FIRST ON FOX: A coalition of 20 states and a top conservative legal group is suing the Biden administration over its recently-expanded humanitarian parole program that allows tens of thousands of migrants from designated countries a month into the U.S. — arguing that the program is unlawful. The lawsuit, filed by Texas and America First Legal in the Southern District of Texas, is joined by 19 additional states who are seeking to block the Biden administration’s parole program which allow up to 30,000 migrants from Haiti, Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela into the U.S. each month.
The Biden administration announced the program for Venezuelans in October, which allowed a limited number to fly directly into the U.S. as long as they had not entered illegally, had a sponsor in the U.S. already and passed certain checks.
Earlier this month, President Biden announced that the program would be expanding to include Haitians, Nicaraguans and Cubans, and that the program would allow up to 30,000 a month into the U.S. It was announced alongside an expansion of Title 42 expulsions to include those nationalities.
Around 60 recently arrived Venezuelan migrants are seen entering a shelter at Bellevue early Wednesday morning, Oct. 12, 2022, in Manhattan, New York. ((Luiz C. Ribeiro/New York Daily News/Tribune News Service via Getty Images))
“We anticipate this action is going to substantially reduce the number of people attempting to cross our southwest border without going through a legal process,” he said.
In the lawsuit, led by Texas and America First Legal and joined onto by 19 additional Republican-led states, plaintiffs argue that the program is illegal given the “exceptionally limited” parole power available to the federal government. The lawsuit notes that parole is limited by Congress to be used on a “case-by-case basis for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit” — a standard which the lawsuit says the program fails to meet.
“The parole program established by the Department fails each of the law’s three limiting factors. It is not case-by-case, is not for urgent humanitarian reasons, and advances no significant public benefit. Instead, it amounts to the creation of a new visa program that allows hundreds of thousands of aliens to enter the United States who otherwise have no basis for doing so. This flouts, rather than follows, the clear limits imposed by Congress.”
The Biden administration has said the program is one of a number of ways it is expanding lawful migration pathways as a way to combat the ongoing migrant surge at the border that has seen historic numbers hit the border each month –and is calling on Congress to pass a broader immigration reform bill. Separately, it has used humanitarian parole to allow Afghans and Ukrainians into the U.S. in the last year. But conservative critics have said the latest program is illegal, and facilitates rather than stops the migrant surge.
The lawsuit says that the program is also unlawful as it did not engage in the notice-and-comment rulemaking required by the Administrative Procedure Act — by which a number of immigration policies have been at least temporarily struck down in recent years. It also argues that the states “face substantial irreparable harms from the Department’s abuse of its parole authority, which allow potentially hundreds of thousands of additional aliens to enter each of their already overwhelmed territories.”
“Every state in America, especially border states like Texas, is being crushed by the impacts of illegal immigration,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a statement to Fox News Digital. “The Biden open borders agenda has created a humanitarian crisis that is increasing crime and violence in our streets, overwhelming local communities, and worsening the opioid crisis. This unlawful amnesty program, which will invite hundreds of thousands of aliens into the U.S. every year, will only make this immigration crisis drastically worse.”
The lawsuit also marks the latest in a flurry of legal challenges to the Biden administration’s policies by America First Legal — a conservative legal group launched by former Trump White House official Stephen Miller, who he described as being “at the forefront of the legal battle to save America’s borders from complete annihilation at the hands of this lawless administration.”
Miller labeled the Biden program as “pre-amnesty for what would be illegal aliens before they even arrive at our border.” He also compared it to the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which granted protection from deportation to illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. as minors.
“This is a dramatic escalation in the open borders crusade – not only is Biden freely admitting illegal aliens who arrive at our borders, but he is now going to foreign countries to pre-approve innumerable illegal aliens to flood into our country without any legal basis whatsoever. It is illegal, unconstitutional, and contemptible,” he said.
The states joining onto the lawsuit with Texas are Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming.
The new parole program came after more than 250,000 migrants were encountered at the southern border in December, a new record. However, the Biden administration has said it believes that the new measures are already having an effect and that there has been a drop in migrant encounters at the border from those nationalities.
“The December update shows our new border enforcement measures are working. Even as overall encounters rose because of smugglers spreading misinformation around the court-ordered lifting of the Title 42 public health order, we continued to see a sharp decline in the number of Venezuelans unlawfully crossing our southwest border, down 82% from September 2022,” acting Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Commissioner Troy Miller said in a statement last week. “Early data suggests the expanded measures for Cubans, Haitians and Nicaraguans are having a similar impact, and we look forward to sharing the additional data in the next update.“
Adam Shaw is a politics reporter for Fox News Digital, primarily covering immigration and border security. He can be reached at adam.shaw2@fox.com or on Twitter.
President Biden has finally found a solution to address the surge in illegal crossings at the southern border: tell the tens of thousands of aliens unlawfully entering the United States from Mexico that they can come to America “legally” if they instead fly to a port-of-entry in the interior of the country.
Seriously, for all the Biden administration’s spin, that’s his plan — and it is illegal.
Of course, when Biden announced his administration’s newest policy on Thursday in advance of his midterm inaugural trip to the southern border on Sunday, the press release heralded the plan as a “new border enforcement action.” But as National Review’s Andrew McCarthy exposed in his weekend column, it’s a scam.
The scam, though, is layers thick, both legally and politically. And to reach the core truth — that Biden refuses to faithfully execute his duties as the president of the United States by defending our sovereign border — one must first unpeel the specifics of the newest plan buried in the Department of Homeland Security’s official notice of the changes, while also analyzing the relevant immigration law.
The Plan
Today’s edition of the Federal Register, which serves as “the Daily Journal of the United States Government,” contains the details of DHS’s supposed “new border enforcement action,” in four separate “notices,” titled respectively: “Implementation of a Parole Process for Cubans,” “Implementation of a Parole Process for Haitians,” “Implementation of a Parole Process for Nicaraguans,” and “Implementation of Changes to the Parole Process for Venezuelans.”
Each notice summarizes the Biden administration’s supposed “solution” to the flooding of the southern border, which in short consists of allowing, on a monthly basis, a total of 30,000 aliens to enter the United States “legally” if they are Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan, or Venezuelan nationals. To qualify, aliens must have a “U.S.-based supporter,” which could be “non-governmental entities or community-based organizations,” and must “provide for their own commercial travel to an air [port-of-entry] and final U.S. destination.” National security and public safety vetting are also required, as well as any additional public health requirements, such as vaccinations.
But how is it that illegal-alien border crossers can become lawful noncitizens by just jumping through a few hoops and flying to the interior of the country, rather than sneaking over the southern border? They can’t. And in crafting its latest immigration plan, the Biden administration is again acting lawlessly.
Biden’s Lawlessness
The Biden administration maintains it has the authority to allow aliens from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela to enter the United States legally under section 212(d)(5)(A) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, or INA. That section provides the secretary of homeland security the authority to “parole” noncitizens “into the United States temporarily under such reasonable conditions as [the secretary] may prescribe only on a case-by-case basis for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit.”
“parole” for purposes of the INA is a “legal fiction” in which “a paroled alien is physically allowed to enter the country,” but the alien maintains the same legal status as if he or she were held at the border waiting for an application for admission to be granted or denied. But besides obtaining the legal right to be present in the United States, an alien paroled into the United States may obtain employment authorization to work here lawfully.
As the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals recently explained, “Parole began as an administrative invention that allowed aliens in certain circumstances to remain on U.S. soil without formal admission, with Congress codifying the practice when it initially enacted the Immigration and Nationality Act (the ‘INA’) in 1952.” At that time, Congress gave the attorney general “discretion to parole into the United States temporarily under such conditions as he may prescribe … any alien applying for admission to the United States.”
However, “throughout the mid-twentieth century, the executive branch on multiple occasions purported to use the parole power to bring in large groups of immigrants,” prompting Congress twice to amend the INA “to limit the scope of the parole power and prevent the executive branch from using it as a programmatic policy tool.” First, as the Fifth Circuit explained, in 1980, Congress added a requirement that the executive branch only parole refugees where “compelling reasons in the public interest with respect to that particular alien,” exist. Then, in 1996, Congress amended the INA to provide “parole may be granted ‘only on a case-by-case basis for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit.’”
While the DHS’s just-announced parole plans claim the department is making parole decisions on a case-by-case basis, the qualifications set forth by the DHS establish that the Biden administration is illegally using parole power “as a programmatic policy tool,” rather than as designed by Congress, for example, by “paroling aliens who do not qualify for an admission category but have an urgent need for medical care in the United States and paroling aliens who qualify for a visa but are waiting for it to become available.”
The Biden administration’s lawless use of its parole power should come as no surprise, though, as since November of 2021, the president’s team has relied on Section 212(d)(5)(A) to release “family units” at the border to supposedly deal with “capacity constraints.” Florida has challenged the Biden administration’s granting of such carte blanche parole, as well as the president’s failure to detain illegal aliens as mandated under the INA, and trial is set to begin on both those claims later today in a federal court in Florida.
The ‘Standing’ Problem
A similar legal challenge to the Biden administration’s recent parole plan seems likely, although by requiring applicants to secure a vetted “supporter” who will commit to providing for the parolees’ financial needs while they are present in the United States, it will be challenging for anyone to show “standing” to challenge DHS’s plan.
For instance, in the Florida case, while the Biden administration argued the state lacked “standing,” or the right to sue, the court rejected that argument, reasoning Florida “plausibly alleged that the challenged policies already have and will continue to cost it millions of dollars, including the cost of incarcerating criminal aliens and the cost of providing a variety of public benefits, including unemployment benefits, free public education, and emergency services to aliens who settle in Florida after being ‘paroled’ into the country.”
But other than providing “free public education,” the same types of monetary harms are lacking in the case of the Biden administration’s latest parole proposal. And it is questionable whether a court will find that providing free public education to children paroled under DHS’s plans will be enough to establish standing.
Absent a plaintiff with standing to challenge DHS’s plan to parole some 30,000 aliens into the United States every month, the only way to fight the Biden administration’s latest lawless move will be politically. Here, those seeking to secure the southern border have ample ammunition, including highlighting the fact that the Biden administration’s plan does nothing to address that portion of the 200,000-some individuals crossing the southern border every month that herald from countries other than Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.
Further, while converting 30,000 illegal border crossers into parolees at ports of entry in the interior of the country may provide a reduction to the problem on paper, it does not secure the border nor promise any reduction in the number of individuals attempting to enter via Mexico.
The parole plan presumes, though, that there will be an even greater reduction in illegal border crossings than the 30,000 who enter as part of the parole process. The parole plan, according to the Biden administration, creates a disincentive for citizens of Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela to enter illegally at the southern border because the DHS’s new policy also provides that aliens who bypass the parole process and enter the United States without authorization will be subject to an expedited removal to Mexico or their country of origin.
If so, then why not just institute a policy of expediting the removal of individuals who enter illegally at the southern border?
Biden’s Border Disaster
According to the figures included in last week’s DHS notices, prior to the surge at the southern border that followed the Biden administration’s change in enforcement policies, there weren’t even 30,000 aliens from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela crossing the border illegally on an annual basis.
For instance, the notice reported that for fiscal years 2019 and 2020 respectively, DHS encountered only 3,039 and 4,431 Haitian nationals at the southwest border, but by 2021 the number exploded to 43,484.
From 2014 to 2019, DHS encountered 589 Cubans on average every month, but by 2022, the average monthly encounter at the land border totaled 17,809, and in October and November of 2022, some 62,000-plus Cuban nationals attempted to cross the border.
From fiscal 2014 through 2019, border agents encountered a monthly average of 127 Venezuelan nationals, but by fiscal year 2022, the average number of Venezuelans crossing the border illegally on a monthly basis totaled 15,494 and rose to more than 33,000 in September of that year.
For Nicaraguan nationals, in 2022, DHS encountered an estimated 157,400 aliens, or an average of 13,113 per month, compared to an average of 316 per month from fiscal years 2014-2019.
These figures show the Biden administration does not need a parole policy: It needs an enforcement policy.
No End in Sight
There is a telling admission hidden in the DHS notice from last week that announced changes to the parole plan established for Venezuela in October of 2022. As originally established, the Venezuela plan capped the number of “parolees” at a total of 24,000 beneficiaries. But, as the DHS acknowledged in its notice modifying that plan, just two months in, “demand for the Venezuela process has far exceeded the 24,000 limit.”
“Absent immediate action,” the DHS notice explained, “there is a risk that DHS meets the 24,000 cap, which would in turn cause the [government of Mexico] to no longer accept the return of Venezuelan nationals and end the success of the parole process to date at reducing the number of Venezuelan nationals encountered at the border.” Further, should it reach the 24,000 limit, thereby making prospective migrants no longer eligible for parole, the “DHS anticipates that we would then see increased irregular migration of Venezuelans.”
