official exchange rate and resell on the black market for huge profits.

Earlier this year, American officials imposed sanctions on Diosdado Cabello, one of Venezuela's most powerful politicians and accused him of embezzling government money and drug trafficking. Nestor Reverol, Venezuela's interior and justice minister, is also under indictment in the United States for receiving payments to help drug traffickers transport cocaine.

"We know that socialism is not about justice, it's not about equality, it's not about lifting up the poor -- it's about one thing only: power for the ruling class," he said, adding, "The more power they get, the more they crave."



https://www.foxnews.com/world/...ist-country-crumbled

Venezuela’s Slow Bern

The demise of the Maduro regime looks like prolonged agony for the American Left.

by Scott McKay
February 28, 2019

The mess in Venezuela is getting worse, but while that country is literally starving to death under the yoke of an incompetent, corrupt and malignant socialist dictatorship the hopes of a Ukrainian-style peaceful revolution or bloodless coup that would end the Nicolas Maduro regime are dimming.

That was the most apparent conclusion following last week’s attempts by the U.S.-recognized interim president Juan Guaido to ship desperately-needed food and medicine into the country. The government fired on aid workers at Venezuela’s borders both with Colombia and Brazil, setting trucks laden with humanitarian aid ablaze and kicking off civil unrest everywhere.

Conditions are so bad in Venezuela that one citizen in 10 has fled, starvation is rampant, the economy has all but collapsed, violent demonstrations occur daily, and government repression has reached the levels of the old Warsaw Pact nations during the Cold War. When Guaido and his allies sought to alleviate some of the suffering by shipping aid in from Brazil and Colombia, with American help, and the regime resorted to violence in stopping that aid with Maduro calling it a “Trojan horse” to bring revolution with it, it didn’t just signal how low the dictator will go.

What’s worse is that Venezuela’s military and security apparatus was willing to fire on their own people to keep food and medicine from going to the sick and starving. With conditions that bad, you’d expect the regime to crack. And while there were a number of desertions by low-level military personnel amid the humanitarian aid attempts, on the whole Maduro was able to hold the line.

Why? Probably because as those who have criticized Maduro and Hugo Chavez, his predecessor who built Venezuela’s socialist tyranny with the moral support of the American Left, have noted for 20 years, this is not simply a Venezuelan socialist dictatorship. Maduro’s regime is more of an occupying force, shot through as it is with Cuban military and intelligence operatives forming a police state. High-level military officials can’t desert, because they have too much to lose — their property will be stolen, they and their families will be tortured, imprisoned, and killed, and so on. And the Cubans policing the regime have nowhere to go; Havana doesn’t have jobs for them when they’re sent home by whatever would succeed the Maduro government.

Not to mention the billions of dollars Vladimir Putin and the Russians have spent propping up the Maduro regime, an investment which will keep Maduro’s inner circle loyal for the time being.

Which means this nightmare appears to have a lot longer fuse than had been hoped, and Guaido will have to skulk around as head of a government-in-exile in Bogota and Brasilia and Asuncion and other locales in an effort to build support for efforts at regime change. Guaido is promising to return home to Venezuela in the coming days, though if he does he’ll surely be arrested — or worse.

And things will continue to decline in Venezuela, where the public mention of Maduro’s name increasingly engenders vociferous exhortations to perform feats of anatomic impossibility.

Ultimately this is likely to result as most regime changes in Latin America do — in wholesale slaughter and with both sides bled white. There is little history of peaceful revolution in that part of the world, and the status quo in Caracas isn’t conducive to an exception.

Before it comes to Armageddon in Venezuela, though, there will likely be rather pronounced suffering of another sort. That being the pain of the American Left, whose coddling and moral support of the Chavez-Maduro tyranny in Venezuela (not to mention the parroting of its propaganda, particularly of the anti-American sort) is beginning to come home to them in ways they don’t like.

Take Bernie Sanders, for example, who has long held up Venezuela as a model for what he thinks America ought to look like. Sanders, by far the most overrated politician in modern American history and a man whose never-ending free ride in the mainstream media is an item of wonderment, is nevertheless beset by some of those unfortunate statements. Last week Sanders was forced to criticize the Maduro regime’s stopping those aid trucks and upbraid its use of violence, a stance which got him in trouble both with many of his hard-core socialist supporters, who accused him of getting in bed with Elliott Abrams and John Bolton for having criticized Maduro, and with more moderate elements of the Democrat Party who went ballistic when, on an appearance with Univision’s Jorge Ramos, Sanders refused to call Maduro a dictator.

