Podcast appearances and mentions of nicholas maduro

Venezuelan President, Nicholas Maduro was inaugurated in isolation last week; Colombia’s first unicorn keeps delivering; a golden moment for Latin American films. Lester Kiewit gets all the details from Prof. Lyal White, faculty at GIBS and research associate with the Brenthurst Foundation.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

  On today's show we speak with Dan Kovalik about the inauguration of Nicholas Maduro as the president of Venezuela over the objections of the US State Department.  Then we'll take a closer look at the marriage between Artificial Intelligence and government surveillance and the narrowing prospects for privacy in the future.  Finally,  we end with a conversation with the renowned historian and sociologist Michael Mann whose work includes the 4 volume series The Sources of Social Power, and books such as Incoherent Empire, The Darkside of Democracy and his latest entitled On War. The post In Conversation With Renowned Historian & Sociologist Michael Mann appeared first on KPFA.

((Recorded Live)) As America prepared for one of the most pivotal elections in recent history, I went live to break down the stakes, the key players, and the issues that could shape the future of the nation. Join me as we explore what's at risk in the 2024 election, from the candidates' platforms to the critical choices facing voters. Whether you tuned in live or are catching the replay, don't miss this deep dive into the upcoming election and what it means for all of us! We are live Monday through Friday! Find me and the show on social media. Click the following links or search @DrWilmerLeon on X/Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube! -Please consider donating to keep us on the air. -Patreon.com/WilmerLeon Announcer (00:00:07): Connecting the dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge. Wilmer Leon (00:00:15): Good morning. Good morning. And as most of you know by now, this coming Tuesday, November 5th will be as the Constitution states, the Tuesday next, after the first Monday in November is election day. What are you all going to do? Are you going to vote? Are you going to abstain? If you decide to vote, who are you going to cast your ballot for? Let's talk and let's talk live. We're live today. I want to welcome you all to the Connecting the Dots podcast with me. I am Dr. Wiler Leon. And here's the point. We have a tendency to view current events as though they occur in a vacuum, failing to understand the broader historic context in which most events take place. During each episode, my guests and I have probing, provocative, and in-depth discussions that connect the dots between these events and the broader historic contexts in which they occur, thus enabling you to better understand and analyze the events that impact the global village in which we live. (00:01:26): On today's episode, it's just me, it's me, no guests. I'm live today. And I know this is very, very short notice, but here we are. So the issues or the issue before us is or are this Tuesday, as I said in the tease, November 5th will be as the Constitution states, the Tuesday next after the first Monday in November is election day. Folks, what are you all going to do? Are you going to vote or are you going to abstain? If you decide to vote, who are you going to cast your ballots for? And for me, here's the real important salient question, why vote or abstain? I strongly suggest voting. I don't think that you can abdicate your duty as a citizen and sit this one out. And I firmly believe that the primary responsibility of a citizen is to participate in the electoral process to determine who you select to represent your interests in government. (00:02:48): Folks, I believe America is recklessly muddling its way through these incredibly, incredibly perilous times, very, very recklessly. As America muddles its way through these perilous times, there are too many Americans that appear to be more confused than ever. Many of us have traded our interests in for electability or anybody. But Trump, former NAACP board chairman Julian Bond, told us that in the African-American community, we have no permanent friends. We have no permanent enemies, we have just permanent interests. Malcolm called them permanent agendas. And as we look at this whole issue of America muddling its way through these perilous times, I think it's very, very important for us to understand what this really means and who is responsible for the peril that we find ourselves in. Many of you all may take exception to what I'm about to say, but I think the data supports disposition. The American empire is on the wane. It is failing. Some will say it has already failed, and what we are experiencing are the last kicks of a dying mule. I think the African proverb says the last kicks of a dying mule are or can be the most dangerous. (00:04:26): The United States started this war in Ukraine. The United States is backing the genocide that we see playing itself out right before our very eyes in the Zionist colony known as Israel. The United States is trying to provoke a fight with Venezuela by not recognizing the democratically elected president Nicholas Maduro as the president of Venezuela. The United States is trying to start a fight with China over Taiwan. So that's why I say that we are in incredibly, incredibly perilous times and most of this peril is at our own doing. And I see sister Sandra Muhammad, thank you so much for tuning in greatly, greatly appreciated. So again, incredibly reckless. Too many of us are confused more than ever again. Many of us have traded in our interests for this concept of electability and anybody but Trump. Well, we have to ask ourselves, what are our politics really all about? (00:05:53): And this question not only applies to those of us in the African-American community, but it applies to the country overall. Candidates right now are out on the campaign trail asking us for our vote. But what are they offering us? Even more important than that, even more important than what are they offering? What are we as citizens demanding from them? For the most part, I'm hearing racist diatribes of I'm hearing, I'm hearing racist diatribes. I'm hearing offers of higher taxes that are really masking themselves as tariffs on imported goods. I'm hearing anti-immigrant rhetoric, and I'm hearing a lot of ideas being floated as policy. They sound great, but they'll meet stiff opposition if they make their way to Congress. Let me just quickly jump back to the anti-immigrant rhetoric because both sides from the Trump campaign as well as from the Harris campaign, there's a whole lot of clamoring. There's a whole lot of chatter that we're hearing regarding the border immigration. (00:07:21): Oh, our country's being overrun by immigrants. I Trump tells you they're eating our pets. And Vice President Harris talks about building the wall funding for more border agents. All of this stuff about keeping people out. What I don't hear anybody talking about, I don't hear anybody asking the question, why are these people trying to come in the first place? Why are Mexicans trying to cross the border? Why are people from Honduras? Why are people from Guatemala risking life in limb, spending thousands of dollars that they've spent years saving, trying to come across this border? I don't hear anybody asking that question. Donald Trump and JD Vance made this horrifically racist, unsupportable false accusation that Haitian immigrants, who by the way, are in Springfield, Ohio legally, who by the way, salvage the economy of Springfield, Ohio. Nobody's asking the question, why are Haitians there in the first place and nobody talks about American foreign policy? (00:09:00): Do you think Mexicans just want to come to the United States because they woke up last week and said, you know what? I think I'm going to risk life and limb and go to the United States. Do you think Guatemalans, do you think Hondurans? Do you think El Salvadorians are saying to themselves, you know what, I ain't got nothing else better to do. I'm going to pay some Mule $3,000 that it took me five years to save to risk life and limb to try to sneak into the United States only to run the risk of being deported and wasting all that money. Do you think that maybe they're making these decisions because their economies have been decimated by American foreign policy and they're coming. So you don't hear the immigration czar as Donald Trump loves to call Vice President Harris. You don't hear her talking about that. You don't hear Donald Trump talking about that. They talk about failed solutions such as building the wall and all that other foolishness. They don't talk about the real crux of the problem, which is American foreign policy in their countries. What happened with Mexican corn? Well, it got decimated because of nafta importing American yellow corn into Mexico. And that brown multicolored Mexican indigenous corn got decimated through cross pollenization by the American yellow corn that was imported because of nafta, decimating agriculture in Mexico. So what are those farmers to do? Nobody's offered them any assistance. What are those farmers to do? (00:11:09): Chiquita brands, about a month ago was convicted in federal court in Florida for funding death squads in Columbia. Chiquita brands now has to pay millions of dollars, millions of dollars to families in Columbia because they were backing death squads in Columbia. So if you are a Colombian, what are you to do? Stay in your native country, running the risk of being murdered by death squads funded by Chiquita brands or do everything in your power to get out of Columbia and go someplace else. And where is that someplace else? The United States as Donald Trump is using these, I see Steve, I'm getting to Haiti right now. Steve, stay out of my head, man. Stay out of my head. Steve. I'm getting to Haiti right now. (00:12:22): As Donald Trump and JD Vance are extolling these racist diatribes about Haitians eating dogs and cats. Steve, here we go. Nobody's asking why are the Haitians in Springfield, Ohio in the first place? Nobody's asking why'd they leave Haiti and come to the United States? They should be sitting on the island drinking barbering court five star rum in Eaton Grill. No, they've left their lovely country come to the United States. Why? Here's the answer. As during the debate, you saw Vice President Harris wring her hands and twist contorting her face and showing the utter disgust for that racist diatribe that she should have shown. But nobody asked her Vice President Harris, why did you go to Racom last year and try to convince the leaders of Racom, the organization of Caribbean states to be the tip of the United States spear as the United States is trying to rein, invade Haiti, recolonize Haiti? Nobody asked her that question. And I think that's a very, very important question to ask. I call that minstrel diplomacy, black faces on Euro-American foreign policy, menstrual diplomacy. Nobody asked Hakeem Jeffries, Congressman Jeffries, why did you go as