In other words, the Biden administration is allowing aliens to come to America “legally” because if it doesn’t, foreign nationals will just start crossing the border illegally again.
Further, while the Biden administration’s current plan caps the number of parolees at 30,000 per month, the DHS notices indicate it may revisit that figure if necessary. What then, is there to stop the Biden administration from increasing the 30,000 cap two-fold or ten-fold? Or what is there to prevent the administration from expanding parole to aliens from countries beyond the four — maybe 14, or even 40?
While the intricacies of immigration law are detailed and often convoluted, the bottom line of the Biden administration’s parole plan should be clear to all Americans: Joe Biden has no intention of securing our border or faithfully executing his duties as the president of the United States.
Margot Cleveland is The Federalist’s senior legal correspondent. She is also a contributor to National Review Online, the Washington Examiner, Aleteia, and Townhall.com, and has been published in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize—the law school’s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. As a stay-at-home homeschooling mom of a young son with cystic fibrosis, Cleveland frequently writes on cultural issues related to parenting and special-needs children. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Townhall.com, and WhatDidYouSay.org.
Source: AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos
The massive news coverage of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ “political stunt” of sending 50 illegal aliens to Martha’s Vineyard reminds me of the media’s “political stunt” of referring to illegals as “legal asylum-seekers.”
Number one: They broke into our country. They’re illegal aliens. Number two: All asylum claims are frauds. Every single one.
Asylum is nothing but a conveyer belt to bring the worst people on Earth to our shores. You say you turned your own country into a hellhole? Fantastic! Come right in!
No one gets asylum from a well-run country. Why would we want to admit people who have demonstrated the wisdom, foresight and diligence to produce a functioning society? Rewards await only those who’ve participated in the creation of complete disaster zones. (Just think of what these great thinkers could do for our country!)
Take the Venezuelan illegal aliens whom DeSantis sent to Martha’s Vineyard. Biden’s press secretary and human kewpie doll, Karine Jean-Pierre, repeatedly referred to the briefly loved illegals as “people who are fleeing communism, who are fleeing hardship … desperate people — people who are trying to come here because they’re fleeing communism themselves.”
How did Venezuela become communist again?
As The Martha’s Vineyard Times explained (once the illegals were safely expelled and the island fumigated), Venezuela’s “humanitarian crisis” resulted from that country’s “complicated political and socioeconomic history.”
Actually, it’s not that complicated. Poor people in Venezuela voted for it. Oh boy, did they vote for it.
The ridiculous peasant Hugo Chavez promised Venezuela’s poor that he would take vengeance on the rich — “the squalid ones” — and give their stuff to the poor. Millions of poor people responded: YESSSSS!!!
Beginning in 1998, and five times after that, the poor came out in droves to support this clown. Fist pumping! Dancing in the streets! Red shirts as far as the eye could see!
As The New York Times described it, “To the adoring, impoverished masses who catapulted him to power, Hugo Chavez Frias is El Comandante, their protector and benefactor, the bold leader who will wipe out 40 years of inequality and corruption and redirect this country’s enormous oil wealth to better their lives.”
Chavez basically promised to deliver the Ta-Nehisi Coates “equity” agenda that’s so popular with the Democratic Party right now. The poor believed the rich were rich because they had stolen from the poor. Chavez vowed to take it back. It was sort of a 1619 Project for Venezuela.
As promised, Chavez proceeded to seize private businesses, farms (by 2011, he’d expropriated 6 million acres of farmland) and golf resorts, telling poor people to move onto the club greens.
Anybody want asylum yet? Nope!
Between 1998 and Chavez’s death in 2013 — whereupon he was promptly replaced with his handpicked successor, President Nicolas Maduro — Venezuela’s poor voted for him over and over and over again: in 1998 (80% public approval rating his first year in office), in 2000 (winning 60% of the vote), in 2004 (59% against recalling him), in 2006 (winning 63% of the vote), in 2009 (54% voted to make him president for life) and finally in 2012 (winning 55% of the vote).
Never has any public been polled more often and returned the same resounding answer.
Well, they’re not fist-pumping anymore. Instead, Venezuela’s poor are claiming they “deserve” to access America’s generous welfare state.
Twenty years of Chavez’s Diversity, Inclusion and Equity (DIE!) produced this: “a country whose economy has collapsed … malnutrition and disease are soaring [and m]illions have emigrated to escape the grind of finding enough to eat, of living without reliable electricity or tap water,” as Bloomberg News put it in 2019.
Venezuela is sitting on the largest oil reserves in the world, and the communists still couldn’t get it to work.
Who could have seen that coming??? Oh, anyone with two functioning brain cells. There were little hints, like Chavez promising his very first year in office “to follow the path of Fidel,” and describing Cuba as “a sea of happiness, social justice and true peace.”
Millions of Venezuela’s poor thought that sounded just peachy, and the rest did nothing. They act as if this 100% predictable catastrophe was a natural disaster for which they bear no responsibility.
Yeah, I definitely want these people as my fellow citizens. They’ve shown solid judgment.
Now that their own choices have wrecked their country, they demand free admission into ours. Unless they’re professional baseball players, I’m not seeing what’s in it for us.
In the kewpie doll’s press conference proclaiming that these innocent little lambs “deserve better” (than being sent to a fabulous beach resort), she cheerfully listed the great heaping portions of welfare being ladled out to Hispanics:
“[O]ur administration has delivered billions of dollars in loans to Hispanic small businesses, expanded the child tax credit to provide help to millions of families and reduce Hispanic child poverty by more than 40%, expanded access to quality healthcare to thousands of Latino families … And thanks to President Biden’s student loan debt relief program, almost half of Latino students with federal loans will see their debts forgiven.”
The Democratic Party is cribbing Chavez’s lines. And it will work, because the same people who fell for it last time will be voting for it here.
To be sure, the Venezuelan “asylum-seekers” aren’t any worse than other members of that illustrious group. If (when) they are granted asylum, these poor decision-makers will join:
— Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the Boston Marathon bombers (sometimes, they’re persecuted for a reason);
— Ibragim Todashev, who, along with Tamerlan, slit the throats of three Jewish men in Boston;
— Beatrice Munyenyezi, a genocidal Rwandan, who won asylum by lying about being a victim of the genocide, rather than a perpetrator.
Those are just a few of our standout asylum grantees. To be fair, the illegal Venezuelans haven’t killed anybody yet, as far as we know. They’re more like a homeless guy who shows up on your doorstep after a lifetime of bad choices and demands that you give him your house.
Perhaps, just this once, we should defer to the wisdom of our moral betters on Martha’s Vineyard and tell the Venezuelans: We love you! Now get the hell out.
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Donald Trump.
Immigrants who have fled socialist countries are travelling to schools across the U.S. for free under a new program to teach students about the dangers of socialism. The Dissident Project launched Monday with speakers set to “travel to high schools across the U.S. to speak to students about authoritarian socialism” at no cost to the schools, Dissident Project founder and Venezuelan-born economist Daniel Di Martino told the Daily Caller. The speakers include activists from Venezuela, Cuba, Hong Kong and North Korea who have immigrated to the U.S. and are dedicated to speaking about how socialism has destroyed their countries. (RELATED: Immigrants From Communist And Socialist Countries Spell Out Why The GOP Is The Party Of Freedom)
Grace Jo, a speaker from North Korea, came to the U.S. after almost starving “to death as a child” under the country’s socialist regime. Two of her brothers and her father died from starvation, according to the Dissident Project’s website.
“All of us Dissident Project speakers came to America for freedom, and it is our duty to preserve that love for freedom among the youngest generation. That’s why we’re stepping up and doing our part so Americans never forget that this is an exceptional nation, that free enterprise and the rule of law made it great, and that socialism can destroy it all like it did in our native countries,” Di Martino said.
The project was inspired by Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ legislation recognizing a statewide “Victims of Communism Day” annually on Nov. 7 and requiring Florida schools to teach students about “the evils of communism.”
“Honoring the people that have fallen victim to communist regimes and teaching our students about those atrocities is the best way to ensure that history does not repeat itself,” DeSantis said in a statement about the bill in May.
Starting in the 2023-2024 school year, students in Florida will be mandated to receive at least 45 minutes of instruction in their required U.S. Government class about the evils of communism. Potential topics to cover include “Mao Zedong and the Cultural Revolution, Joseph Stalin and the Soviet System, Fidel Castro and the Cuban Revolution, Vladimir Lenin and the Russian Revolution, Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, and Nicolás Maduro and the Chavismo movement,” according to the bill.
Di Martino began the Dissident Project “after learning about Florida’s new curriculum.”
Daniel Di Martino speaks to students about the socialist regime in Venezuela. Courtesy of Dissident Project
“I thought we needed a unified platform where schools could find immigrants from socialist countries to speak there at no cost to them so we could reach every single American,” he said.
The Dissident Project will focus its efforts in speaking to school districts in Florida, given DeSantis’ legislation, but will also advertise the opportunity to teachers across the country, Di Martino concluded. Teachers who wish to host a speaker can do so for free by filling out a form.
In an unexpected situation that surprised everyone in Venezuela and Florida, the Biden administration decided to take a u-turn in the White House’s maximum pressure policy against the socialist tyranny of Nicolas Maduro.
While the world’s eyes watched the violent tragedy taking place in Ukraine, senior U.S. officials arrived in Caracas, the Venezuelan capital, to meet with the Maduro regime. The reasons behind the visit were simple: to liberate nine Americans detained in the country, break the Kremlin-Miraflores alliance and restore the oil commerce with Venezuela so the U.S. can replace the oil it stopped buying from Russia. In exchange the U.S. would ease the sanctions imposed by the former Trump administration against the Venezuelan oil industry. A situation that would legitimize Maduro after being an international pariah for years.
Basically, the Biden administration is looking for a trifecta with a sweet bonus: the possibility that gas prices won’t go up even more. But, is this really possible? The truth is that the White House could be entering into a significant fiasco that could have some unpleasant consequences for Democrats in the midterm elections, in addition to destroying Venezuela’s hopes for a return to freedom and democracy.
It is unlikely that Maduro break ties with Putin.
Believe it or not, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin could have some reasons to feel happy with Maduro’s negotiations with the U.S. After all, Caracas will get more dollars in the short term if everything moves forward, meaning that the Venezuelan regime could finally start paying the massive amount of money that it owes Moscow. On the other hand, establishing any type of alliance with the U.S. doesn’t automatically move you out of Russia’s sphere of influence — just look at the Nicaraguan regime. However, the depth of the Caracas-Moscow alliance makes it quite unlikely that Maduro will break ties with the Kremlin. We’re talking about billions of dollars in weapons, intelligence support, political consulting and a sophisticated mechanism created by Moscow to allow Venezuela’s oil industry to thwart the sanctions and keep selling oil to different countries.
Moreover, the Kremlin has gathered plenty of “Kompromat” on some of the most important members of the Venezuelan regime, including Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez, who is known for being a close friend of his Russian counterpart Sergei Shoigu. In addition, Russia currently has control of billions of dollars that top Venezuelan officials and Venezuela’s oil company PDVSA saved in Gazprombank, which decided to freeze this money in 2019 to avoid getting sanctioned by the Trump administration.
The Venezuelan oil industry is in shambles.
In 2021, Russia exported 670,000 oil barrels to the U.S. In 2018, which was the last year before the Maduro regime suffered the oil sanctions imposed by the Trump administration, Venezuela managed to export only 586,000. Currently, the total amount of oil barrels that the South American nation produces is about 700,000, but Caracas takes 150,000 for internal use and sends nearly 60,000 to Cuba.
This way, even in the best-case scenario, the Venezuelan regime won’t be able to fully replace the amount of oil that the U.S. gets from Russia. Even worse, even if the Biden administration relaxes oil sanction on Venezuela, it would do nothing to alleviate the current oil crisis.
According to Francisco Monaldi, Fellow and Director of the Latin American Energy Program at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, if the sanctions imposed against the Kremlin impact Russian oil exports for a long period, the Venezuelan regime could only reach two percent of the world’s supply in no less than five years. To make this happen, the Biden administration would have to cancel all sanctions, while the Venezuelan oil industry would need a significant investment of $12 billion over a seven-year period.
Turning Venezuelans into the new Cubans.
In short, we’re talking about a deal that could easily go wrong, and the effect that the Venezuelan oil could have on gas prices will be minimal. Also, negotiating with a socialist tyrant like Maduro won’t necessarily move him away from Russia or China, so the U.S. might end up financing a band of human rights violators just to get an insignificant amount of oil.
A negotiated transition probably won’t solve the Venezuelan situation. Like it happened in Nicaragua in the early 1990s, this would only change the tyrant but not the political system. However, guaranteeing free and fair elections in the shortest time possible is a mandatory demand that U.S. officials must include at the negotiating table. Otherwise, President Joe Biden would be doing something worse than what former President Barack Obama did with Cuba.