That latter mistake, which Sanders repeated Monday on an appearance on CNN, has the failed carpenter and revolutionary poet under attack from several quarters. New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez let him have it the next night on the same network. “Dictatorship is dictatorship whether from the right or left,” Menendez said. “Dictatorship oppresses their people. I’m really surprised that Sen. Sanders could not at least call him a dictator.” And Congresswoman Donna Shalala, a former Clinton Administration official and president of the University of Miami, scorched him on Twitter:

I’ll make it clear, @SenSandersdoes not reflect the majority of the Democratic Party and our support for Venezuela’s interim president @jguaidoand the Venezuelan people. Maduro is a dictator and must go.

Sanders isn’t alone in having these problems, as Democrats are falling over themselves to escape connections with the Maduro regime. Kamala Harris, perhaps his chief rival for the Democrat nomination, put out a pair of tweets attempting to offer “leadership” on the Venezuela issue which couldn’t have fallen more flat. “What’s happening in Venezuela is a crisis,” the first onesaid. “The people who have fled Maduro’s dictatorial regime deserve safety and protection. As President, I would immediately extend TPS status to Venezuelans. It’s the right thing to do. America must show moral leadership in this hemisphere.”

And in the second, Harris decided to play schoolmarm. “The U.S. must immediately condemn Maduro’s violence against his own people,” she hectored. “There is no excuse for this. The Venezuelan military and security forces must demonstrate restraint. Venezuelans deserve a free and fair election and a peaceful transition of power.”

Harris was met by a torrent of catcalls, largely from Venezuelans who have zero interest in refugee status in America but rather would like to save their own country from socialist tyranny. They find little in her statements likely to aid in that cause.

As pressure on the regime in Caracas grows, and as the suffering in Venezuela captures more and more of the world’s attention — there are only so many media orgies one might concoct with the Michael Cohens of the world to distract the public, after all — this political problem is only going to get worse.

So far, President Trump has played it fairly smart in Venezuela. He delivered a brilliant speech in Miami last week castigating Maduro as a thug and a dictator, pointedly referencing the Cuban role in that tyrannical regime and reiterating his opposition and the American revulsion to socialism as a governing philosophy. Trump is clearly supporting Guaido’s efforts at bringing humanitarian aid into the country, and it’s likely that support will become more robust over time.

Elements on the anti-American Left here and in other countries are parroting Maduro’s line that the humanitarian aid is a Trojan Horse to conceal weapons shipments to anti-regime forces in Venezuela, though so far there is little evidence to support such allegations — and if in fact they’re true, they only illuminate the fact the regime disarmed the populace several years ago, providing an example of exactly why a free people needs a Second Amendment.

The worst thing Trump could do, politically, is likely the best thing he could to do alleviate the suffering of the people of Venezuela as quickly as possible — namely, to send in the Marines and take out Maduro’s government. There is little evidence that’s coming, particularly since the U.S. would never act alone in that regard and neither the Colombians or Brazilians, who would have to join in, appear interested. That means Venezuelans will have to overthrow the regime, something they won’t have the brawn to do without armaments or conditions getting considerably worse.

Which means a lot of suffering is in the offing — both for the beleaguered people of Venezuela, who are learning the lesson that while one may vote oneself into socialism one has to shoot oneself out of it, and for the American Left, who will spend the next months and years explaining how Venezuela isn’t real socialism and shifting to Bolivia as the new socialist Wakanda (which won’t age well) while lecturing us how while they’ve supported all the same policies Chavez and Maduro have foisted on their people, the results of those policies here would be Totally Different You Guys.

For the former, one can’t offer enough sympathy and goodwill. It’s impossible to feel differently upon seeing the images of what socialism has done in Venezuela.

But for the latter, that sympathy is hard to generate. The silver lining to the trouble in Venezuela is the entertainment the American Left’s squirming will surely occasion.

https://spectator.org/venezuelas-slow-bern/