a black man? Why did you go to Caron with Vice President Harris, a black woman to convince black countries to invade another black country? (00:14:41): Nobody's asking that question. So it's not simply building a wall. It's not simply enforcing the border. It's not simply funding for more border agents. It's not simply building internment camps to house these individuals and their children. It's not simply deporting people. And by the way, I think former President Barack Obama deported more people than anybody in the last 50 years. It's about American foreign policy decimating the economies of Mexican, central American and South American countries. That's why these individuals are doing everything in their power to come to this country. Now, really quickly, I really quickly, it's also a matter of going back to Haiti. Why such a focus on Haiti? (00:16:03): A couple of reasons. One is geographic the United States is trying to do, has been trying, I think for about a hundred or so years to build a naval base in Haiti, and it has met incredible resistance by Haitians. Why does the United States want to build that naval base in anticipation of China gaining a greater foothold in the region? China right now is talking about building a canal. I believe it's through Honduras, building a canal through Honduras, which would make it easier for Chinese ships to circumnavigate the globe. And that would also be a direct challenge to the Panama Canal. (00:17:10): So you have a number of geopolitical aspects to this as the United States further alienates China, the United States is anticipating the need to replace that cheap Chinese labor with another cheap labor source, and where are they thinking of getting that labor? Haiti. So those are just two very current examples of why the United States is so focused on recolonizing Haiti. Of course, we can go back to the overarching issue of the Haitian Revolution, the successful Haitian revolution, the United States, I'm sorry, Haiti throwing out France as a result of the Haitian Revolution and the belief that no European country, we'll consider you the United States because it's founded by Europeans, would ever allow the successful revolution of a black country. So that's also part of this calculus as well. Those are just a couple of examples of what I'm talking about in terms of these politics and permanent friends, permanent enemies and permanent interests. Again, candidates they're asking us for are vote, but what in fact are they offering us? And again, more important than that is what are we demanding from 'em? (00:19:00): Where are the substantive policies that are focused on making the lives of each American better? Where's the plan to fund them and to get these ideas turned into legislation submitted, brought before Congress, passed by Congress and signed by the president. There are a lot of ideas being floated out there, but one of the things I'm not hearing, particularly from the Harris campaign is how are you going to get this stuff funded? Where's the money going to come from anyway? By failing to develop, understand and articulate our permanent interests, our agendas, we then fall victim to the problem of what I call binary politics. The simplistic either or scenario. Yes, this is a two party system, but being stuck in the mindset of binary politics, the simplistic either or scenario, continues to leave us with simplistic and deadly choices of the status quo. Do you want lead in your drinking water or mercury? (00:20:21): Do you want arsenic on your grits or baby? Do you want mama to sprinkle a little bit of strict nine on them? Grits for you, the dangers of binary politics, this rant of anybody. But Trump is a perfect example of the dangers of binary politics, especially for the African-American community. And please, please, please, baby. Please baby, baby. Please don't get this twisted. Yes, Trump is disgustingly ignorant. He's vile, he's gosh, he's racist. He's an admitted sexual predator and a convicted felon. However, following the simplistic narrative of anybody but Trump as the basis of your analysis will not ipso facto lead you to a better alternative as sporting life said in Porgy and best, it ain't necessarily. So folks, I unapologetically see the world through. We're doing live radio, so I got to every now and then check my messages here to be sure that I'm staying on course, staying on track. Okay? So anyway, folks, I unapologetically see the world through the lens of an African-American man, and I focus on the interests of the African-American community. But my analysis I applies to every demographic across the board. (00:22:09): Let me pause here and just say, Steve, you're right. We're talking about Haiti. Sandra, you said you don't know. It looks as though folks would rather remain in Lala ignorant about many issues, the Western individualism value. Oh, you're absolutely right, Sandra. You're absolutely right about that. And that really gets to the crux of my point. And as I talked about the decline of the empire, this is all part of that western individualist value. And by the way, which is a conservative construct, and Sandra, help me out here if I'm on track with this, is that too many of us in the African-American community have bought into this whole idea of I've got mine. Now you have to get yours. We have lost track of the power of the collective. We have lost track of how we as a community, as we as African-Americans with a distinct history, with a distinct culture, have been able to make it through the challenges that have been imposed upon us by the dominant culture. (00:23:41): Look, I say this all the time. Du Bois wrote The Souls of black folk, not the soul of some guy. Mrs. Hamer dedicated her life championing the right for us to vote. She did not dedicate her life simply so that she could vote. And now what too many of us are looking at, what too many of us are confused about and confused by is the progress of some at the expense of the many. I got mine. You got to get yours. That has never worked for us. It will never work for us. And then there are too many of us like Richardson down in North Carolina, and who's the brother that from Florida that appeared at that Trump race Fest 2024 in New York. He comes on stage after the dude, before him played, Dixie played, what's his name? (00:25:07): I'm drawing blank on a guy that sang it, but what kind of cery was that? A black man going to come on stage, Elvis Presley after a white cat before him, his bumper music was Dixie. And instead of coming to the mic saying, oh hell, to the na Bobby, hell to the na, I'm not going to stand here and follow that racist foolishness. He just goes along, buck dancing, cooning shining, and you know, any of you all that have spent any time listening to me, rarely will I use those types of references when I'm talking about Buck dancing coons. But that just shows you the depths and the utter depravity that our community has fallen into global insight perspectives. You ask, what do I say to African American voters who say, if you vote third party, you'll enable Trump to, ah, okay, global insight perspective. Great question. I was going to get to that a little later, but let me do that right now. (00:26:37): That gets back to my point of the dangers of binary thinking because right now we're stuck in this duopoly Republican and Democrat thinking that there are truly substantive differences between the parties when in fact it's a duopoly. They are two wings on the same bird. They are two sides of the same coin. The Democrats to a great degree, they will couch their racism, they'll couch their militarism in slightly softer language. They'll bring black faces to the forefront to sell you that bs. Linda Thomas Greenfield at the UN championing genocide, right? Kamala Harris going to Kom as I mentioned earlier, Hakeem Jeffries go to Racom, who's the head of africom. It's a black general. Lloyd Austin goes to Kenya to convince William Ruto the president of Kenya. They show him given the check to Ruto, to invade Haiti on behalf of the United States. So the Democrats, they'll roll out black faces to Barack Obama, they'll roll out black faces to sell you basically the same policies that the Republicans, they just Bogart. They go hard in the paint. They go hard in the paint. No, easy layups, hard fouls. They don't care. Democrats try to be, they try to give you a kinder, a kinder, softer militarism. (00:28:50): And Daniel dvi Du Bois said, race is not biological. It's cultural. Oh, that's very, very true. That's why you don't hear me usually speaking in the context of race. I speak in the context of ethnicity and I speak in the context of culture because there is absolutely no biological proof, scientific, empirical data to support the construct of race. Race is a eugenic construct, and I was just in London lecturing on this at Oxford and at Westminster Universities just got back Saturday. Thank you to Dr. Chantel Sherman for putting on that conference. Yeah, race doesn't exist. It just doesn't. It exists only in the warped mind of those that have been convinced that race is real. Race is an artificial construct that was created to a great degree by Christians in order to rationalize the dehumanization of enslaved Africans because they had to figure out if we can consider ourselves to be Christian, then how can we rationalize and justify enslaving other human beings? (00:30:26): Oh, here's an idea. We create this construct of race. Therefore, we can say they are an inferior group of people. And Calvinism played a very, very key part in this because one of the elements of Calvinism is predestination, predetermination. So they then were able to say, oh, these people were predetermined by God to be inferior and subservient to us, the white European. So that's where the whole construct of race comes from. Daniel, thank you so much for that. Byron Donalds. Yes, thank you. Thank you, Rell. I think that's, if I pronounced that correctly, yeah, Byron Donalds is who I was trying to think of again, folks, you have never even heard me call Clarence Thomas a coon, but Byron, Donald Coons coon, anybody that comes on stage on a stage at an event where Dixie was played. I don't care what time in the lineup, you are supposed to come on stage and shut that rascal down. (00:31:47): You're supposed to come on stage and quote that brilliant African-American, that late African-American philosopher Whitney Houston, and say, oh hell, to the Nall Bobby held to the Nall. We ain't going for this. But anyway, oh well, Daniel, excellent, excellent. Thank you. I appreciate your critique of that analysis. Okay, so let me try to move a little further here. Again, as I said, I see the world in unapologetically so through the lens of an African-American man. And please understand this my saying that my being pro me do not ever, and this is something that people do all the time. Black Lives Matter was an example of this. Never equate my being pro me with my being anti you, my being pro me is me being pro me. (00:32:50): The retort to Black Lives matter was, well, all lives