He would be stabilizing the worst tyranny in Latin America’s modern history — the socialist dystopia that is responsible for the second-largest migrant crisis in the world and has been formally accused by the U.S. State Department of narcoterrorism. It also hosts and protects terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah and ELN and is being investigated by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity.
In the 2020 presidential election, a majority of Venezuelans in the U.S. voted for then-president Donald Trump. However, with Biden’s latest actions with Maduro, a Democratic administration could be about to turn the Venezuelan community in the U.S. into a potential Republican voter base.
That’s what happened with Cubans after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion. But in this case, it would come after condemning a nation’s future in the name of a deal that looks flawed from every angle.
Luis Orozco is a Venezuelan journalist and political analyst.
Donations/Tips accepted and appreciated – $1.00 – $5.00 – $25.00 – $50.00 – $100 – it all helps to fund this website and keep the cartoons coming. Also Venmo @AFBranco – THANK YOU!
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into the cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and shared by President Donald Trump.
Police in Miami, Florida, estimated on Saturday that 30,000 vehicles joined a caravan expressing rejection of communism, socialism, and leftist totalitarian ideologies – an event of historic size and diversity, organizer Orlando Gutiérrez-Boronat told Breitbart News.
Gutiérrez-Boronat – the co-founder of the Cuban Democratic Directorate, a human rights non-profit – joined a coalition of Cuban, Venezuelan, Nicaraguan, Chilean, Uruguayan, and other groups to create a “patriotic committee” responsible for the event. The caravan doubled as both a public display of rejection to left-wing totalitarianism and a “drive-in” seminar on the history of communism – participants tuned into Miami’s 670 AM La Poderosa to listen to experts, including this Breitbart News journalist, discuss the destructive history and legacy of communism around the world.
Gutiérrez-Boronat told Breitbart News that the success of the event – particularly in attracting people of all ages, nationalities, and backgrounds – was unprecedented in decades of activism against socialism.
Caravan against socialism and communism in Miami, Florida, October 10, 2020. Picture courtesy of Daniel Quiróz/Cuban Democratic Directorate
Caravan against socialism and communism in Miami, Florida, October 10, 2020. Picture courtesy of Daniel Quiróz/Cuban Democratic Directorate
“This community is more united than ever,” Gutiérrez-Boronat said, describing the crowd at the event as “Cubans of all makes and models, from el exilio historico [the historic Cuban exile community] to recent arrivals, young and old; a strong Nicaraguan presence; some Venezuelans and Colombians; a Puerto Rican contingent.”
Caravan against socialism and communism in Miami, Florida, October 10, 2020. A car drives by waving Puerto Rican flags. (Picture courtesy of Daniel Quiróz/Cuban Democratic Directorate)
Caravan against socialism and communism in Miami, Florida, October 10, 2020. A composite flag featuring the U.S. and the seal of the Republic of Cuba. (Picture courtesy of Daniel Quiróz/Cuban Democratic Directorate)
Caravan against socialism and communism in Miami, Florida, October 10, 2020. / Picture courtesy of Daniel Quiróz/Cuban Democratic Directorate
Participants waved a wide variety of Latin American flags; photos show the presence of the flags of anti-communist bastions Taiwan and Hong Kong as well, and a rainbow flag representing anti-communist LGBTQ people – a prominent community among Cuban exiles given that late dictator Fidel Castro forced suspected and openly LGBTQ people into labor camps. Some participants also brought a Welsh flag.
Gutiérrez-Boronat added that the size of the event – according to Miami police, he said, 30,000 vehicles participated,an unprecedented number – was just part of why it was different from other political moments in the past.
“It’s intergenerational because it spans different times of arrival (waves of migration) … it’s focused on anti-communism and anti-socialism,” he explained. “There is clear leadership and strategy. … All the main organizations are working in the same direction.”
The organizer hailed the event as representative of the “organic unity of a plural community unified against communism, que no le van a hacer cuentos [who won’t be fooled].”
While the caravan was a non-partisan event, many participants took the opportunity to promote President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign, waving Trump flags, wearing the now-iconic “Make America Great Again” cap, and dancing to the surprise salsa hit “Trump Song” by Los 3 de la Habana.
This led some media outlets to falsely identify the event as a “Trump caravan,” which Gutiérrez-Boronat rejected.
Caravan against socialism and communism in Miami, Florida, October 10, 2020. / Picture courtesy of Daniel Quiróz/Cuban Democratic Directorate
Caravan against socialism and communism in Miami, Florida, October 10, 2020. / Picture courtesy of Daniel Quiróz/Cuban Democratic Directorate
Not only were supporters of Democrat Party candidate Joe Biden welcome at the caravan – one, Gutiérrez-Boronat said, showed up holding a Biden sign. “Nobody bothered him,” he noted.
A small group of “less than ten” socialists also showed up, Gutiérrez-Boronat said, but left after their brief presence went largely ignored. Miami police reported no violence or significant disturbances.
Outside of Miami, the caravan generated two sister events in Uruguay and Chile. Chile, in particular, has suffered a wave of violent leftist rioting throughout the past year that has left much of its capital, Santiago, destroyed – prompting pushback from the family-oriented citizens and those concerned that nefarious leftist elements on the continent, most prominently in Venezuela, were planning an expansion into their country.
Some Cubans on the island also attempted to form a “caravan” of their own; any expression of anti-socialist or anti-communist sentiment in Cuba is a crime.
Journalists Esteban Rodríguez and Héctor Luis Valdés Cocho held up signs from their balconies reading “no more repression, no more fines, down with communism,” resulting in the arrival of six state security agents, two police cars, and two police motorcycles to their homes to intimidate them into silence.
National Hispanic news outlets largely ignored the event, according to an analysis by Newsbusters, though some assigned it to local affiliates:
Telemundo did send a local crew, and filed a report on the local Miami affiliate’s website. But so far, no video of the report on the caravan has been uploaded to social media where it can be easily shared by viewers and members of the community. But even Telemundo’s meager effort is far better than Univision’s outright omission- as if this massive anti-communist caravan never even happened.
Caravan against socialism and communism in Miami, Florida, October 10, 2020…. Picture courtesy of Daniel Quiróz/Cuban Democratic Directorate
At least one local news outlet also attempted to claim that only “hundreds” attended the event, while also reporting the presence of 30,000 vehicles, bizarrely suggesting the majority of the vehicles in the parade were self-driving.
All photos published courtesy of Daniel Quiróz/Cuban Democratic Directorate.
We, Too, Can Be a Failed Latin American State | Source: AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos
The left’s enthusiasm for Third World immigrants isn’t only because they vote 8-2 for the Democrats. It’s that Latin American peasants seem uniquely amenable to idiotic socialist schemes. You probably think it’s beyond silliness for Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren to keep promising FREE HEALTH CARE FOR ALL! NO PREMIUMS! NO CO-PAYS! ILLEGAL ALIENS, TOO! EVERYBODY GETS A PONY!
No one could be gullible enough to fall for that. I refer you to the economic powerhouse that is Latin America.
Based on hundreds of years of indigenous people voting for politicians who made similar promises, Latin America has become the dream factory that it is today. That’s why Tegucigalpa is practically a byword for “technological innovation,” Santiago was the picture of calm sophistication this weekend, and Caracas is the ultimate in modern conveniences.
Perhaps you missed the article in last Saturday’s New York Times on what socialism has done for the water system in Venezuela:
“The brick shack on the outskirts of Venezuela’s capital is crowded with tubs, jugs and buckets. The water they hold must last the family of eight for a week — but it’s not enough for frequent washing or flushing, so the kitchen is filled with greasy pots and the house smells of stale urine.
“And none of the water is treated, making diarrhea and vomit a regular occurrence.
“‘We practically live in the bathroom,’ said the mother of the family … [Her daughter] sat nearby, pale and listless, recovering from her latest bout of diarrhea just one month away from childbirth.”
Democrats: We need some of that Latin American magic!
Twenty years ago, 60 percent of Venezuelans had regular access to safe drinking water. Today, only 30 percent do.
How did this happen?
Answer: Poor Venezuelans voted for it. If we let them in, they’ll vote for it here, too. (Except 20 percent, who will be patriotic Americans, i.e. Republicans.)
That’s great news for Sanders and Warren! But it’s terrible news for the country.
Denouncing “squalid oligarchs,” Hugo Chavez promised Venezuela’s poor: “I will not rest until every human being who lives in this land has housing, employment and some way to manage his life.”
The poor were sold! In December 1998, Chavez was elected in a landslide, commemorated with this Seattle Times headline: “VENEZUELAN SLUM DWELLERS VOTE FOR CHANGE.”
As The Miami Herald explained, Chavez “crystallized anger and frustration among Latin America’s poor at free-market policies that have brought only limited prosperity.”
What did free markets and private property ever do for the poor? If they were poor, but others were rich, the “squalid oligarchs” must have stolen from them! (Elizabeth Warren should borrow that epithet. “Wealthy corporations” is getting old.)
Bernie says he “wrote the damn bill”to give Medicare to all, but he was plagiarizing Chavez, who immediately implemented a “single-payer” system for health care in Venezuela. He set up free health clinics, opened military hospitals to the poor and deployed tens of thousands of government workers to deliver medical services to the barrios.
At Chavez’s invitation, thousands of poor people took up residence in hotels, warehouses and luxurious golf courses. As one of the squatters explained, “We just want a home for our children.” That could be the epitaph of every once-great country: It was for THE CHILDREN!
As you may have heard, this worked out fantastically well. Within a year of Chavez taking office, the economy had shrunk by 7.2 percent and unemployment was at 20 percent. A decade into this socialist paradise, the poor were poorer than ever. There were constant blackouts, food shortages and appalling infant mortality rates. (Much like what we’re seeing in California.)
Venezuela’s infant mortality from diarrhea alone has sextupled in the past 15 years, according to the World Health Organization. (That’s an estimate, on account of Chavez’s quick response to the crisis, which was to stop releasing public health data.)
Potable water, that most basic element of civilization, is virtually nonexistent. Today, sitting on top of the largest oil reserves in the world, Venezuelans are starving.
Chavez didn’t seize power in a military coup. There was no revolution. He wasn’t imposed on Venezuelans by the C.I.A.
He was the people’s choice, elected president in 1998 (with 56 percent of the vote), then re-elected in 2000 (60 percent), then again in 2006 (63 percent) and yet again in 2012 (54 percent). And that’s not counting all the regional, parliamentary, constitutional and referenda elections his party won, over and over and over again.
Like that other Latin American matinee idol, Eva Peron, Chavez destroyed a country by offering the poor pie-in-the-sky promises that were to be paid for by “the rich.” In both cases, it took only about a decade to turn two of the wealthiest countries in the world into two of the most dysfunctional.
In Mexico, the people voted for the Institutional Revolutionary Party for 71 straight years. Total economic failure, year after year. Yes, please, kick me again!
All of this would be of limited interest outside of psychological circles, except for the fact that these voluntary hellholes are adjacent to our country, which is why our southern border is always besieged with desperate Latin Americans.
They’re fleeing the very systems that they voted for, and which (80 percent) would willingly vote for again.
The key point is this: Everywhere in the world, the working class loves socialism — except the U.S.A. To the dismay of American liberals, their movement has always been bereft of the very proletariat that they claim to champion. Instead of truck drivers and longshoremen, Democratic meetings are full of divorcees, transgenders, vegans and college professors.
Recall that when student radicals tried to organize blue-collar workers in the ’60s, they ended up getting their heads smashed by building trades guys for protesting the war. Today, America’s working class wears a MAGA hat.
That’s why the Democrats are dying to fling open our southern border. As Lenin might have said, you can’t make an omelet without bringing in millions of poverty-stricken Latin Americans.
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders recently added some new personalities to his presidential campaign, and somehow he’s found someone just as crazy as he is. The newest player on Comrade Sanders’ team is David Sirota, a man who has been called a “Twitter attack dog” for his vicious assaults on Sanders’ Democratic rivals.
And although Sirota was officially hired on as a speechwriter on Tuesday after advising the Sanders campaign for months, according to The Washington Post, his past behavior is putting him in a position that he may not be able to insult his way out of.
In an article for Salon published March 6, 2013, Sirota gave a full and enthusiastic defense of Venezuela’s then-recently deceased President Hugo Chavez. American criticism of Chavez was, according to Sirota, simply a knee-jerk reaction to Chavez’s harmless socialist leanings.
Sirota lamented the way Chavez had been transformed into a “boogeyman synonymous with extremism,” and touted the leader’s so-called economic miracle.
“No, Chavez became the bugaboo of American politics because his full-throated advocacy of socialism and redistributionism at once represented a fundamental critique of neoliberal economics,” Sirota wrote, “and also delivered some indisputably positive results.”
The article didn’t age well. Six short years later, the only “miracle” people see in Venezuela is turning on a tap and getting a rare spout of running water.
Sirota’s love of Hugo Chavez and Venezuelan socialism is certainly misguided, but forgivable. Most people who are interested in socialism usually give it up by the end of high school. It just takes some people longer to figure out the system is simply not rooted in reality.
What is not as forgivable is Sirota’s ugly take on the Boston Marathon bombing of April 15, 2013.
In an article for Salon dated April 17, 2013, titled “Let’s hope the Boston Marathon bomber is a white American,” Sirota was already hard at work stoking racial animosity and division while the nation was still reeling from a devastating terror attack.
“If recent history is any guide, if the bomber ends up being a white anti-government extremist, white privilege will likely mean the attack is portrayed as just an isolated incident,” Sirota wrote, “one that has no bearing on any larger policy debates.”
Of course, Sirota also prophesied what would happen if the attack turned out to be Islamic terrorism.
“It will probably be much different if the bomber ends up being a Muslim and/or a foreigner from the developing world. As we know from our own history, when those kind of individuals break laws in such a high-profile way, America often cites them as both proof that entire demographic groups must be targeted, and that therefore a more systemic response is warranted.”
In a twist of fate, the bombers were both white and Muslim, a contingency that was apparently not even on Sirota’s radar.
If you thought Sirota was done making a fool of himself after a single article dragging race into the Boston Marathon bombing, you’d be dead wrong.
Later that same day, he published another article with the in-your-face title of “I still hope the bomber is a white American.”
Explaining himself, Sirota wrote “the reason, then, to hope that the bomber ends up being a white American is because the double standard may prevent an overreaction to the heinous attacks in Boston.”
An overreaction like, say, a commentator salivating at the chance to blame white Americans for a terror attack before the smoke has even cleared?
While Sirota’s past writings may be extreme to everyday Americans, they seem to fit right in with Bernie Sanders’ insane rhetoric.
If this is the troupe Bernie is assembling for his circus of a presidential run, we’re in for an entertaining election cycle.
Jared is a husband, dad, and aspiring farmer. He was an infantryman in the Arkansas and Georgia National Guard. He has been an assignment editor for Conservative Tribune since 2017.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Has a lot of ideas that Dictator Maduro of Venezuela could endorse. it’s almost like they’re related. If Maduro Had a daughter.
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into the cartoons that have been seen all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, and even the great El Rushbo.
The co-founder of The Home Depot slammed supporters of socialism during a Friday interview on Fox News. Bernard Marcus, The Home Depot co-founder, talked to Fox News host Neil Cavuto about the failure of socialism in Venezuela and Cuba. Marcus said socialism has devastated those countries and compared their present state to what they were like before socialist rule. He specifically called Cuba a “perfect example of socialism gone wrong.”
“They took a great country. They put it right down the drain in every way possible,” Marcus said about Cuba.
“People are starving to death. Medical (care) is not available for them. And we have a group of people in Washington today, new representatives especially, that look at socialism as the way to go,” he said. “And if you don’t think that’s dangerous, I do.”
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Marcus told Cavuto that he believed the growing support for socialism among young Americans “comes right out of the universities.”
“You see students graduating today and a very high percentage … almost 50 percent of students coming out of universities today believe that socialism is the answer,”Marcus said.
One recent survey found that that 51 percent of American millennials would rather live under socialist or communist rule than in a capitalist country. A study by Campus Reform found that Ocasio-Cortez’s alma mater, Boston University, overwhelmingly supported Democratic causes. The study found that of the donations given by Boston University faculty in 2017-2018, 97 percent were to Democrat politicians and Democrat organizations. And support for socialism springs from these disproportionately left-leaning schools.
“That’s frightening to me because the things that made this country great, that created the wealth of this country — and I mean the wealth of every single person right down the line — the best medical care in the world, the best housing in the world, that’s why people want to come here, is because of the system, and that’s the free enterprise system,” Marcus said.
Instead of looking to socialism, Marcus said to look at what the U.S. is doing right. He pointed to the current low unemployment and economic prosperity.
“Why would you want to take that formula, where there’s prosperity, where jobs are out there where people can pay their own way, take care of their families. Why would you want to change that?”
It’s a good question to ask those like Ocasio-Cortez who are eager to proclaim the virtues of socialism. One just needs to look to Cuba or Venezuela to see what a few decades of socialism will do to a country.
Venezuela’s currency is radically devaluing as the country becomes a humanitarian disaster. (Photo: Miguel Gutiérrez/EFE/Newscom)
Venezuela’s inflation may hit 1 million percent by the end of the year, the International Monetary Fund announced on Monday.
This incredible hyperinflation is reminiscent of Weimar Germany during the years immediately after World War I, in which wheelbarrows full of cash were required to buy bare essential items, like a loaf of bread.
To counter the hyperinflation problem, Venezuela’s answer is to lop off five zeros from its currency value and launch a state-backed cryptocurrency.
It wasn’t that long ago that the left praised socialist Venezuela as a model country, a good comparison to the mean, ruthless system of the United States.
“Since the [Hugo] Chávez government got control over the national oil industry, poverty has been cut by half, and extreme poverty by 70 percent,” wrote New York Times contributor Mark Weisbrot in the wake of socialist President Hugo Chavez’s re-election in 2012. “College enrollment has more than doubled, millions of people have access to health care for the first time and the number of people eligible for public pensions has quadrupled.”
Just six years later and the country is a catastrophe. It seems 21st-century socialism hasn’t worked any better than 20th-century socialism, or any other kind of socialism for that matter.
Venezuela’s dire state is not for lack of resources. It is the most oil-rich country in the world and used to be one of the wealthiest nations in South America. Now, it’s teetering on the edge of economic oblivion. The scale of Venezuela’s collapse is staggering. The economy has halved since 2013 and unemployment has now reached 30 percent. Basic items like baby formula and toilet paper can’t be found on store shelves.
People have turned to “car cannibalism” (or mass carpooling) to minimize the number of vehicles running. Public transportation has ground to a halt.
Venezuela now struggles to pump oil out of the ground as its nationalized oil company is, according to CNN, “forced to import light crude from the United States to dilute the heavy oil it drills in Venezuela.”
Ironically, the policy of nationalization—purportedly to give back to the people—has left those very people destitute.
No country has fallen farther and faster on The Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom than Venezuela.
“In 1995, the first year of the index, Venezuela scored 59.8 on its 0-to-100 scale, more than two points above the world average,” wrote Heritage Foundation Research Coordinator Patrick Tyrrell. “That prosperity did not last. Under [Presidents Hugo] Chavez and [Nicolas] Maduro, economic freedom has evaporated, and Venezuela is now one of the most economically repressed countries in the world, second only to North Korea.”
With the loss of economic freedom has come the loss of political freedom. Elections have become a sham as the once democratic country has turned into strongman dictatorship under Maduro, where opposition to the regime is quickly and ruthlessly crushed.
Hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans have fled the country in a humanitarian crisis that mirrors that of Syria—except this one was not forced by a civil war.
Venezuela is now a country where “millionaires are poor,”as a Venezuelan nurse said recently in an interview with The Guardian.
What’s remarkable is that while this tragedy plays out, the American left continues to flirt with socialism and strains to explain why it would be a good thing for the American people. Millennials in particular have been susceptible to embracing it, at least in theory.
Socialism is a philosophy that, at best, has proven to be ideologically bankrupt, having failed to produce anything close to a free-market system. At worst, it is a weapon for petty thug-tyrants to prop themselves up while strangling the nation’s economy and stomping on the rights of citizens with impunity, as has been the case in Venezuela.
It’s increasingly popular on the left to rebrand socialism as “democratic socialism,” perhaps to distinguish their own ideology from the statist and obviously destructive form of socialism practiced in Venezuela. They see their own socialism as a happier, gentler version of the creed. But this distinction is evasive.
Venezuela’s socialism at least started out as “democratic” before it failed and ultimately led to tyranny. That’s an easy flip to make without constitutional norms, institutional protections, and a cultural creed of limited government.
American leftists often point to Nordic countries as examples of socialism that “works.” The problem is that while some of those countries provide generous social safety programs, they are not quite socialist.
All of them rank highly on The Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom. Denmark and Sweden even rate above the United States. In 2015, Denmark’s president insisted that his country was not socialist, but had a “market economy.”
Most of the Nordic countries had thriving economies before they grew their welfare programs, and some have even trimmed those programs in recent years. Finland, for example, which experimented with a universal basic income program, ended it after just two years.
Nordic countries mostly avoided the kinds of government overregulation and intervention that annihilated the economies of Venezuela and other countries in the past century.
So, mission accomplished?
Not quite. Even in these alleged Scandinavian utopias, broad social safety nets and high taxes have produced a country with much lower standards of living than the United States as a whole. For instance, Americans of Danish descent have a drastically higher income than Danes living in Denmark, as well as lower rates of poverty.
“A common misconception is that the Nordic countries became socially and economically successful by introducing universal welfare states funded by high taxes,” wrote Nima Sanandaji, the author of “Debunking Utopia: Exposing the Myth of Nordic Socialism.”“In fact, their economic and social success had already materialized during a period when these countries combined a small public sector with free-market policies. The welfare state was introduced afterward. That the Nordic countries are so successful is due to an exceptional culture that emphasizes social cohesion, hard work, and individual responsibility.”
Socialist policies erode these cultural norms, undermine individual responsibility and the rule of law, and create a destructive race to the bottom to prove that one is most in need.
Regardless of the distinctions, real or imagined, socialism has proved to be a failure wherever it is tried. Its proponents claim to want to lift up the poor, but all it does is drag down everyone, creating economic misery for rich and poor alike.
The “end of history”–as Marxists call it–for Venezuela, is collapse. A fate that may soon befall its socialist neighbors, like Nicaragua.
It’s a good lesson for Americans, especially those with the delusion that we can make it work here.
Gee, what will anti-gun activist, David Hogg, have to say about this?
Back in 2012, the Venezuelan government banned the private sale of firearms. The BBC reported that the move was to ‘improve security and cut crime’.
Here’s an awkward pair of headlines:
If that isn’t an argument for the Second Amendment, I don’t know what is.
Here’s a snippet from that 2012 BBC article:
Venezuela has brought a new gun law into effect which bans the commercial sale of firearms and ammunition.
Until now, anyone with a gun permit could buy arms from a private company.
Under the new law, only the army, police and certain groups like security companies will be able to buy arms from the state-owned weapons manufacturer and importer.
The ban is the latest attempt by the government to improve security and cut crime ahead of elections in October
Venezuela saw more than 18,000 murders last year and the capital, Caracas, is thought to be one of the most dangerous cities in Latin America.
The Hugo Chavez government even ran a gun amnesty program to allow those with illegal firearms to bring in the weapons without fear of reprisal.
And they were honest about their goal.
Hugo Chavez’s government says the ultimate aim is to disarm all civilians, but his opponents say the police and government may not have the capacity or the will to enforce the new law.
Oh, and look what was slipped in there at the end of the article.
According to a recent United Nations report, South America, Central America and the Caribbean have the highest rates of murder by firearms in the world.(Emphasis added)
Source: BBC, June 2012
You mean to tell me that there are law-abiding gun owners out there? And that the single country in the world that ensures the most freedom doesn’t have the same homicide rate as some of those socialist sh!thole countries?
Shocker.
But that article was written waaaaay back in 2012.
Looks like their plan to ‘reduce crime’ didn’t work. Unless it wasn’t about ‘reducing crime’ at all…
The article explains that despite the anti-gun law, homicide rates have soared.
Since April 2017, at least 163 pro-democracy protesters in Venezuela have been murdered by the Maduro dictatorship. Venezuela serves as an example of how gun prohibition can sometimes encourage gun crime.
In 2012, the communist-dominated Venezuelan National Assembly enacted the “Control of Arms, Munitions and Disarmament Law.” The bill’s stated objective was to “disarm all citizens.” The new law prohibited all gun sales, except to government entities. The penalty for illegally selling or carrying a firearm is a prison sentence of up to 20 years. Despite criticism from the democratic opposition, the bill went into effect in 2013.
Ostensibly, the motive for gun prohibition was Venezuela’s out of control violent crime. In 2015, Venezuela’s homicide rate was the world’s highest, with 27,875 Venezuelans murdered that year. More broadly, the Bolivarian Republic is the only South American nation with a homicide rate that has steadily risen since 1995. In the year prior to Maduro’s disarmament initiative, the Venezuelan capital of Caracas had a homicide rate of 122 per 100,000 inhabitants, nearly 20 times the global average of 6.2.
The high homicide rate is attributed to robberies, and 70 percent of all crime was due to armed robberies. The article goes on from there describing the rampant poverty in Venezuela — 87 percent of the country at the time. Desperate people are doing desperate things.
And the government took the only tool that individuals had to protect themselves, their loved ones, and their property — assuming the government hadn’t already taken it without compensation.
The government then suppressed dissent.