matter. Yeah, that's true. But if that were a reality in the United States, if all lives in the United States actually mattered, then we wouldn't have to highlight the fact that Black Lives Matter. The reason that Black Lives mattered was developed was because we saw on our phones, on our television screens, on our computer monitors, black people being slaughtered in the street, and I'm not even going to say shot down in the street like dogs, because if I went out into the street and shot a dog in the street, I would be immediately arrested. (00:33:41): That's why I don't say shot down in the street like dogs, because in many communities, they seem to hold the lives of dogs in higher regard than they do African Americans. So anyway, I see the world through the lens of an African-American man and as a political scientist, I go back to the piece by Mac Jones, a message to a black political scientist where he says, as such, it's my obligation to develop a different wean Chung, a different worldview that I view the world through the prism of my experience, historical, current and personal as an African-American human being, and that I can never allow my analysis to deviate from that because that's what is the most relevant to my community. So vote or abstain, back to that point, I strongly suggest voting. I don't think that you can abdicate your duty as a citizen and sit this one out. We as American citizens, we can no longer afford to leave the management and governance of this country and system to those that we have elected to represent our interests. And I think that little element, that little kernel right there, is what unfortunately is being overlooked, and I'll say particularly in the African-American community, we keep hearing vote for Kamala vote, and I'm not saying vote or don't vote for him or her. (00:35:45): I'm not going to do that. If you want me to, I will tell you who I think is going to win this. I'll get to that in a minute, but I'm not saying vote for him or vote for her, vote for them or not them. That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying though is that too many of us have been bludgeoned with you have to vote for her because she's a black woman. If you don't vote for her, you hate black women. You have to vote for her because Donald Trump is the reincarnation of the devil, which by the way, he is. (00:36:21): No, no, no. I need to know. I need her to tell me what she's going to do for me and how she's going to do it. That's all I've been demanding. Kamala, vice President Harris, tell me very, I need you to come on up to stage and say, Wilmer, look. This is what I'm going to do. This is how I'm going to do it, and this is how we're going to pay for it. I need her to do that. Folks, you can't abdicate your duty as a citizen. You can't sit this one out at a campaign event. This past Thursday evening in Arizona, former President Trump said to Tucker Carlson, she, Liz Cheney, she's a radical warhawk. Let's put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her. Okay, let's see how she feels about it. When the guns are trained on her face, they're all warhawks. When they're sitting in Washington with a nice building, Trump continued. (00:37:35): What he might think that casting that in the light of put a rifle in her hand and train nine at her face is some kind of military construct. No, Donald, you're not really that smart. We understand that's the context of a firing squad, and no matter how you try to spin that one, that's just disgusting. That's just disgusting. Torito, we did a show last talking about my SiriusXM show. Yes, there was a show it was a best of because I was in London at the time. I will be live tomorrow, tomorrow on SiriusXM 1 26 from 11 to two Eastern. Hopefully that answers your question. Where am I here? (00:38:46): So Kamala had an interview on Fox. She was asked about her platform and she didn't know it. She said, go to my website and read it. Well, yeah, that one speaks for itself, and that's what I've been saying during the whole campaign is folks, politics is not about phenotype. Politics is not about skin color. Politics is about policy, policy initiatives, policy output, policy results. I'm a political scientist. Public policy is my primary area, public policy and black politics, or it was supposed to be a political economy, but that's a whole nother conversation. That's why I'm so stuck on policy. That's what I do. That's what I do. Meg, yo from Baltimore, thank you for joining us. Get me a crab cake if you wouldn't mind. How do I feel about Dick Cheney supporting Kamala Harris? Carl, how do I feel about Dick Cheney supporting Kamala Harris? Let's understand. Now, this is my opinion. I don't have any data to support this point, but this is my opinion, and I think this is fairly accurate. I don't think that Dick Cheney in the middle of the night opened his eyes as a light was shining upon him in a voice of power and majesty filled the room and said, Announcer (00:40:35): Dick Cheney, purveyor of evil war criminal, you must repent and endorse Vice President Harris. And then Dick Cheney pushed back the covers Wilmer Leon (00:40:53): And sat up in the bed and said, oh my God, I have been saved. No, didn't happen. I think the Republican elite have come to the realization that the Frankenstein monster that they have created, Donald Trump is now ravaging and pillaging their village, and they see Kamala Harris as the last ditched attempt to salvage their party as they've known it to exist. Look, you can go back and find the language from, what's it? The Senator from South Carolina. What's the dude's name? I'm drawing a blank on that. Anyway, who told us that Donald Trump was a racist, narcissistic, xenophobic, bigot. (00:42:10): The record is replete with the examples of Ted Cruz. Lindsey Graham, what's her name from South Carolina, Nikki Haley, all of these Republicans, traditional members of the traditional Republican elite telling us that Donald Trump is everything but a child of God. They created this monster. You can go back to the Tea Party and one of the founders, Tom Tan credo. Remember Tom Tancredo back in 2020 or 2016 talking about we want our country back. Tom, who had your country? Tom Tancredo. I don't have your country. I don't know anybody that does Remember that. I also believe that Sarah Palin being on the ticket with what's his name from Arizona, was the precursor to Donald Trump and Carl, this is a very long way. I'm getting to your question because she made you comfortable with stupidity. She made you comfortable with ignorance. (00:43:48): She made you comfortable, and the you is a generic general. You as the country, she made the country comfortable with an ignorant person being a heartbeat away from being the leader of the free world. She tilled the soil, she laid the groundwork for Donald Trump, and then he came in and just bogarted the whole damn game. So Carl, getting back to your point, your question. So again, Dick Cheney didn't find Jesus. What Dick Cheney realized is looking at the policies of the Biden Harris administration, particularly foreign policy, particularly militarism, because remember where he came from. Lemme see if I got the book. Remember where he came? I got over here somewhere. Oh, wait a minute. Here it is. (00:44:58): Sorry. The shadow world inside the global Arms trade. See if I can quickly, after Cheney left the defense department in 1992, his appointment as CEO of Halliburton in 1995 led us to a remarkable improvement in the company's fortunes, especially with regard to federal contracts. In the five years prior to his arrival, Halliburton received the poultry 100 million, paltry 100 million in government credit guarantees under Cheney. Halliburton received 15 times that amount, 1.5 billion. Cheney was paid well for her services for 48 months. He received $45 million from Halliburton, the shadow world inside the global arms trade, Andrew Feinstein. Okay, so Dick Cheney, again, it wasn't divine intervention. The hand of God didn't touch Cheney on his shoulder. No, he realized backing her, he, Dick Cheney and Liz Cheney and all those other Republicans that are now on the Harris bandwagon, they're not on that bandwagon because they're coming closer to her. They're on the bandwagon because she has come closer to them. That's my opinion. Hopefully, Carl, that answers your question. Now is that a good thing or a bad thing? It depends on who your candidate is, but I think that's the reality because when you look at Liz Cheney and Kamala Harris on stage, that's not a good vibe. I don't think I've ever seen them embrace. They may have. (00:47:06): I haven't seen it. It there's a distance between them because I don't think personally they really like each other beyond politics. Again, that's my opinion. I could be as wrong as the day is long. Yes, Ramel sense. They are all war mongers and war criminals based upon the international criminal court standards. They are all, not only are they war mongers, they are also war criminals. Carl, please listen tomorrow. I think I got a hell of a show for y'all tomorrow, but anyway. Oh, okay. Who do I think will win the election and why? You know what, Fred? Hold that. I'm going to get to that in a minute. I, because I have an answer for you. So lemme go back to Trump's what I call the racist hate fest. 2024 in Madison Square Garden. This was a six hour eugenic, racist hate-filled rant, and there was one in particular, which I'm sure most of you now are familiar with this. (00:48:29): So-called comedian, I'm not even going to mention this guy's name called Puerto Rico, a floating island of garbage. He said there's a lot going on. I don't know if you know this, but there's literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it's called Puerto Rico. Now, there is actually a floating island of garbage in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Hawaii. Why not talk about that? Why not talk about the impact that there is truly a floating island of garbage off the Pacific, not the Atlantic coast, and it's full of plastics that are decimating the ecology. Fish are now being found to have microparticles of plastics in them. Sea turtles are getting caught up in all kinds. You could have talked about that in terms of a floating island of garbage, but no, you have to take that ecological disaster called a floating island of garbage off the Pacific Coast, and you have to turn that into this racist eugenic diatribe targeted at Puerto Ricans. Well, lemme tell you this, homie, Pennsylvania is a swing state. (00:50:03): Pennsylvania has 20 electoral votes in the electoral college. Trump won the state in 2016 by a narrow margin of 0.72%. Biden was able to reclaim the state in 2020, winning it by a similarly narrow 1.17% margin or about 80,500 votes. See folks, I use data. When I take a position, when I tell you something, if it's my opinion, I'm going to tell you very clearly I don't have the data for it. Here's my opinion. When I have the data, I'm going to give you the data. So Biden was able to reclaim Pennsylvania and he won it with a 1.17% margin or about 80,500 votes. (00:51:12): Pennsylvania's Latino eligible voter population has more than doubled since 2000 from 206,000 to 620,000 in 2023. Now, Biden won with a margin of 80,500 votes in 2020. Now in 2016, there are 620,000 Latinos, and this is according to Census Bureau figures, and more than half of those voters, about 310,000 are eligible voters who are Puerto Rican, and they are pissed. They are pissed to the highest of Tivity. They are pissed. That's not good, Mr. So-called funny man, racist, funny man. That's not good. You didn't do your boy, you didn't do Trump any favors by going down that alleyway as Richard Pryor would say, because it may not be the voice of God. (00:52:34): Here's what's overlooked by a number of people. Too many of us believe that once you've cast your vote or once you've cast your ballot that your job is done. But folks, casting your ballot is just the beginning of the process. Once you've cast your ballot, your job isn't done. It's only just begun. You have to stay engaged. You have to hold those you voted for or didn't vote for accountable. You have to stay engaged. You can't abdicate your duty as a citizen and sit this one out and if you vote, you have to stay engaged. You've got to, folks, there are many, getting back to the Puerto Rican issue. There are many who will tell you, Dr. Anthony Montero, brilliant, brilliant, brilliant, brilliant brother out of Philly, who will tell you that the disenchanted African-American, particularly black male community in Philly, that many of them are going to sit this out, and as a result of that, it's going to cost vice president heresy election. (00:53:50): I wonder if those disenchanted African-American males and females who are going to sit this out will now be offset by these angry Latinos, specifically Puerto Ricans. Again, this so-called Mr. Funny Man, I don't think at the end of the day this is going to prove to be, prove to be too funny. Harrison Wall said, claim that they're charting a new way forward to a future where everyone has the opportunity to get by, not just get by, but get ahead. I'm sorry. Her articulation of the opportunity economy is so that you don't just get by, you get ahead. They're proposing, for example, $25,000 as a down payment assistance for first time home buyers, small business entrepreneur assistance, tax cuts for the middle and working class. That's all great, that's all great and it's damn sure need it. (00:55:05): My question is, how's it going to be paid for? Again, I'm a policy guy. How's it going to be paid for? Has anyone publicly asked that question? How much is it going to cost? What's it going to do to the budget? What's it going to do to the deficit and how are you going to pay for it? Because with billions of dollars going to Ukraine, 8 billion about 10 days ago, 8.7 billion, about 10 days ago, going to Israel, 600 million going to Taiwan, that's 17 billion in one day last week or 10 days ago to the settler, 8.7, going to the settler colonial Zionist, settler colonial state called Israel, trying to pick a war with China. Where's this money going to come from? She's made the promise, the campaign promise. My question is, if she wins, will you hold her accountable to deliver on that promise to those who are so offended by the genocide being committed against the Palestinians and rightfully so, many of those of you believe that the answer to that atrocity is a protest vote for Trump. This gets back to the third party question. I believe my opinion that by failing to develop, understand and articulate our permanent interests and agendas, we are falling victim to the problem of binary politics. The simplest either or scenario. You're angry with Biden Harris, the Biden Harris administration for backing funding, participating in the genocide and Gaza. (00:57:15): So you believe that the answer to that is a vote for Trump to our Muslim brothers and Arab brothers and sisters who are rightfully appalled by these genocidal policies, I don't think your viable option is a protest vote for Trump, because remember his son-in-law, Jared Kushner is articulating plans to turn Gaza into beachfront Mediterranean condos, and Jared Kushner is a key advisor to his father-in-law. So if by chance you vote for Trump thinking, you're voting for Trump as a protest against the Biden Harris administration, I personally believe you're making a big mistake because yes, this is a two party system, but there's also third party candidates out there as well. (00:58:25): You've got Dr. Cornell West and Dr. Molina Abdullah. You've got Dr. Jill Stein and Dr. Butch Ware. Two examples from the Green Party. So if you're going to make a protest vote, then in my opinion, I believe in you cast a protest vote. Think about third party the real signal, in my opinion. If you want to really send a message, let the duopoly see a third party campaign. Get 20% of the vote, let a third party get enough to qualify for public campaign funding. Let a third party get a significant enough vote to qualify to be on the debate stage. Can you imagine Dr. West on stage debating Donald Trump? Can you imagine Dr. West on stage debating Vice President Harris? Can you imagine Dr. Butch Ware on the stage debating JD Vance, folks, I'm talking peace shooter at a gunfight. That's what you would be witnessing. And I'm not saying that Dr. West on stage against Kamala Harris. In fact, I'm wrong to put it in that kind of conflict scenario because it's all about the best interest of the American people. It's not about protecting one person's image against and using another person to tarnish that image. That's not what this is about. (01:00:10): Thank you, Sherry, for coming back and agreeing with me. This is about you. This is about America. This is about our country. This is about social security. In fact, to that point, let give y'all, let me give you a very simple example of this. We keep hearing that social security is in jeopardy, right? You've got George W that wanted to privatize social security, which we know was just grant theft auto. Here's the solution, and you can do the math yourself. This one is so simple, a 10-year-old can figure it out right now, the social security contribution that comes out of your paycheck every month if you have a paycheck gets capped at, I think it's either 140 or $144,000. Every dollar you make after 140 or $144,000 is exempt from the Social Security payroll tax. (01:01:49): You want to salvage social security, which by the way isn't really in jeopardy, but if you want to salvage social security, raise the ceiling on the Social security payroll tax, raise it to, I don't know, pick a number, raise it to $500,000 of salary, raise it to a million dollars of salary, raise it to 1.5 million of salary. If you are making $500,000 in salary, you can afford an additional 10%, 15%, or 10% on that. Whatever the payroll tax is, I don't have it in front of me. And what you would be able to do by doing that, you would ensure the sustainability. That's not the word I was looking for, but anyway, sustainability of social security, you ready for this? Lower the retirement age, you could lower the retirement age and don't send your money yet because there's a bamboo steamer that comes with this deal. You could expand benefits, raise benefits. (01:03:19): They right now are talking about what? Raising the retirement age to like 72 and what's the life expectancy of the average American about 67 years. So now you got to work five years beyond your death. Does that make sense? No, not at all. That's a very simple fix, folks. The math is simple. Raise the social security ceiling from 140 or $144,000 to a million if you make a million dollars in salary. We're not talking about return on investments, we're not talking about all those other revenue generating elements in your stock, in your portfolio, just salary. You could salvage social security, you could lower their retirement age, you could increase benefits. Why isn't Kamala Harris talking about that? Well, because as son Ray says, if we hold her accountable, they will send her the, oh, that's not one. (01:05:03): Oh, I'm sorry. It was JJ Mars who says the American oligarchs will never allow it. Well, JJ Mars, that's why I'm saying it's not about what the oligarchs will allow. It's about what you as American people and voters and constituents will demand so that a candidate cannot come forward and win unless they commit to doing that. And then you have to ensure that the members of Congress understand if that doesn't happen, they no longer have jobs. See, I'm not going to concede this to the American oligarchs. If I were doing that, then I'm wasting my time talk. I've wasted an hour and six minutes of my day talking to you. I could be playing golf. I could be a shaan right now on number seven, teeing off on number seven. It's beautiful outside, right? Shit, it's 80 degrees outside. (01:06:12): So jj, if I'm going to concede that to the oligarchs, then why have I been sitting here doing this? I'm about to fight, man. JI don't know if you're male or female, so please forgive me. I'm about to fight. I'm about to struggle. I'm about kicking ass and taking names. I'm not throwing the towel in because I'm going to succeed or die trying. The Powell memo, Sherry, what was the Powell memo and the chamber? Okay, Louis Powell, former Supreme Court Justice before Lewis Powell was nominated and appointed to the Supreme Court, Lewis Powell was the chairman or president, I don't remember the title of the National Chamber of Commerce. He was out of Richmond, Virginia. And Powell wrote what has now become known as the Powell Memo in, I want to say in the mid seventies. And the crux of the Powell memo was corporate America. Remember, he was the chairman or the president of the National Chamber of Commerce. (01:07:43): It was his position that corporate America had to get more involved in American politics, that corporate America had to invest more money into candidates, had to invest more money into parties, had to invest more money into the machinery. Sherry, thank you, 1972, had to invest more money into the machinery of the American political process in order to ensure that their corporate interests prevailed in the legislative system. And so that's how you now wind up with, oh, shoot, I'm drawing a blank on the Supreme Court case that now comes out and says that corporations are people too, and that corporations have interest and voices that should be allowed, and you can now contribute ungodly amounts of money into the American political system. Corporations can donate all this money to candidates. Thank you. Thank you, Zach. The Citizens United Case. Thank you. That's how you wind up with the Citizens United case. (01:09:20): And Sherry, I'm glad you No, I'm not talking about Elon Musk, jj. I'm talking about talking Powell. But look at how long it took. It took from 72, I think this is right to 2010 for the Citizens United case to be passed however many years that is. See, they play it for the long game. Powell writes this memo in 72, gets a Supreme Court case validating that