As has been typical of tyrannies since the dawn of time, arms prohibition has aided in the suppression of dissent. Indeed, the Venezuelan Violent Observatory has reported a notable increase in state violence; lethal extrajudicial force is frequently used against criminals and against political dissidents.(Emphasis added)
The Maduro government confiscated firearms, destroyed some in a display of might, but some others, well… they ‘somehow’ slipped through the cracks.
In other words, the Maduro regime stripped Venezuelans of their right to self-defense and then transferred the confiscated firearms to its loyal thugs.
When the public is disarmed, ordinary criminals have greater impunity to rob and murder the innocent. So do criminal governments. Source: The Hill
And now we’re up to speed to what’s happening in 2018. Back to the BBC’s new article.
Venezuelan security forces have carried out hundreds of arbitrary killings under the guise of fighting crime, the UN’s human rights body says.
In a report, it cites “shocking” accounts of young men being killed during operations, often in poor districts, over the past three years.
The UN’s human rights chief said no-one was being held to account, suggesting the rule of law was “virtually absent”.
Venezuela has in the past dismissed human rights allegations as “lies”.
The UN Human Rights Office alleges that extra-judicial killings were carried out by officers involved with the Operations for the Liberation of the People, ostensibly a crime-reduction initiative.
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into the cartoons that have been seen all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News” and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, and even the great El Rushbo.
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into the cartoons that have been seen all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, and even the great El Rushbo.
The “Big Blue Wave’ May turn out to be nothing more than a ripple when compared to what’s coming in right behind it. Socialist Wave dwarfed by a GOP wave?
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, shown in this November 24, 2017 file photo, maintains that the United States is carrying out “financial persecution” against Caracas | AFP/AIZAR RALDES
Venezuela’s socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro has raised his country’s minimum wage by a further 40 percent, meaning public sector employees will now earn around two dollars a month in his seventh and final major hike of 2017.
“We have good news regarding the protection and stability of all the workers,” said Maduro in a televised address. “I am announcing the rise of the national minimum wage by 40 percent for all our doctors and public sector workers.”
The move means that working Venezuelans will now receive a basic salary of 248,510 bolivares, equivalent to $2.02 a month.On top of that, they are also handed an increased food ticket worth 549,000 bolivares worth $4.46, meaning their total income amounts to around $6.48.
Over the course of 2017, Maduro instigated seven separate minimum wage hikes in order to fight back at what he describes as an “economic war” led by the United States and other Western powers against his regime. However, the hikes are only like to worsen the country’s unprecedented rates of inflation continually depleting the value of its currency, meaning that figure is only likely to fall.
According to latest figures, inflation rose by a staggering 1,369 percent between January and November last year. The figures were only released by the country’s opposition, as the Maduro regime refuses to publish them.
As part of his socialist “Bolivarian revolution,” Maduro’s late predecessor Hugo Chávez would boast of Venezuela having the highest minimum wage in Latin America, equivalent to $372 a month. However, inflation began to soar as early as 2007 and accelerated further after oil prices crashed in 2012. In recent years, Venezuelans have been seen carrying thousands of banknotes to buy the simplest of products, in scenes similar to Germany’s Weimar Republic or Zimbabwe’s hyperinflation crisis. The government has responded by introducing higher denomination bank notes, although even the maximum note of 100,000 bolivares is still worth under one dollar.
Hyperinflation is just one of many serious economic problems faced by the regime, who in November defaulted on their debts, which amount to around $200 billion, mainly owed to Russia and China. The government is also facing the pressure of economic sanctions imposed by the United States and the European Union, which mainly target the country’s state-run oil company, Petroleum of Venezuela, as well as a number of government officials.
The Maduro regime is currently moving forward with plans to launch its own national cryptocurrency known as the ‘Petro,’ backed by the nation’s considerable reserves of oil, gold, and diamonds.
Follow Ben Kew on Facebook, on Twitter at @ben_kew, or email him at bkew@breitbart.com.
Demonstrators hold a placard that reads: “No more Socialism” at a rally against Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro. (Photo: Carlos Garcia Rawlins/Reuters/Newscom)
Kudos to The New York Times—yes, The New York Times—for running an excellent, detailed story on the mass starvation and economic catastrophe taking place in Venezuela. As the Times notes, Venezuela has the largest known oil reserves in the world, yet is going through a starvation crisis exacerbated and hidden by its own government. Common items like baby formula are almost unattainable for the average person and the crisis is deepening.
Alas, missing from the Times analysis is nearly any discussion of the reality that Venezuela is a socialist country once praised by America’s liberal elite. In fact, only a single mention of the ruling socialist party near the end of the piece can be found.
Venezuela was once praised by left-wing pundits—including in the Times’ opinion section—for being a model of glowing success. In fact, scoffing at claims of Venezuela’s alleged mismanagement under then-President Hugo Chávez, one New York Times contributor wrote in 2012:
Since the Chávez government got control over the national oil industry, poverty has been cut by half, and extreme poverty by 70 percent. College enrollment has more than doubled, millions of people have access to health care for the first time and the number of people eligible for public pensions has quadrupled.
Less than half a decade later, the collapse has come. Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who once published an op-ed in The New York Times, has made himself a dictator as the country faces runaway inflation reminiscent of Zimbabwe.
Venezuela’s inflation spiked to 4,115 percent at the end of 2017, according to a CNN Money report, leading more than one economist to conclude that the country’s economy is in a “death spiral.”
So how did Venezuela get here? The answer is that socialism, as always, ends with running out of other people’s money.
James M. Roberts, the research fellow in economic freedom and growth at The Heritage Foundation, wrote about how dysfunctional policies such as nationalizing industries and redistribution schemes have destroyed a once thriving country. The private economy has been almost completely wrecked, and is now unable to meet even the most basic demands of the population.
But it isn’t just socialist policies that have led to this catastrophe. Venezuela is one of the most corrupt countries in the world and has very little economic freedom.
Roberts wrote: “Venezuela’s score in the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index makes it the most corrupt country in the Western Hemisphere, and helped drag the country to the bottom of The Heritage Foundation’s annual Index of Economic Freedom, too.”
As Heritage’s Latin American policy analyst, Ana Quintana, noted in The Hill, Venezuela’s leaders have managed to secure for themselves absolute power and wealth through repressive government actions and turning their country into a criminal enterprise. Their leaders are “directly involved in corruption, the drug trade, human rights violations, and support for terrorist groups,” Quintana wrote.
For instance, the current Venezuelan vice president, Tareck El Aissami, was designated by the U.S. Treasury as drug kingpinwithconnections to Islamist terrorist organizations. He’s been hit with heavy sanctions by the Trump administration, but is a good example of the kinds of problems that pervade Venezuela’s government. He’s only one of many.
Despite egalitarian socialist rhetoric, Venezuela’s ruling class has managed to both enrich itself and protect that wealth at the expense of the public. With outright corruption rampant, promises of material care by a benevolent state can seem appealing as an alternative to “capitalism” when capitalism is simply defined as cronies in government working with cronies in big business for their own benefit.
Alas, like in George Orwell’s “Animal Farm,” the new overlords end up being just like the old ones, or worse. The rule of law and a free economy have generally combined to form the secret sauce of a flourishing economy.
Lacking both, Venezuela has somehow squandered a gold mine—or oil reserves to be more literal—in its downward descent into bankruptcy, tyranny, and mass starvation. Being oil rich has only masked the deep dysfunction under the surface of the Venezuelan regime.
Perhaps this should be a sobering wake-up call to millennials who in worryingly large numbers say they’d rather live under socialism or communism rather than capitalism. Socialism’s failures in the last century should be enough to disabuse Americans of any notion that this broken political philosophy, which runs counter to human nature, is in any way the answer to our problems. But if history fails to be a guide, then the modern demonstration of yet another socialist country immolating itself, starving its people, and destroying any measure of real democracy should be evidence enough.
It’s reported that Venezuela is on the verge of revolution. The people have had it with authoritarian, de facto Communism. They are seriously impoverished – the eventual outcome of all Communistic/Socialistic nations. It’s always simply a question of time before they collapse on themselves.
Today hybrid nations are in vogue, i.e., mixtures of Socialism and Communism versus Competitive, Free-Market Capitalism. That’s even happening in China and Russia. They have moved away from Communism/Socialism into a hybrid system that they hope will provide the benefits of both systems. It’s Competitive, Free Enterprise to the rescue!
This hybrid approach is also being tested in the United States, where Democrat Party leaders like Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Jimmy Carter, Bernie Sanders, Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, etc. have endeavored to take control of the US economy and culture into the national government. And the Leftist media has joined their effort.
America’s prosperity was clearly hindered under the eight years of Obama’s Socialistic administration. Clearly, America’s flirtation with Democrat Party Socialism failed miserably– as it has in other countries where it has been tried. Venezuela is only the most current example.
In a Socialistically oriented economy, which the Democrats advocate, government in Washington calls the major shots. They try to regulate the economy, which worldwide experience has demonstrated doesn’t work!So once again, the economy is rescued via competitive, Free-Enterprise – a proven system based on supply and demand and competitive, Free-Market Capitalism.
Now, America has a chance to reinstate it’s competitive, Free-Enterprise, Constitutional System – which for 350 years made America the greatest country in the history of the world. Hopefully, under Donald Trump, we have an opportunity to restore The American-Way* – The American Prosperity Machine*: Competitive, Free-Market, Constitutional Capitalism. Based on the past four months, we appear to be moving in the right direction
The smear-everything-Trump Democratic Party and the power-hungry Leftist media have discredited themselves by their hostile behavior and desire to bring down President Donald Trump. Trump is an outsider – not part of the political establishment – not subject to the traditional Washington rules – and they can’t stand it. The Leftist Dems and media are deploying the same smear tactics they used against Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon. They started the day after his election to not only discredit his victory – but to drive him out of the White House.
The fact that the majority of America’s 3141 counties voted to give Trump’s “America First”Agenda a try seems to have little effect on the Dems and the Leftist media. Clearly voters wanted change. America’s decline under Obama/Pelosi/Reid/Clinton/Schumer/Warren/etc. and their Leftist/Progressive/Socialistic agendawas being soundly rejected.
Already, the Economy is responding to the Trump Agenda with improvements: jobs, wages, national wealth, industrial investment, international relations, etc. And more is yet to come.
*The American-Way ― *The American Prosperity Machine: Traditional Judeo/Christian principles and values . . . the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness . . . freedom of speech, action, religion and family governance . . . an educated and informed society . . . freedom from gender and racial discrimination . . . affordable healthcare . . . the rule of Constitutional Law . . . the peaceful settlement of disputes . . . honest elections and presidential leadership . . . patriotic, truthful, checked-&-balanced, limited government . . . a strong military . . . cost-effective national defense . . . secure borders . . . the right of citizens to own and bear arms . . . free, competitive markets and institutions . . . properly-regulated, free-enterprise . . . balanced trade . . . private property rights . . . low cost, domestically supplied energy and natural resources . . . controlled immigration . . . individual responsibility and ingenuity . . . entrepreneurialism . . . businesses and enterprises that exist to meet the needs, wants and expectations of customers . . . a strong work ethic . . . full employment . . . fair pay . . . appropriate safety nets . . . low taxes . . . a strong, reliable currency . . . financial availability, mobility, and responsibility (balanced budget, minimal debt) . . . Competitive, Free-Market, Free-Enterprise, Constitutionally Limited Government . . . and American Exceptionalism.
William A. Pauwels, Sr. was born in Jackson Michigan to a Belgian, immigrant, entrepreneurial family. Bill is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame and served in executive and/or leadership positions at Thomson Industries, Inc., Dow Corning, Loctite and Sherwin-Williams. He is currently CIO of Pauwels Private Investment Practice. He’s been commenting on matters political/economic/philosophical since 1980.
Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro has a plan to “guarantee food supply, social justice, and democracy.” As with most of Maduro’s plans, it will accomplish none of those things. Vice News reports:
“A new decree establishing that any employee in Venezuela can be effectively made to work in the country’s fields as a way to fight the current food crisis is unlawful and effectively amounts to forced labor,” Amnesty International said in a statement released on Thursday.
President Nicolás Maduro signed a decree at the end of last week that gives powers to the labor ministry to order “all workers from the public and private sector with enough physical capabilities and technical know-how” to join a government drive aimed at increasing food production.
They can be required to work in the agricultural sector for a 60-day period that can be extended for another 60 days “if the circumstances require it.”
Naturally, Maduro continues to blame the dire circumstances of his country on an economic war brought against him by the Unites States. He’s been saying that for months and even suggesting on occasion that the U.S. was ready to invade.
The reality here is much simpler: socialism has been a disaster for Venezuela. The latest attempt at central economic planning is reminiscent of the Soviet Unions five year plans in the 1920s and 1930s. The difference here is that Venezuela is working on 60-day plans because, with inflation already in the triple-digits, it’s hard to imagine how the country could continue for another five years unless something changes.