position in 2010. Look at how long it took. They play it for the long game. We play it. I wouldn't even say for the short game. We play it. We play it an inning. We're happy with an inning at a time. They're looking at series. (01:10:23): So hopefully, Sherry, does that answer your question about the Powell memo and what has also become, well, some call it the Powell Doctrine. Others associate the Powell Doctrine with General Colin Powell and the You break it, you own it thing. But anyway, do I think Trump and Harris are both fascists? Yes. Yes. Yes. And how so? Because look at the industrialists that are actually controlling the policies, and what does Kamala Harris say? We are going to have the most, she didn't use the word dominant. I can't remember, Sherry. Oh, yes, sir. I have a PhD. Well, you know what, Sherry, to that point, PhD, my son says, it means two things piled higher and deeper, and it also means, please help dad. Anyway. (01:11:36): Now, what was I talking about? Oh, fascism. It's the corporate interests controlling policy and using the police force slash military in order to support it domestically and internationally. And so I believe that Trump is just a more vocal fascist than Kamala Harris, but I believe that she's just as fascist as the rest of 'em, as Barack Obama was, as well as was George. I mean, I don't see how you get to the exalted position of president without being a fascist, because that's one of the basis of American foreign policy is fascism. You can put a, okay, to those of you that are now up in arms, Wilmer, how can you call Kamala Harris a fascist? She's a kinder, gentler, fascist. Remember in a more attractive fascist. Remember George HW Bush and his kinder, gentler conservatism. Remember that? Well, we are now dealing with a kinder, gentler fascism. So let me look to wrap this up for now. (01:13:24): Anybody but Trump, I believe that whole mantra ignores the fact as a US president that he's a functionary. A US president is a functionary of the United States government. An American president is a functionary of the interests of the elite. Look at Trump's position on Venezuela. It was the same as the Biden administration. Both Democrat and Republican administrations have had policies that included US interference and other Central American and South American countries. Trump's position on tax cuts and cuts to social programs builds upon tax policy and social policy cuts from previous administrations. Remember Bill Clinton and ending welfare as we know it. (01:14:18): And remember, Obama's failed grand bargain. Again, folks, I'm not talking with you now saying that any candidate is the right choice or the wrong choice. I'm merely asking you, what do we get for our loyalty? What do you get for your vote? Do you get more hope without substantive and systemic change? What do you get by settling for the status quo through the willful ignorance of supporting a candidate that has a proven track record on issues that aren't in the best interest of the American people that aren't in the best interest of the African-American community? We, as Baldwin said, are merely making peace with mediocrity without substantive systemic change. Are we believing that we are really what the white world calls a nigger? (01:15:34): This should never become our reality. So with that, let me say to all of you all that have invested the last hour and 15 minutes of your morning with me, with us, my phenomenal, phenomenal producer, melody Graves. I would not be able to do any of this without her. Let me see. S one. All we can hope for is a president that will give us the softest landing for this dying empire. Create your own strategy to save you and your loved ones as many others as you are able to do. You're absolutely right. Oh, oh, oh, oh, right. Who do I think is going to win the election? Thank you for bringing me back to that. This is what I see you ready. (01:16:34): I believe that either at the end of Tuesday night or early Wednesday morning, the 47th president of the United States is going to be Kamala Harris. I believe it's going, and I've consulted with a former classmate of mine, Dr. Bari Jahi, who's a brilliant, brilliant brother, and I agree. The numbers will be around 2 93 Harris, 2 45 Trump. Remember, you need two 70 to win. I don't even think Trump's going to win the popular vote. He got 75 million votes against Biden. I don't think he'll get 75 million this time. It could go to three 19 Harris, because I think that she's going to win North Carolina and I believe that she's going to win Arizona so she could go as high as three 19 or three 20. This hate fest, racist diatribe 2024 that he held in New York, I think did him incredible damage, and what he said Thursday yesterday about Liz Cheney, I think it is going to do him incredible damage. Also, I don't believe that the polling numbers that we're seeing, excuse me, I don't believe that the polling numbers are anywhere near accurate. I think you're, if you look at the polls, I think you're being sold a pig and a poke. (01:18:41): Remember, I forget the year in the first Obama campaign, the polling and all of the analysts and everybody, la, and everybody was telling us that Mitt Romney was going to defeat Barack Obama and that Romney was going to win by seven to nine points. Didn't happen even election night. They were still talking about Romney seven to nine point victory didn't happen. Their polling is skewed. Some of it is intentional, some of it is inherent in the systemic nature of it. Let me go through these real quickly. Please tell you who, doctor, please tell me this live will be uploaded. It will be so you can watch it again, Jackie. Thank you. Sandra believes Kamala will win as well. Trump wins with 300. Okay, Zach, we'll see. You say Trump wins with 300 plus, it might happen. Let's see, jj, whoever wins will not be able to complete their four year term. I can't speak to that. I can't predict the future. My crystal ball right now, unfortunately, is in the shop. (01:20:08): Sherry, I will not be voting for Harris or Trump. Okay? There are viable third parties out there, and when you think third party, you got to think long game, which I think if you really want to send a message, if you really want to have a vote protest, let the elite see a significant increase in support for third parties, and I think that'll do this. Democracy and incredible service, big C. Hey, you want to thank me for my brilliant commentary? Oh, brilliant. You're too kind. I think you just need to get out more. You believe Harris will win. Okay, so with all that and a bag of chips, here's what I want to do. I got to thank you all so much for listening, for participating in the Connecting the Dots podcast, this live podcast, we are going live, and I hope to start it next week, but there'll be more posted on that one. (01:21:07): Thank you again for listening to the Connecting the Dots podcast with me, Dr. Wier Leon. Stay tuned for new episodes, hopefully every day Monday through Friday. Please follow and subscribe. Leave a review. Folks, we're going live that costs and it costs big. I need help. I need your help. Leave a review. Share the show. Follow me. Follow us. Again, without the wonderful, brilliant Melody Graves, I would just be sitting here talking to myself. You can follow us on social media. You can find all the links below in the show description. Remember that this is where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge, because talk without analysis is just chatter. I don't chatter here. We don't chatter here on Connecting the dots. Tomorrow. Saturday, my show Inside The Issues with Wilmer Leon on SiriusXM 1 26, urban View, 11 to two. Got a great lineup for y'all tomorrow. Check it out. You'll be really interested and surprised, and folks, I'm going to see you again next time. Until then, I am Dr. Wilmer Leon. Have a great, great one. Peace. I'm out Announcer (01:22:28): Connecting the dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge.    

Loretta Lynch, former Attorney General under Barack Obama, joins other ex-U.S. government officials in being paid for allegedly betraying American interests. Lynch collaborates with DJI, China's largest drone manufacturer known for producing weaponized drones for the CCP. Similarly, Chevron profits heavily by continuing oil production for Venezuelan dictator Nicholas Maduro, despite the controversy following Venezuela's disputed election. #LorettaLynch #BarackObama #DJI #China #weaponizeddrones #CCP #Chevron #NicholasMaduro #Venezuela Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I denne episoden tar styremedlem og podkast-ansvarlig Ingeborg Heggdal en prat med professor Benedicte Bull om situasjonen i Venezuela. Episoden tar for seg presidentvalget i juli, hvordan sittende president Nicholas Maduro har klart å konsolidere makten sin og overgangen fra demokrati til autokrati i Venezuela. I tillegg prøver Benedicte å tegne et bilde av landets forhold til USA og hvordan det amerikanske presidentvalget i november kan påvirke dette. Til slutt ser vi litt fremover og prøver å predikere hvilken betydning valget av Maduro har å si for Venezuelas fremtid og dets forhold til resten av det søramerikanske kontinentet. Vi setter stor pris på alle som lytter og kommer med innspill- har du ris, ros eller forslag til andre temaer vi kan dekke i podcasten så send oss veldig gjerne en mail på oslo@yata.no. God lytting fra oss i YATA Oslo!

#NewWorldReport: Venezuela Nicholas Maduro posts arrest warrant for Argentina Javier Milei and his sister and security minister.  Joseph Humire @JMHumire @SecureFreeSoc. Ernesto Araujo, Former Foreign Minister Republic of Brazil. #NewWorldReportHumire 1939 Argentina

President Nicholas Maduro's rival in the disputed Venezuelan election, Edmundo Gonzalez, has fled to Spain and claimed political asylum. Also: tips for tourists to North Korea, and the actor Kate Winslet on body image.

In this episode of The PDB Afternoon Bulletin:    A dramatic scene out of Turkey, where a mob of Turkish nationalists assaulted two US Marines on Monday as they chanted “Yankee go home” and accused America of crimes against Palestinians. An update out of Venezuela, where dictator Nicholas Maduro has ordered the arrest of his chief political rival as he deepens his crackdown on the opposition following the country's widely disputed presidential election. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President's Daily Brief by visiting PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The PDB Afternoon Bulletin. Email: PDB@TheFirstTV.com.  Patriot Gold: https://www.patriotgoldgroup.com Say Mike Baker sent you. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

*Guest Hosts: Leah Murray & Rusty Cannon The nation of Venezuela is reeling after their disputed election that, so far, is keeping their president Nicholas Maduro in power. There have been widespread claims of fraud in this election that is keeping the ruling regime in power. What is next for this country, and how will it affect the U.S.? Ana Rosa Quintana from the Vandenberg Coalition joins the show.