One survey found that about half of Venezuelans can no longer afford to eat 3 meals a day. Dumpster diving for food, food riots and cross-border grocery shopping have become facts of life in the country. Today the BBC published a story explaining just how dire the hunger situation in Venezuela has become:
Travelling through the country this month I saw endless queues of people trying to buy food – any food – at supermarkets and other government-run shops.
I was stopped at a roadblock in the middle of the countryside by people who said they had eaten nothing but mangoes for three days.
I saw the hopeless expression of a mother, who had been eating so little that she was no longer able to breastfeed her baby…
“We’ve always been poor here, that’s true, but we’ve never been hungry,” said Zulay Florido, a community leader in her 50s.
“Since (President) Maduro took power we are in a very bad situation. We call it here ‘the Maduro diet’.
Venezuela’s socialist are holding an entire nation hostage, effectively threatening to let them starve rather than relinquish power.
We are watching what happens when the economy of a developed nation totally implodes. Just a few years ago, Venezuela was the wealthiest nation in all of South America, and they still have more proven oil reserves than anyone else on the entire planet including Saudi Arabia. But now people down there are so hungry and so desperate that some of them are actually hunting dogs, cats and pigeons for food. Just a few days ago, I gave a talk down at Morningside during which I warned that someday we would see armed guards on food trucks in America. After that talk was done, I went back up to my room and I came across a New York Times article which had been republished by MSN that explained that this exact thing is already happening down in Venezuela…
With delivery trucks under constant attack, the nation’s food is now transported under armed guard. Soldiers stand watch over bakeries. The police fire rubber bullets at desperate mobs storming grocery stores, pharmacies and butcher shops. A 4-year-old girl was shot to death as street gangs fought over food.
Venezuela is convulsing from hunger.
Hundreds of people here in the city of Cumaná, home to one of the region’s independence heroes, marched on a supermarket in recent days, screaming for food. They forced open a large metal gate and poured inside. They snatched water, flour, cornmeal, salt, sugar, potatoes, anything they could find, leaving behind only broken freezers and overturned shelves.
All over the country, people are standing in extremely long lines day after day hoping to get some food. Sometimes the food trucks don’t bring anything, and sometimes it is just scraps like fish heads and rotten fruit. To get a better idea of what life is like in Venezuela right now, just check out this YouTube video…
As people down in Venezuela get hungrier and hungrier, extreme desperation is setting in. And with extreme desperation comes crime and violence…
A 4-year-old girl, Britani Lara, was reportedly shot to death Tuesday in the Caracas suburb of Guatire as she stood in line with her mother outside a government-owned Mercal grocery store.
El Nacional newspaper reported that gangs on motorcycles have fought over the right to control and distribute food at the Guatire store and that the gunfire may have been a result of that dispute. Eight others were reportedly injured in the incident.
Violence also was reported at a food protest staged in front of a store in the city of Cariaco in central Sucre state, where 21-year-old Luis Fuentes was killed by a gunshot. Eleven others were wounded, according to El Nacional newspaper.
Could you imagine living in a nation where all this is going on?
Most Americans could not even conceive of such a thing. But of course the truth is that up until just recently most Venezuelans could not either. In fact, just a couple years ago Venezuela was one of the most prosperous nations in all of South America…
Two years ago, Venezuela was a normal functioning nation, relatively speaking of course. It was by no means a free country, but the people still had a standard of living that was higher than most developing nations. Venezuelans could still afford the basic necessities of life, and a few luxuries too.
They could send their children to school and expect them to receive a reasonably good education, and they could go to the hospital and expect to be effectively treated with the same medical standards you’d find in a developed nation. They could go to the grocery store and buy whatever they needed, and basic government services like law enforcement and infrastructure maintenance worked fairly well. The system was far from perfect, but it worked for the most part.
There are all sorts of signs that the thin veneer of civilization that we all take for granted in the United States is starting to crumble as well. If you follow End Of The American Dream on a regular basis, you know that I post articles about this theme all the time. But today I just want to share one tidbit with you. Reuters is reporting that the number of heroin users in this country has nearly tripled since 2003, and the number of heroin-related deaths is now about five times higher than it was in the year 2000…
A heroin “epidemic” is gripping the United States, where cheap supply has helped push the number of users to a 20-year high, increasing drug-related deaths, the United Nations said on Thursday.
According to the U.N.’s World Drug Report 2016, the number of heroin users in the United States reached around one million in 2014, almost three times as many as in 2003. Heroin-related deaths there have increased five-fold since 2000.
“There is really a huge epidemic (of) heroin in the U.S.,” said Angela Me, the chief researcher for the report which was released on Thursday.
Just like Venezuela, our society is rotting too. As I have warned before, the exact same things that are happening down there right now are coming here too.
It is just a matter of time.
On a side note, I would like to congratulate the British people for voting for independence from the European Union. As I have been writing this article, the results have been coming in, and at this point it looks like victory is virtually assured for the “Leave” campaign.
I would have voted “Leave” myself if I lived in the United Kingdom, but let there be no doubt about what comes next. Uncertainty and chaos are going to reign in European financial markets, and we have already seen the biggest one day drop in the history of the British pound. There is going to be short-term economic and financial pain, but the people of the United Kingdom have done the right thing for their children and their grandchildren, and for that they are to be applauded.
Michael T. Snyder is a graduate of the University of Florida law school and he worked as an attorney in the heart of Washington D.C. for a number of years. Today, Michael is best known for his work as the publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog. Michael and his wife, Meranda, believe that a great awakening is coming and are working hard to help bring renewal to America. Michael is also the author of the book The Beginning Of The End
The cautionary tale that is the rather spectacular collapse of Venezuela continues. Were you aware that Venezuela banned guns for private citizens a mere four years ago, in 2012? Although the country was already in trouble, it seems like that was the beginning of the end.
Under the reign of Hugo Chavez, the government introduced a law that banned personal purchases of firearms and ammunition in an attempt to “improve security and cut crime.” The law was designed to keep guns in the hands of only police, military, and some security companies.
At the time, Chavez’s government said that “the ultimate aim is to disarm all civilians.” Shortly after the law passed, Chavez lost a battle to cancer, and bus driver Nicolas Maduro became the new president.
Does a gun ban actually reduce crime? Is the reduction of crime truly the motive behind disarmament? Or is disarmament actually an effort to make it more difficult for those who object to subjugation to fight back?
It’s interesting to note that nearly all repressive regimes take away the means for the citizens to stand up for their rights. Right before the proverbial S hit the F in Venezuela, guns were taken away from the general public. It was then a slippery slope into chaos as the government failed, socialism itself failed, and the country collapsed.
However, now that the people are ready to revolt against Maduro’s government, they no longer have the means to do so. It’s suicide for unarmed people to fight the well-armed military, something that the government undoubtedly counted on when Venezuela banned guns, disarming the populace.
Meanwhile In America
There are some unnerving parallels we can draw to the disarmament of Venezuela and the plans for America.
If you’re wondering how this relates to Venezuela, it’s simple. Our ship here in the US is sinking.
Our economy is in the toilet. We may be watching a premonition of our future down there in South America, with riots at the grocery store. With abject poverty. With the third world medical care.
And if the wrong person is making Executive Orders and appointing Supreme Court Justices, gun owners could be targeted.
The American government doesn’t really represent the American people anymore. Do you feel that your wishes are taken into consideration when corrupt politicians benefit from big corporations against the desires of their constituents? Our system is broken, and every day we lose rights, incrementally.
The Second Amendment is not in place so people can go hunting for deer. Thomas Jefferson summed it up. “The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.”
If you’re watching Venezuela, you understand why you need to be armed.
But as the country descends into chaos, you must also see how it got there. An armed society is a polite society. You’re seeing via the news report what happens to a disarmed society.
There’s a distinct pattern when society breaks down, and as our society becomes more desperate, poverty-stricken, and lacking of moral compass, this trend will become more obvious. Note that the “lacking of moral compass” part doesn’t just refer to the thugs rioting and looting, but also to a certain sector of cops who think that their badges give them permission to behave like street thugs, too.
Here’s the pattern:
An outrage occurs.
Good people react and protest the outrage.
Those perpetrating the outrage try to quell the protest because they don’t think that the outrage was actually outrageous. (And whether it was or not can fluctuate – in some cases, force is necessitated, but in more and more cases, it is flagrantly gratuitous.)
Others react to the quelling and join the protest.
A mob mentality erupts. Thugs say, “Hey, it’s a free for all. I’m gonna get some Doritos and while I’m at it, beat the crap out of some folks for fun.”
All hell breaks loose.
The military gets called in.
Cities burn, neighborhoods get destroyed, and no one in the area is safe.
Cops act preemptively, out of fear, and for a time, there is no rule of law.
If you happen to be stuck there, know this: you’re completely on your own.
Tess Pennington wrote about societal breakdowns in more detail – read her excellent article for more information on these predictable scenarios. In an event like this, you can try to call 911, but most likely, the police aren’t going to be coming to save you.You will be completely on your own. Will you be an unarmed, yet law-abiding citizen, hoping to somehow fend off the criminals who must have missed the memo to turn in their firearms? Good luck with that.
Here are 3 reasons why preppers need to be armed.
The thing that I believe it’s important to remember here is that if you have stacked your supplies to the rafters but refused to plan for defending your home and family, you’ve basically just made them bait should a desperate situation arise.
Just in case you think that chaos and violence only happen in places like Venezuela, where they’re undergoing a full-on collapse, the following examples are all from America.
Reason #1: Those who are desperate, unprepared, and feel entitled to be cared for
Remember Black Friday? People climbed all over each other for cheap electronics. Fist fights erupted over vegetable steamers. People were ready to throw down and do battle for sale items.
I’d hazard a guess that folks who spend time and money fighting over electronics are not the kind of people who prep. That means that these are the people who will be hungry in a long-term disaster. Look at those people, stampeding to get to a sale on things that they don’t actually need to survive. Their inhibitions are loosened because those around them are behaving in the same way.
You have to look at the psychology of this. People can justify pretty much anything when they or their children are starving. And I can understand that to a large degree – who could stand to watch their babies suffering? But if someone can devolve to the above degree just to because everyone else is doing it, the chaos we saw above is only a tiny sample of what could come if people were truly hungry.
Do you really feel like you could prepare them one meal and they’d go away politely? Do you really think that reason and a polite but firm conversation will be sufficient to make them go away? It only takes one person to start the charge against you in a tense scenario, and when that happens, unless you take swift and shocking action, the others will follow, and your retreat will be overcome. Sort of like when the walkers overtook the prison after the fence got knocked down on The Walking Dead.
Reason #2: Those who are planning to take the supplies of others
But wait, there’s something even worse out there than the hungry unprepared. There are the folks who have built an entire preparedness plan around taking the things that other preppers have stored. Remember this guy from another episode of Doomsday Preppers?
If you aren’t ready for people like this, your survival retreat is a soft, easy target. These people are not nice, but desperate.Their entire survival plan hinges on taking what someone else has amassed using superior force. This yahoo (who was subsequently arrested after his appearance on Doomsday Preppers) blatantly explains his plan, and I can guarantee that he is not alone. He’s just the one dumb enough to announce it on national television.
These are the types of people who are only careful about breaking the law because they don’t want to be caught. If a situation arises in which being caught and thrown in prison is unlikely, it will be a free-for-all. Morals and ethics won’t stop them, because they don’t have any. The only thing capable of stopping people like that is people who are able and ready to defend their homes
Reason #3: Those who loot and pillage because, doggone it, they like it
Finally, there are those who simply enjoy mayhem. Some people are just waiting for the opportunity to behave in this fashion. They enjoy destroying things and venting their anger on any person who has “more” than they do. They’d love to act like that every single day, but they don’t want to spend the rest of their lives in jail. But when a verdict gets rolled out, when a storm takes out the power, when a disaster strikes, they delight in the chance to rob, pillage, loot, and burn. Who can forget the day before Superstorm Sandy hit the East Coast, when thugs were coordinating looting rampages via Twitter?
Here was the scene in Ferguson, Missouri. These are definitely not folks out fulfilling needs.
I remember learning about “sublimation” in a high school psychology class.
Sublimation is a defense mechanism that allows us to act out unacceptable impulses by converting these behaviors into a more acceptable form. For example, a person experiencing extreme anger might take up kickboxing as a means of venting frustration. Freud believed that sublimation was a sign of maturity that allows people to function normally in socially acceptable ways. (source)
If you believe Freud’s theory, then it’s easy to see that many people look for an excuse to revert to their true natures. In a situation where “everyone” is doing something, they are able to cast off their normal control of their impulses without much fear of reprisal. The number of looters and thugs far outstrips the number of arrests going on in Baltimore, so there’s a very good chance that someone swept up in that mentality can go burn somebody else’s home or business and completely get away with it.
These are the people who burned down their own neighborhoods after the verdict in Ferguson. And what businesses were left untouched? The ones for which the owners stood out front, armed, to defend their property.
You owe it to your family to be ready to protect them.
What if the world as we know it ended? What if there wasn’t food in the grocery stores? What if there was no longer any such thing as EBT, for those who have made a career out of milking the system? What if the police and military finally threw their hands up in the air, gave up, and went home to protect their own families? What if the scenes on social media from Venezuela become the scenes from America? Who’s going to keep your family safe then?
You are!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
You have to realize that at any point in time, you could find yourself on your own, without backup from 911.
Whether civil unrest is right outside your door.
Whether a group of thugs decides to invade your home to rob and/or terrorize you.
Whether the world we know goes down, via an EMP that takes out the grid, civil war, economic collapse, or a breakdown in the national transportation network.
The only person you can rely on to protect your family is yourself.
You can stockpile until you have a decade of supplies put back, but if you can’t defend it, you don’t actually own it. You only have it because no one has bothered taking it away from you yet. You have what you have based on the goodwill of others, who are stronger, greater in number, and better armed.
Take a long hard look at the threats you face during civil unrest, and develop a plan for protecting your retreat. Wherever you live, whatever your situation, you need to plan as though 911 does not exist. Whether riots are occurring in the streets or not, in the seconds during which the lives of your family hang in the balance, you are completely on your own. In some situations, it won’t stop with the destruction of your property. You may have to defend your home. And for this, you MUST BE ARMED.
I’m sure I’ll receive another barrage of email wishing me and my children dead by our own guns. (It always amazes me how people who swear vehemently that they’re against violence can send me those letters that fervently hope for bloody and terrifying deaths for us.) Some people are so terrified of self-defense tools that the very idea of using one causes veritable spasms of cognitive dissonance and denial.
Those very same people will tell you that they’ve survived riots or unrest and never had to have a gun or shoot anyone.
And do you know what? Chances are, you won’t have to unholster your weapon. But this is a plan based on pure luck and the goodwill of others. Survival favors the prepared. I do not base my preparations for my family on the hope for good luck and nice people.
Firearms are an equalizer. A small woman can defend herself from multiple large intruders with a firearm if she’s had some training and knows how to use it properly. But put a kitchen knife in her hand against those same intruders, and her odds decrease exponentially.
You are your own first responder.
If the situation does escalate and the lives of you and your loved ones are in danger, there is no substitute for meeting force with force. You may not wish to engage, but sometimes there’s no time to escape. Sometimes there’s no place to escape to. In these situations, you won’t be able to talk your way out of it, hide from it, or throw dishes at the intruders to fight them off.
When you need help in seconds, the police are only minutes away. By the time they arrive during a collapse scenario, your family will be dead, raped, or kidnapped, and your supplies will be long gone.
If you plan to survive a scenario of civil unrest or a Mad Max society meltdown, you are going to have to accept that preppers need guns. This doesn’t mean that you want to hurt someone. It means that you intend to keep your loved ones safe by any means necessary.
Here are a few tips to prepare a home defense plan.
Your plan has to be unique to your situation. Be sure when making your plan to take into consideration things like: the layout of your property, your family, and their skill sets, your comfort with firearms, your neighbors – the list of variables goes on and on
Here are some specifics to help you begin planning.
Know how to use your firearm. Whatever your choice of weapon, practice, practice, practice. A weapon you don’t know how to use is more dangerous than having no weapon at all. You have to spend time at the range. It’s a must. During a stressful, frightening situation, you will be relying on muscle memory, so make sure the muscles are well trained. I’m not a firearms instructor, so I can’t recommend “the best gun” for preppers. The guns I chose for my rural property aren’t necessarily the same ones I’d choose if I lived in Suburbia. Every situation is different, and your firearm choice should reflect that. (Here’ssome advice from someone who knows a lot more about weapons than I do to help you with that decision.)
Make sure your children are familiar with the rules of gun safety. Of course, it should go without saying that you will have pre-emptively taught your children the rules of gun safety so that no horrifying accidents occur. In fact, it’s my fervent hope that any child old enough to do so has been taught to safely and effectively use a firearm themselves. Knowledge is safety.
Don’t rely on 911. If the disorder is widespread, don’t depend on a call to 911 to save you – you must be prepared to save yourself. First responders may be tied up, and in some cases, the cops are not always your friends. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, some officers joined in the crime sprees, and others stomped all over the 2nd Amendment and confiscated people’s legal firearms at a time when they needed them the most.
Be armed and keep your firearm on your person. When the door of your home is breached, you can be pretty sure the people coming in are not there to make friendly conversation over a nice cup of tea. Make a plan to greet them with a deterring amount of force. Be sure to keep your firearm on your person during this type of situation, because there won’t be time to go get it from your gun safe. Don’t even go to the kitchen to get a snack without it. Home invasions go down in seconds, and you have to be constantly ready.
Have a safe room established for children or other vulnerable family members. If the worst happens and your home is breached, you need to have a room into which family members can escape. This room needs to have a heavy exterior door instead of a regular hollow core interior door. There should be communications devices in the room so that the person can call for help, as well as a reliable weapon to be used in the unlikely event that the safe room is breached. The family members should be instructed not to come out of that room FOR ANY REASON until you give them the all clear or help has arrived. You can learn more about building a safe room HERE. Focus the tips for creating a safe room in an apartment to put it together more quickly.
Plan an escape route. If the odds are against you, devise a way to get your family to safety. Your property is not worth your life. Be wise enough to know if you’re getting into a fight that you can’t win.
Civilization is just a veneer.
Only four short years ago, the people of Venezuela were armed. Look at how the situation has devolved since then. People are starving. They are burning muggers alive. Doctors are doing surgeries in the blood of previous patients.
The argument could be made for the chicken or the egg, but regardless, I’d certainly feel a lot better in a chaotic place like that if I was armed to the teeth.
So many times, when interviewed after a disaster, people talk about being “shocked” at the behavior of others. Their level of cognitive dissonance has lulled them into thinking that we’re safe and that we live in a civilized country. They are unwilling to accept that civilization is only a glossy veneer, even when the evidence of that is right in front of them, aiming a gun at their faces, lighting their homes on fire, or raping their daughters.
They refuse to arm themselves and prepare for an uncivilized future.
Accept it now, and you’ll be a lot better off when the SHTF.
About the Author: Daisy Luther
Daisy Luther is a freelance writer and editor. Her website, The Organic Prepper, offers information on healthy prepping, including premium nutritional choices, general wellness and non-tech solutions. You can follow Daisy on Facebook and Twitter, and you can email her at daisy@theorganicprepper.ca
Forward this to all the Bernie supporters. Sometimes, money is a good thing to have.
Ramón Muchacho, Mayor of Chacao in Caracas, said the streets of the capital of Venezuela are filled with people killing animals for food. Through Twitter, Muchacho reported that in Venezuela, it is a “painful reality” that people “hunt cats, dogs and pigeons” to ease their hunger. People are also reportedly gathering vegetables from the ground and trash to eat as well.
The crisis in Venezuela is worsening everyday due in part to shortages reaching 70 percent. This to go along with the world’s highest level of inflation.
The population’s desperation has begun to show, with looting and robberies for food increasing all the time. This Sunday, May 1, six Venezuelan military officials were arrested for stealing goats to ease their hunger, as there was no food at the Fort Manaure military base.
Venezuela is leaving the thin ranks of civilization and lurching towardslawless dictatorship. Some of us thought Venezuela was already a dictatorship once a communist president could seize property as he walked down the street. Today the signs are clear for anyone to see. I’m struck by the similarities rather than the differences between Venezuela and the United States.
The people of Venezuela recently voted to sweep the United Socialist Party from power and replaced them with the Democratic Unity Round table. It is not clear if this change really constitutes progress, but I hope it does. Communist President Maduro then got the Venezuelan Supreme Court of Justice to block the election results. Note the stages of political breakdown in Venezuela-
Communists are voted into power.
Communists appoint judges loyal to the regime.
These judges make decisions based on their political utility to the political party rather than based on the rule of law.
Citizens are disarmed.
Property is confiscated by the government.
Elections are overturned to keep the ruling communist party in power.
Political bribery stops working because there is no more wealth to steal.
The country dissolves into regional political factions.
The central government increases the use of police and military power to force compliance.
Political opposition grows.
The political structure degenerates into dictatorship.
The military takes over the country with a coup.
Frankly, I’m surprised the Venezuelan communists let themselves lose this last election. Our big city Democrat Machine Politicianslearned long ago to rig elections so the outcome was never in doubt. Here are the other parallels I see with the United States.
We voted for a communists who promised us something for nothing.
We’ve seen the US Supreme Court ignore the Constitution. The Supremes now use their political leanings as they, like our president, pick and choose which laws apply.
President Obama uses his executive powers to create one economic disaster after another. A record number of us are out of work.
A growing number of US citizens depend on government handouts.
Rates of unemployment and crime rise in our large, failed, Democrat controlled cities.
Democrats and business interests threw open the borders for illegal immigration. Companies want cheep labor. Democrats want illegal immigrant voters.
More citizens defy unjust laws. Oddly enough, these are the same citizens who consider themselves the most “law abiding”, but the laws they follow are internal codes of justice rather than the millions of pages of contradictory government laws and regulations.
President Obama uses his executive power to disarm honest citizens. This leaves honest citizens both vulnerable to criminals and dependent on police for protection. It also allows the government to abuse its powers without the threat of armed resistance.
The US government expands the inside dealing in order to secure larger political kickbacks.
Today we witness the Chinese curse of living in interesting times. I’m an optimist. I think adversity reveals character. It is going to be a wild ride.
After Democratic Senator Tom Harkin praised Cuba on several issues, Senator Marco Rubio gave what has been called by Miami Herald reporter Marc Caputo as the “best oration of his career.” Its passion and candor about the despicable socialist regimes of Cuba and Venezuela should put those politicians who can actually praise the oppressive nations to shame. The best lines from Rubio’s stemwinder, which is worth every minute:
Let me tell you what the Cubans are really good at, because they don’t know how to run their economy, they don’t know how to build, they don’t know how to govern a people. What they are really good at is repression.
He cited a poll, ‘More Americans want normal relations with Cuba.’ So do I — a democratic and free Cuba. But you want us to reach out and develop friendly relationships with a serial violator of human rights, who supports what’s going on in Venezuela and every other atrocity on the planet?
Many of you may have already seen this brief video that went viral. If you have not, watch it.
The title is unpromising. That won’t catch on, you think. But the short film What’s Going On in Venezuela in a Nutshell, posted to YouTube last Friday, has had more than 1.3m views – and brought the plight of student protesters in Venezuela to international notice.(1)
The number of views is now over 2.5 million. The creator of the video, Andreina Nash, is a student at the University of Florida here in my hometown. She learned how to use Adobe Premier Pro in one day and the next day she skipped all of her classes and made the video. It went viral.(2)
A video like this one presents a great opportunity to discuss and better understand the dynamics surrounding any number of similar political and social crises commonly found in news media these days. There could be extended commentary on Venezuela’s history, the late President Chavez, the United Socialist Party of Venezuela, or a myriad of facets of the country’s past and present crisis. My comments will be limited and focused on a more fundamental issue. Nash states near the beginning of her video:
“Millions of young students took matters into their own hands by passively protesting the social and economic crisis caused by the illegitimate government Venezuela has today.”
Surely the oppressive government is a central issue. But we must ask ourselves – from where did the oppressive, “illegitimate” government originate?
Anyone who witnesses a video like this, or any number of news stories across our own country, must at some point in his mind think slavery. There may be a difference in degree in any given nation, but slavery and oppression are a reality across the globe. So then, we need to view “what’s going on in Venezuela” with an understanding of the root of such oppression. Augustine states clearly in The City of God,
The prime cause, then, of slavery is sin, which brings man under the dominion of his fellow(3)
The presence of slavery and oppression is a manifestation of the presence of sin. There are only two possible masters in this life.
Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? (Romans 6:16, ESV)
We have only two only two choices. We can be slaves to Satan or adopted sons of Christ.
Ultimately, freedom is impossible over time when a society does not operate according to the Word of God. Put another way, slavery is inescapable in a society that does not acknowledge Christ’s Lordship over every area. Lordship is unavoidable. The question is to whom will we submit?
My sole focus here is not Venezuela. In our own country we have moved from a greater degree of freedom to a greater degree of slavery. Whereas a few generations ago our national shackles were barely noticeable, they are beginning now to get heavy and rub blisters. The discomfort is growing. “Land of the free” has become the land of the rising police state, surveillance and warrantless searches. How does this happen in a nation that many believe was once characterized as “Christian”? How does such a shift occur?
It is simple. God calls his people to govern themselves according to his Word. He also outlines roles and jurisdictions for his divinely ordained covenant institutions of the family, church and state. As Christian people abdicate their individual responsibility of self-government, and the three institutions abdicate their responsibilities over time, a transfer is induced. The transfer is one of responsibility and power. This is because the responsibilities are not relinquished without at the same time calling for them to be picked up by other individuals and institutions. Prime candidates for the other individuals are power-hungry men and women. The primary candidate for the institution is the state.
We all know the phrase, “absolute power corrupts absolutely”. Power flows to people and institutions that are willing to take responsibility. If a nation’s individuals, families and churches abdicate their responsibilities, then those hungry for power and influence accept it from within the institution of the state. Power flows out from one group of individuals and institutions and power flows into another – the state. The former begin to ask for care and security from the latter. This increases the power of the state. Over time, the once-empowered individuals, families and churches find themselves powerless. And, being out of touch with God’s covenantal framework, they don’t understand that they operate not only as individuals but also from within a corporate reality. Because of their lack of understanding they begin to blame the empowered institution of the state for their plight. At the same time, having abdicated responsibility and turned over their power, they are limited to peaceful demonstrations in protest in hopes of communicating a message but not evoking the wrath of their self-appointed god.
But whereas this increases awareness, it does not solve the primary issue. Nations of individuals that do not govern themselves according to the Word of God cannot expect to live in the freedom that only submission to him provides.
“it is our right as human beings to have freedom of speech, to have freedom in general”
“…peace will prevail”
Peace will never prevail outside of the Lordship of Christ. “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Romans 5:1, ESV) To the extent we live according to the will of our Creator, is to the extent we will experience the blessing of peace that only he gives. That is not to say that others around us do not benefit from this. Again, this is corporate or covenant reality. But, that is a subject for another day.
The point here is that we should expect neither peace nor freedom where men are not representing Christ’s rule on earth.
In the video Nash comments on the control of TV stations and radio by the oppressive government. She also comments on the “government shutdown” of Twitter, which was the social media of choice for getting the word out. This does not surprise anyone. That said, there is good news in all of this. The word is out. One student, armed with amateur filmmaking, skills in the space of one day created a compelling film that reached millions of people within days.
The Internet is undermining bureaucratic and elitist institutions worldwide. When you think Internet vs. these institutions, think the printing press vs. the Catholic Church during the time of the Reformation. The nation-state in general is being undermined.
The question is, when the word does get out, who has the answer as to the cause of statist oppression? Who has a foundation on which to build a successful society? It is those who have the gospel – the whole gospel.
Since sin is the primary cause, the remedy is evangelism and the work of the Holy Spirit. It is taking the whole gospel in those evangelistic efforts such that converts know how their eternal salvation relates to their temporal living. This includes the life in the civil realm.
Christians that learn to “observe all that He has commanded” will make decisions differently. With the power of the Holy Spirit, they will govern themselves according to God’s Word. As they do this, such submission is manifested among the institutions in their society. The only alternative to Christ’s rule through Godly representatives is Satan’s rule through ungodly representatives. “Choose this day whom you will serve.”
About the Author
John Crawford lives in Gainesville, Florida with his wife Tina and his three children Cade, Lachlan and Aila. He is a graduate of the University of Florida and has partnered in a successful business in Gainesville since 2001. During his time in the Baptist church, John served as a deacon, bible teacher and on the board of an international missions organization. He has spent the last fifteen years studying the covenant and its implications for all of life. He is currently a member of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and can be reached through his website, CovenantalDivide.com –
The news has been flooded with what has been happening in the Ukraine, as if that is so very important to the citizens of the United States. In fact, what is MORE important is what is happening to a near neighbor (only 1,366 miles from Miami Beach, Florida), Venezuela, is far more important.
It’s past dictator, Hugo Chavez, was a monster, and had very close ties with China. He purchased missiles from China that are capable of reaching the United States. True, they did not work after they got them installed. However, I have not heard what has happened to them lately.
So here are the three latest’s news reports from FOX NEWS.
Jerry Broussard
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Venezuela revokes press credentials for 4 CNN journalists over coverage of protests
A photographer takes pictures of barricades set up by anti-government protesters in the Altamira neighborhood of Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday, Feb. 20, 2014. Violence is heating up in Venezuela as an opposition leader faces criminal charges for organizing a rally that set off escalating turmoil in the oil-rich, but economically struggling country. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd) (The Associated Press)
CARACAS, Venezuela – Venezuela’s government has revoked the press credentials of journalists from CNN after President Nicolas Maduro blasted the television network’s coverage of political protests.
CNN says Friday that four of its journalists were notified by the Information Ministry that they are no longer allowed to report in the country. They include CNN en Espanol anchor Patricia Janiot
Maduro on Thursday threatened to expel CNN from Venezuela if it doesn’t “rectify” its coverage of unrest that he says is part of a campaign to topple his socialist government. Colombian news channel NTN24 was suspended from Venezuelan cable TV packages a week ago.
The government’s near-complete control of domestic broadcasters has made CNN en Espanol a source of information for many Venezuelans trying to follow the unrest.
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Army sending paratroopers to restive Venezuela area as security forces try to quell protests
Objects placed by opposition protesters block a road in the Altamira neighborhood of Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday, Feb. 20, 2014. Violence is heating up in Venezuela as an opposition leader faces criminal charges for organizing a rally that set off escalating turmoil in the oil-rich, but economically struggling country. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd) (The Associated Press)
Members of a pro-government “colectivo,” or “collective,” march in downtown Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday, Feb. 20, 2014. President Nicolas Maduro and his supporters say the escalating protests against his socialist government in the oil-rich but economically struggling country are part of an attempted coup sponsored by right-wing and “fascist” opponents in Venezuela and abroad, particularly the United States. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd) (The Associated Press)
Demonstrators stand at a barricade during an opposition protest in the Altamira neighborhood of Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday, Feb. 20, 2014. Venezuelan opposition leaders condemned the government Thursday for its heavy-handed attempt to subdue a protest movement with nighttime sweeps that have turned many parts of the country into dangerous free-fire zones. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd) (The Associated Press)
An opposition demonstrator holds a poster that reads in Spanish “They are killing us” outside the Venezuelan Military Industries (CAVIM) in Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday, Feb. 20, 2014. Venezuelan opposition leaders condemned the government Thursday for its heavy-handed attempt to subdue a protest movement with nighttime sweeps that have turned many parts of the country into dangerous free-fire zones. (AP Photo/Alejandro Cegarra) (The Associated Press)
A woman walks next to a graffiti with the portrait of Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro and a phrase that reads in Spanish:”They will call me dictator”, downtown in Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday, Feb. 20, 2014. After a chaotic and tense night, with gunfire echoing through the streets of many neighborhoods, violence is heating up in Venezuela as an opposition leader faces criminal charges for organizing a rally that set off escalating turmoil in the oil-rich, but economically struggling country. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd) (The Associated Press)
CARACAS, Venezuela – Paratroopers are heading to a Venezuelan border area torn by fierce clashes between police and anti-government protesters, while security forces are being accused of turning many parts of the country into free-fire zones in their bid to silence a rejuvenated movement challenging socialist rule.
President Nicolas Maduro’s opponents charged Thursday that he has unleashed the military, police and civilian militias against those who blame the administration for hardships in a country that is rich in oil but struggling with overheated inflation and one of the world’s worst homicide rates.
Violence has escalated across Venezuela since a Feb. 12 opposition rally that was followed by clashes between young activists and the National Guard in which three people died. At least three more deaths and dozens of injuries have occurred in protest violence since then.
Leopoldo Lopez, the jailed opposition leader who organized the mass rally, was ordered early Thursday to remain in detention to face charges that include arson and criminal incitement.
The unrest has been particularly high in Tachira state, on Venezuela’s western border with Colombia, where anti-government protesters have clashed with police and National Guard units, disrupting life in its capital, San Cristobal.
Interior Minister Miguel Rodriguez Torres announced Thursday that a battalion of paratroopers was being sent to Tachira to help bring calm.
“These units will enable the city to function, so food can get in, so people can go about their normal lives. It’s simply meant to restore order,” he said.
San Cristobal Vice Mayor Sergio Vergara, a member of the opposition, disputed that. He said that the government caused the troubles by cracking down on what had been peaceful protests and that as part of its campaign had cut off vital services in the city, including public transportation and the Internet.
Sending 3,000 paratroopers to a city of 600,000 people is “effectively part of an effort at repression being played out by the government across the country,” Vergara said.
National Guard troops and members of pro-government militias have swarmed through the streets of Caracas and other cities firing volleys, at times indiscriminately, in repeated spasms of nighttime violence in recent days.
Henrique Capriles, the two-time presidential candidate of an opposition coalition, said the government is engaging in “brutal repression,” in some cases breaking into apartment buildings to arrest people authorities accuse of being part of a plot for a coup against Maduro.
“What does the government want, a civil war?” Capriles asked at a news conference.
While several large demonstrations by thousands of people have been peaceful, smaller groups of protesters have lobbed fire bombs and rocks and blocked streets with flaming barricades of trash. Troops and police have responded with tear gas, rubber bullets and blasts from water cannons — as well as raids by gun-firing men from motorcycles.
The clashes with authorities as well as the pursuit of anti-government activists by troops and militias take place in darkness. During the day, Caracas has largely operated as normal, with businesses and schools open and people going about their business, while stocking up on groceries in case of further unrest.
Tensions could be high Friday in the city of Valencia, where a funeral was scheduled for a local beauty queen who was killed by a bullet this week while participating in a protest. The death of Genesis Carmona, a 22-year-old university student who had been Miss Tourism 2013 for Carabobo state, reverberated in this country that prizes beauty queens.
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Associated Press writers Fabiola Sanchez and Andrew Rosati in Caracas and Vivian Sequera in Bogota, Colombia, contributed to this report.
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Venezuela braces for large opposition, pro-government rallies after days of violence
CARACAS, Venezuela – Venezuelans are bracing for trouble as both supporters of the government and the opposition prepare for major rallies in a country that has been roiled by violence in recent days.
Women supporters of President Nicolas Maduro are planning a march Saturday in the capital of Caracas. The opposition says it will also hold large rallies throughout the country.
Opposition Gov. Henrique Capriles says these are intended as peaceful protests to show public discontent over high crime, food shortages and other problems facing Venezuela. President Maduro has said the wave of protests and violent clashes that began Feb. 12 are part of a right-wing attempt to topple his socialist government.
Political violence is blamed for at least eight deaths and more than 100 injuries on both sides.
As we reported earlier, the unfolding situation in Venezuela is not pretty. The protests against Chávez successor Nicolás Maduro‘s regime have reportedly turned violent, similar to the chaos seen in Ukraine.
At least six protesters have been shot, homes have reportedly been raided, and government efforts to suppress the gatherings are underway. Wednesday night was a particularly violent night.
Venezuelan journalist Francisco Toro noticed that as the pandemonium unfurls before his country’s eyes, it has barely registered with the international media. In a post for Caracas Chronicles, Toro took major outlets to task for ignoring what has become a slow-motion crumbling of the Latin American country.
What the media have represented as “street clashes,” he wrote, are actually “state-hatched offensive to suppress and terrorize its opponents.” He explained:
While conceding that there is a much more “photogenic” upheaval taking place in Ukraine, Toro lamented that major news outlets have either outright ignored or relegated Venezuela to the b-list of news items.
Scanning each of those media outlets’ websites on Thursday morning, Toro observed:
The New York Times “World” section has “nothing.”
The Guardian world page “has some limp why-are-you-protesting? piece that made some sense before last night’s tropical pogrom, but none after it. So… basically nothing.”
The BBC led its Latin America section with a story on the old news of the detained Venezuelan opposition leader, “as though [the violence] last night had been just business as usual.”
CNN, he noted, was also “chasing the thing that was the story in the old Venezuela,” i.e., the detained leader and not the violent government crackdown on protesters.
“Al Jazeera English never got the memo,” he added, with a screenshot of a website full of Ukraine headlines.
And showing Fox News’ webpage, Toro wrote: “Even places that love to hate the Venezuelan government are asleep at the wheel.”
“Venezuela’s domestic media blackout is joined by a parallel international blackout, one born not of censorship but of disinterest and inertia,” Toro concluded. “It’s hard to express the sense of helplessness you get looking through these pages and finding nothing. Venezuela burns; nobody cares.”
UPDATE: Several tipsters have pointed out that ABC-owned network Fusion has had an on-the-scene reporter in Mariana Atencio, putting them leagues above the other cable outlets. Check out one of her reports below:
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Posted July 29, 2016 by John Sexton
taken into consideration when corrupt politicians benefit from big corporations against the desires of their constituents? 
into a more acceptable form. For example, a person experiencing extreme anger might take up kickboxing as a means of venting frustration. Freud believed that sublimation was a sign of maturity that allows people to function normally in socially acceptable ways. (
retreat. Wherever you live, whatever your situation, 
What Did You Say? 
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