The USA's 2024 general election is less than 12 weeks away. In politics, things can change overnight. Months ago, the Democrats were weighted down with the unpopularity of an aging Joe Biden and his Bidenomics. In a matter of weeks, President Trump survived an attempted assassination and Joe Biden suddenly withdrew from the race. His unpopular Vice President, Kamala Harris, was quickly anointed as his replacement. Overnight, the news media declared that Kamala Harris' popularity was soaring. Mrs. Harris had a dilemma. She could not run on the merits of Bidenomics. She had to come up with a plan to undo 4 years of inflation. The Vice President's advisors gave her a plan that borders on plagiarizing Nicholas Maduro's communism. If you believe the polls, half of the American public loves it. Rick Wiles checks in with trends expert Gerald Celente to get his perspective on the mood of the American electorate.  Gerald is the publisher of Trends Journal, a publication that Rick has read for many years.     Rick Wiles, Doc Burkhart, Gerald Celente. Airdate 08/19/2024Listen to this FULL show:https://www.trunews.com/video-article/channeling-nicolas-maduro-gerald-celente-and-rick-wiles-discuss-vp-harris-s-economic-planJoin the leading community for Conservative Christians! https://www.FaithandValues.comIf you're a Faith & Values member, listen to today's show with other members here:https://members.faithandvalues.com/posts/aug-19-2024-channeling-nicolas-maduro-gerald-celente-and-rick-wiles-discuss-vp-harriss-economic-planYou can partner with us by visiting https://www.TruNews.com/donate, calling 1-800-576-2116, or by mail at PO Box 399 Vero Beach, FL 32961.Get high-quality emergency preparedness food today from American Reserves!https://www.AmericanReserves.comIt's the Final Day! The day Jesus Christ bursts into our dimension of time, space, and matter. Now available in eBook and audio formats! Order Final Day from Amazon today!https://www.amazon.com/Final-Day-Characteristics-Second-Coming/dp/0578260816/Apple users, you can download the audio version on Apple Books! https://books.apple.com/us/audiobook/final-day-10-characteristics-of-the-second-coming/id1687129858Purchase the 4-part DVD set or start streaming Sacrificing Liberty today.https://www.sacrificingliberty.com/watchThe Fauci Elf is a hilarious gift guaranteed to make your friends laugh! Order yours today!https://tru.news/faucielf

Large opposition rallies in Venezuela, as opposition leader Maria Machado calls for the details of the presidential elections - which the opposition claim President Nicholas Maduro lost – to be published. Also in the programme; Indian doctors strike to protest the murder of a woman colleague; and a new play sheds light on the life of the rock icon, Janis Joplin.(Photo: Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Machado greeting her supporters in a rally in Caracas. Credit: Shutterstock)

Friday Focus provides listeners with a focused, half-hour masterclass on the big issues, events and trends driving the news and current events. The show features Janice Gross Stein, the founding director of the Munk School of Global Affairs and bestselling author, in conversation with Rudyard Griffiths, Chair and moderator of the Munk Debates. The following is a sample of the Munk Debates' weekly current affairs podcast, Friday Focus. As Israel waits for a response from Tehran following the assisination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, Rudyard and Janice discuss the possibility of a last minute ceasefire deal and whether a Haris/Waltz win in the US would deter Iran's nuclear ambitions and bring more stability to the region. In the second half of the show Rudyard and Janice talk about the surprising Ukrainian incursion into Russia. Can this morale booster for a beleaguered Ukrainian army turn the tide of this war?The final topic of today's show addresses a tale of two dictators: Bangladesh's autocratic leader Sheikh Hasina Wazed has been forced out, while Venezuela's Nicholas Maduro cracks down on dissent after fraudulent elections. How was one dictator able to hold on to power, while the other was forced to flee? To access full-length editions of the Friday Focus podcast consider becoming a donor to the Munk Debates for as little as $25 annually, or $.50 per episode. Canadian donors receive a charitable tax receipt. This podcast is a project of the Munk Debates, a Canadian charitable organization dedicated to fostering civil and substantive public dialogue. More information at www.munkdebates.com.

This week on Taking Stock with Joe Lynam:Big tech has often been seen as too big to be reined in by regulation but that might be changing as lawmakers are targeting well-known brands like Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta. We'll be finding out about the differing approaches being taken from both Europe and the US.As the struggle for political supremacy in Venezuela goes on, we look at the man at the centre of it all - Nicholas Maduro.Pre-pandemic it was one of the highest-margin airlines in the world but in recent times Aer Lingus has lost its position as one of IAG's top performers. Aviation journalist, Gerry Byrne joins Joe to discuss.

In this gripping episode of "Connecting the Dots," Dr. Wilmer Leon and two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist Jon Jeter expose the Democratic Party's desperate reliance on voters of color to save them from political collapse.   Find me and the show on social media. Click the following links or search @DrWilmerLeon on X/Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Patreon and YouTube! Hey everyone, Dr. Wilmer here! If you've been enjoying my deep dives into the real stories behind the headlines and appreciate the balanced perspective I bring, I'd love your support on my Patreon channel. Your contribution helps me keep "Connecting the Dots" alive, revealing the truth behind the news. Join our community, and together, let's keep uncovering the hidden truths and making sense of the world. Thank you for being a part of this journey!   FULL TRANSCRIPT: Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:00:00): I have two questions. The first question, has the Democratic Party committed suicide by biting the black hands that feed it? Here's the second question. Has the African-American community allowed itself to be taken for granted and thereby taken advantage of Jon Jeter (00:00:25): Connecting the dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge? Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:00:32): Welcome to the Connecting the Dots podcast with Dr. Wilmer Leon. I'm Wilmer Leon. Here's the point. We have a tendency to view current events as though they happen in a vacuum, failing to understand the broader historical context in which a lot of these events occur. During each episode, my guests and I have probing, provocative, and in-depth discussions that connect the dots between these events and the broader historic context in which they occur. This enables you to better understand and analyze the events that impact the global village in which we live. Black Agenda report has a piece entitled How the Democratic Party Committed Suicide by Biting the Black Hands That Feed It On today's episode. The issues before us are, as I stated at the top, has the party in fact committed suicide and has the African-American community allowed itself to be taken for granted and thereby to advantage of for insight into this? (00:01:35): And for answers to these questions, let's turn to my guest. He's a former foreign correspondent for the Washington Post. He's the co-author of a Day Late and a Dollar Short, dark Days and Bright Nights in Obama's post-Racial America. His work can be found at Patreon as well as Black Republic Media. He's the author of this piece. He is John Jeter brother John Jeter. Welcome back. The pleasure is all mine, brother. Thank you for having me. You opened your piece as follows, the Democratic Party dug its own grave decades ago when it began trying to siphon voters from the Republican party or the GOP by appealing to conservatives and ignoring the needs of its strong base of African-American people. If political parties were prominent people, you'd have stumbled upon this obituary. Today, the Democratic Party, one half of America's longstanding ruling duopoly, and the author of political movements as disparate as Jim Crow and the New Deal died Wednesday, July 24. It was 196 sources said the cause was suicide following along illness. John, that's incredibly, incredibly creative. I've gone through the coroner's report. I can't make heads nor tails when it comes to the cause of Speaker 3 (00:02:58): Death. Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:02:59): So what was the cause of death on July 24th? Speaker 3 (00:03:03): It sort of slit death by a thousand cuts, but slitting your throat a thousand times slowly over the years. Man, I really, that piece really meant something to me. I am, as I think you would say, you are a man of a certain age and I remember very clearly Jesse Jackson's 1984 and 88 campaigns for President. I remember the energy and the excitement. I remember, even though I was just in my teens and early twenties, I remember that it was electric, those campaigns. And then I remember Bill Clinton running for president and I voted for Bill Clinton. But I remember thinking, I remember holding my nose while I voted because I remember Bill Clinton lecturing Jesse Jackson about Sister Soldier lecturing black people going to black church, lecturing black people about how we have failed Martin Luther King. And I didn't quite understand it other than I thought, well, bill Clinton is like most white people I know, racists most, not all the most. (00:04:13): And I just wrote it off as that when I was a young journalist at the Detroit Free Press. Later, I got to Washington the same time as Bill Clinton In 1993, January of 1993, I got to the Washington Post, and it sort of dawned on me over the years, particularly as I heard democratic presidents and democratic candidates for President repeat these same tropes scolding black people. I remember, and I was in a very different place at this point, but I remember Barack Obama talking down the black people in a way that just really offended me, scolding black fathers for their failure to raise their kids when a study at that time had been produced, which showed that black men who are separated from their families are actually better parents, actually spend more quality time with their kids than any other ethnic group. Barack Obama telling a black church, I believe it was in South Carolina, that a good plan for economic development would be to stop throwing Popeye's chicken wrappers out of your car window, right? (00:05:23): Just the infantilization of the black voting block, black electorate. And it struck me that this is by design. They're talking to white people. And then this is only in the last few years where I read David Roder, the labor economist, labor, labor historian, I'm sorry, who wrote about the Reagan Democrats in Michigan, who we elected the blue collar white workers who we elected Ronald Reagan, president who crossed over to elect Ronald Reagan president. And how his polling showed that their main motivation was race or racism, I should say. They did not like black people. They defined black people as pulling down the party. And they divided Democrats as people who catered to blacks who were lazy welfare, all the tropes that were popularized by, built by Ronald Reagan. And it struck me that the Democrats in 92, the astrophysicists, I believe they talk about solar systems that are so distant, you can't see the sun, but you can tell by the movement of the planets that there is indeed a solar system by the movement of the stars and the planets that there is indeed a sun there, that it is indeed a solar system. (00:06:43): No one really wrote it down really. Although the poster Stanley Stanley, I can't remember his name now, but the post of the Greenberg for the Democrats, he came close, but we can see by their actions that the Democrats in 1992 especially were wrestling with how to win the White House after they had been exiled by 12 years of Republican rule. And they decided they chose between Jesse Jackson's campaign, which was trying to reunite that New Deal coalition, tenuous as it was, but it was still a new deal, coalition of black and white workers, and then Ronald Reagan's approach, which was to basically return to the old Southern Democrats, George Wallace, basically, and refusing to be out in worded right, keeping up this racist animosity and resentment. Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:07:40): I think that was Strom Thurman who originally made that quote, I will never be. Right. Speaker 3 (00:07:45): Right. That's right. That's right. Yeah. George Wallace took it to another level, and I think that that has been the Democrat's problem ever since. And you would think a child could have told them, this is not going to work well for you to antagonize purposefully your base, but this is the moment we're in where you see the Democrats, it's almost like a circus, a dog and pony show where Democrats spend four years openly denouncing or renouncing their black base and then in the election year trying to make up for it, trying to gin up the black vote. It is almost like this awkward dance that they're doing. And now we're seeing the culmination, because this has been going on pretty much for the last 30 years. I think Obama was the Navy or the Zenith, depending on how you want to look at it. But I think that it's really run its course. I think it's possible Kamala Harris can win this election, but even if that is the case after four years in office, the Democrats are a spent force. They can't continue this dance. Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:08:52): So to those who would say, well, wait a minute, John, how can you say that the party is biting the hand that feeds it when you've had a President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2017, and they are set as we assume that when they come out of their convention in a couple of weeks, that Kamala Harris will be the nominee for 2024. So how do you answer those folks who say, well, they're not taking us for granted. Let's assume that she wins in November. They've had two African American presidents. We could talk about African Jamaican, but we'll just put Kamala in the box over 20 year span, Speaker 3 (00:09:48): And they've completely ignored, completely frustrated black demands, right? You think about Kamala Harris. Well, Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:09:57): Barack Obama told us we didn't make any demands, which is why we didn't get anything. When he was asked that question. His answer was, you didn't demand anything. Yeah. Speaker 3 (00:10:06): And I would have to say, he's actually got to give the devil this dude. He was right on that one. Hey, look, the 2008, what they did, what the Democrats did in pushing Barack Obama passed Hillary Clinton was a stroke of genius. It really was. They had the perfect candidate to whip up to generate this black excitement, excitement in the black community, which at that same time, they were ripping off through these subprime mortgages, right, which were disproportionately aimed at blacks, black homeowners. And what they did by pushing Obama to the fore, the Democrats, I'm talking about bringing blacks, gin up the black vote, getting blacks excited about someone who at that point, Barack just didn't have much of a record for serving the black community. But he went on in his eight years in office to openly excoriate sc disappoint the black community. And in fact, I think you could argue that in terms of black people, I'm 59, I'll be 60 years old in January. (00:11:12): I would argue that Barack Obama has been the worst president in my lifetime for blacks. What I mean by that is the opportunity that he had in 2008 during the Great Recession, the opportunity that he had to actually begin to redistribute, and I'm not talking about socialism or communism. I'm talking about just redistributing wealth, just shaving off a portion of that onerous debt that many of us had accrued through these illegal, that's not my term, that's the FBI term illegal loans, fraudulent loans that the lenders made, and he could have shaved off proportion of that debt revived consumer buying power as we speak. We're talking, we're in the midst of the Wall Street, has seen a week really of decline. And the reasons, because Barack Obama set this in motion by not responding to the asset bubble in 2008, that asset bubble popped. (00:12:14): Usually how you deal with an asset bubble is you shave off a portion of the debt and you put people in jail to disincentivize a fraud, but you shave off a portion of the debt because that will revive buying power. Barack Obama didn't do that. He actually threw more money at the lenders. And so right now we don't have body power and who's leading that? African American. So I say that to say, to answer your question, that the blacks who have been candidates for high office, particularly for the White House, have been put there because they will participate. They will join in on this dance of scolding black people for the benefit of the white vote, and then doing this dance, this sort of vaudevillian kind of act where they, every four years talk about what they've done for the black community, what they're going to do for the black community, how much they love black people. (00:13:11): And I think it's run its course. I feel that it's run its course. And let me just end with this. And I really do believe that the legacy of Barack Obama, we've always had class tension within the black community. Now I think we're going to see the eruption of a real civil war, a real class war within the black community where the black elected officials are very much like conservatives and very much like white liberals. I think we're getting to a point now where we're going to see that the fault lines are very sharply drawn and the black elected officials, black celebrities, van Jones and Jay-Z and Bakari Sellers, that all these people are going to be seen as class enemies to the working class black community and the people who are its allies. Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:13:57): A couple of things. One, you mentioned the asset bubble and former President Obama giving the money back, basically bailing out the banks and not bailing out the homeowners. And I remember because to your point, that would've been the move. Don't give the money to the banks, deal with the loans, and that way you would've enabled people to stay in their homes. You would've been able to maintain the integrity of a number of neighborhoods, even down to the level of public schools and public school budgets because they get their money from property taxes by maintaining the value of property. There are a whole lot of things, a whole lot of benefits that would've come from that action. Instead of giving the money to the banksters, give the money to the homeowners. And I remember a press conference where former President Obama was asked why he did it the way he did it. And his answer was, and I remember this very clearly, his answer was, I didn't expect the banks to do this. People were asking him, why hasn't the money that you've given to the banks been loaned out? Why hasn't that money been distributed to the communities in need? And he said, I didn't expect the banks to do that. I said, well, man, that's what banks do, Speaker 3 (00:15:23): And maybe you shouldn't have run for president if you don't have that kind of understanding of finance. Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:15:27): Well, but that's the same guy that told the Banksters, I'm the one standing between you and the people with the pitch for us. Speaker 3 (00:15:32): Right? Right. And I believe it was in that same interview, I believe it was where he said that the reason he didn't bail out the homeowners who had been defrauded of their homes to these subprime mortgages, he said he didn't want to invite moral hazard. Well, moral hazard is exactly what he invited. But on behalf of the banks, not on behalf Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:15:52): Of, oh, see, I thought he said Merrill haggard not moral hazard. My bad. I thought he didn't like country and western music. I'm glad. I'm glad you straighten that out for me. And the other thing you mentioned about former President Obama, and what I assume we're going to see from Vice President Harris is they have, I call it menstrual diplomacy. They are being used to sell imperialism and neoliberalism. And because it's coming from them, because Kamala Harris was selling us invading Haiti along with Linda Thomas Greenfield and so many, but because it was black people selling it, then there must not be anything wrong with it. We must be able to go ahead and accept it because of who it is that's selling it to us. I want to read another paragraph from your piece wherein you write, you write, it's important, however, to view Biden as a vital organ to a larger body politic that finally flatlined after failing to address a chronic illness, akin say to a diabetic eating Big Max every day for the past 30 years, Biden does not in fact owe his failed reelection bid to senility, though his cognitive decline is apparent. (00:17:24): But to his party's strategic decision three decades ago, to compete with Ronald Reagan's, GOP for racist, white suburban voters, white suburban voters, by openly repudiating the Democrats electoral base of African-Americans. And that gets to what you just opened with. But I also think it's important for people to understand that by taking us for granted and by allowing ourselves to be taken for granted, the Democrats know we're not going anywhere. And so that enables them to speak to a lot of issues while actually appealing to that white middle class male voter because they don't want to appear to be a party that's too black. They don't want to appear to be a party that's catering to black people. John Che. Speaker 3 (00:18:23): No, that's exactly right. I think I ride with black people. I rock with black people. I will to the day I die, particularly the black working class. My father was a UAW member. And as much as the unions are fraught with racism, I still claim the working class. That's the class I was born into in the class I will die in. Although if I hit the lottery, I guess I'll be a Cadillac Communist at that point. Maybe. In Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:18:50): Fact, really quickly, really simply, the CIO was we got the AFL CIO because the A FL was racist and okay, Speaker 3 (00:19:03): Yeah, that's exactly right. And then the CIO turned racist. But that's another story. But no, this is really a choice that the Democrats made, which just shows how unimagined they were. If they had followed Jesse Jackson's model pulling more and more people, which by the way was what RFK planned to do before he was assassinated, was to pull more and more people into the tech, younger people, it's very conceivable they would've never have lost an election over the last 30 years. Right? It's very conceivable. We have 110, a hundred million voters at least every year who are eligible to vote, who don't vote. Pulling those people in more of those people in by giving them something to vote for would be a winning strategy, a sustainable strategy. The Democrats just relied on their own. They just reverted to reform, right? Racist Democrats like Bill Clinton, like Ben Pitchfork, Tillman, that's who they're, and they can't sort of snap out of that. (00:20:10): And so now they're stuck. They're stuck with this dance. It's very awkward dance, performative blackness. That's what Barack Obama is. That's what Kamala Harris, they perform, but they're not radical black political actors because if they were, and we have to bear some of the responsibility for this failure. We black people who have historically been the most sophisticated voters in the United States since they ran Barack Obama, we have for some reason forgotten that we have agency in this that if just sit and wait four years to go cast a ballot for whoever they put up for us to vote, that we might well be buried under a ton of ash, like some lost city of Pompeii or whatever. Because our parents and our grandparents knew much like they did in Chicago with Harold Washington, they faced the same dilemma. The Democrats just basically crapping on them and then asked them for their vote. (00:21:17): And they decided in 1982 that, oh, well, we'll just get our own candidate to run. And they got Harold Washington. They drove each other to the polls, they registered voters. They raised money even though they didn't have much. They raised money and they got him by the finish line right now, it won't look the same way now probably. But the point is that they used their imagination. They didn't just sit there and say, oh, well, this is who we got to vote for. They did something about, they demonstrated their own agency. We need to get back to that. But lemme just say this too, on that point, I do feel though that this isn't a way, a culmination of what Malcolm said when he said, I think there will be another civil war in this country, but it won't be black versus white. There'd be the haves versus the havenots. (00:22:01): And I believe we are getting closer to that. You see now these campus protests that emerged over the spring, which were led by the vanguard of which was Jewish people and Arab people and black people, I think that's going to be the coming revolution where we see what's happening in Gaza, rightfully so, has become the moral center of the universe. But that cause Gaza, which of course does not speak well with Kamala Harris, that cause I believe is going to intersect. We already see it intersecting with other causes. Cop city in Atlanta, right, the Jim Crow justice system. We see it intersecting with these other causes. That's how revolutions are born. So I say all that to say that I think that the Democrats are going to be on the wrong side of history. I think this deal, they struck this Carthage Genian peace deal that black Democrats have struck with the party. I think that it has run its courts and the people no longer have any use for it. I don't know if Trump or Ka Harris is going to be the next president, but I know that the American people are going to lose either way. Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:23:12): And I think evidence to what it is that you've just articulated in terms of this confluence of interest between Jewish Americans, between Arab Americans and African Americans, we're seeing now how Republicans are taking control at the electoral board level, the local electoral board level. They are now denying elections. They are now failing to certify elections. And this is something that people need to pay very, very close attention to because they are gaining control of the apparatus itself. And when they get control of the apparatus itself, then that's going to make our challenges even that much more difficult in terms of challenges, in terms of electoral politics, is going to make our challenges even harder to be successful at when you have members of election boards that fail to certify elections, not because they find wrongdoing in the process, but simply because the candidate that they backed. Look at Donald Trump gave this speech. He was in Atlanta today, I think it was Sunday or Monday, and he's pointing to people in the crowd that are at his campaign rally who are members of the county Boards of Election, and he's applauding them and lauding them for how loyal they are to his efforts. Speaker 3 (00:24:48): Oh, wow. I did not realize that. And that's very dangerous because these elections, these presidential elections tend to be battles of attrition who can do more to turn to vote, which means that they're very slim margins. So I mean, if Donald Trump has a little bit of leverage with the elections board in Milwaukee and Detroit and Philadelphia, you might as well hand the presidency over to him now. So this is something else. Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:25:17): Well, and that's why he is saying, Christians, after this election, you won't need to vote. I mean, he is saying to people, oh, I've got this. I don't even need your vote. I've got this. And after this election, you won't need to vote. And that goes back to, and I think this went over the heads of a lot of folks. His key advisor, the guy that's in jail now went to jail. Speaker 3 (00:25:50): Oh, baton. Baton. Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:25:51): Steve Baton said, our objective is the deconstruction of the administrative state. Steve Bannon was very, very clear about Trump's objective is to deconstruct the administrative state. And I don't think many people paid attention to that. And that is what we see with the January 6th attack on the Capitol with they're getting their talons into local boards of election with this whole project 2025, which isn't new. It's all wine in new bottles. But all of those things are culminating with the Donald Trump. Speaker 3 (00:26:44): Yeah, no, it's really a historic time. We don't know how it's going to turn out. But I mean, if you look at the situation on the ground and Nazi Germany, say in 1934, it'd be very similar to what we're seeing now with this demagogue clearly rising up. And then you see all the other parties in Germany, although we only have one here in the United States, you see all the other parties sort of seeding that ground to this demagogue and the people who support him. And that's shaping up here. And the Democrat, again, it could be an opportunity for the Democrats to actually say, okay, we're going to step in and we're going to restore democracy, but they don't really care about democracy. How do we know the same people who are complaining about January 6th? And the Trump supporters who wanted to overturn the election just announced that the winner of the election in Venezuela is the guy who came in second passed the post, right? (00:27:38): And then the silliness. Well, we believe that the election was stolen. The Carter Center, Jimmy Carter has called the elections in Venezuela, the freest and fairest he has ever observed. Correct. National lawyers, gu, when they're now, and they said, no, this election is fine, but we're going to say that this guy who's a conservative in a country that is 13% black, and probably half of them are of mixed race, we're going to say this white conservative went in there and over and basically beat the socialist party, the Olaine revolution that has been in power since 1998. And not just beat 'em, but beat 'em by 34 percentage points, I Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:28:22): Believe. Now, I was calling this out months ago, and folks, you need to really understand this, and there are numerous, if you go to Oroco Tribune or you go to venezuelan analysis.com, you'll find plenty of articles on this. So the United States started backing the Russian, the Venezuelan conservative candidate, marina Machado Speaker 3 (00:28:50): Machado, Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:28:52): And then she was convicted by the Venezuelan Supreme Court and found to have been basically an unregistered foreign agent. She was operating, I think, on behalf of Peru, I think it was Peru, against the interest of Venezuela. So they said, you are, because you have been operating as this agent for another country against Venezuelan interests, you can't run in the election. So the United States started backing her, knowing she couldn't run, and then they found the Gonzalez, the guy that replaced her, but he's basically her mouthpiece. And I was saying all along the United States is backing her, knowing she can't win, and then backing Gonzalez, knowing he can't win, so that when they lose, they will claim the election was fraud. And that's exactly, now here's the problem. So the United States goes in to Venezuela and they try to ment civil unrest the same way that Victoria Newland went into Madan Square. (00:30:12): That's right. And overthrew the democratically elected government in Ukraine leading us to where we are now in Ukraine. The difference between, or one of the differences between Ukraine and Venezuela, or a couple differences. One, the people are armed. There is a armed popular militia that when the bell rings, or as George Clinton would say, when the horn blow, you better be ready to go. They come in the street packing. In fact, we know this, when we had what we call the Bay of Piglets, about a year and a half ago, some American mercenaries tried to float their way into Venezuela, and they were stopped by a group of Venezuelan fishermen that arrested these guys damn near killed them, but exposed them for trying to come into the country to overthrow the government. So you've got a very strong citizen, heavily armed citizen militia in Venezuela. And here's the other thing. It's not about Maduro. No, it's about the Bolivarian revolution. Speaker 3 (00:31:28): That's right. That's right. Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:31:28): These folks are Speaker 3 (00:31:32): Right. Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:31:33): Ugo Chavez is the man. So they see Maduro not as Maduro. They see Maduro as an agent of the revolution. Speaker 3 (00:31:46): That's right. That's right. Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:31:47): I'll make one more statement about this because you know more about this than I do. I'm going to make this point. This is hyperbole, but I want to say they would say, Nicholas Maduro be damned. It's about the revolution. It's not about him as an individual. And so long as he stays true to the revolution, they will stay true to him. When they see him deviate, he's done. Speaker 3 (00:32:17): I could not agree with you more. I have not stepped foot in Venezuela in 20 years, although I talked to people who are still on the ground there every once in a while. I'm going to tell you something, man, I have never seen, and I've lived in South Africa, I've been through most of Africa, through half of South America. I've never seen France. Nan talked about the need for revolutions make to create the new man, the new woman, a different consciousness. I'm not sure I ever knew what that meant until I went to Venezuela. They really have a different consciousness. Now, I'm going to be honest with you. I think a lot of that was Hugo Chavez. I mean, it really does come down, man. He was as brilliant. I've met Mandela, who I think highly of. I met Mugabi. I never met a man who's more charismatic, more powerful, more visionary than he was. (00:33:09): Robert, I met later in life. I don't know what he was like earlier. Same with Mandela. But Chavez was visionary, and I so have to say that so much of this revolution is doing his understanding. When the United States organized a coup in 2002, the people, they weren't as well armed. They didn't have the malicious then, although some of them had armed the people because the government, the news media, which was controlled by the wealthy, the oligarchs in Venezuela, they told the people that Hugo Chavez is on the beach and she would kicking it with Fidel Castro. The people had these hammer radios. They got on the ham radio and said, nah, that ain't what happened. He would never abandon us like that. I think he's a mirror for us. Let's go get 'em mostly with pots and pan. And you can look at, there's a documentary, I can't remember the name of the documentary. (00:33:58): It's black women who were in the front pots and pans, and look, you're going to give him back. Right? And they did. Right. It took a couple days. It took a little while, right? About two days, right. Cause like I said, they mostly just had pots and pan. But thank God back. Now, look, I think that the vote, which was the closest, it's been, I think in 28 and 20, 26 years now, the vote just a little bit beyond 50% from Mad Gerald. I think it was 53. I want to say it was like 53, 46 or something like that. Yeah, I saw 51 to 44, but something like that. But anyway, it's a diminished margin. I mean, they have had inflation. These sanctions have taken an effect. And I know the people I talked to on the ground, I lived in Ecuador for a year or so a few years ago, and you saw more and more people coming to Ecuador who were disillusioned with the BOLO volume revolution. (00:34:52): And these are people who would've been supportive, people who were of color, mestizos, no blacks, but mestizos. Anyway, so I do think that it's lost a little bit of its luster. But this is what I know, they did not put up a right wing candidate was talking about taking Venezuela back to what it was in 1989 before what they call, I think they called the characters Z. When the president basically told the Venezuela one day we're not going to convert to neoliberalism and ratchet up the bus prices and all that. And the next day they went to work and the bus prices had doubled. And so there was this ride, and that's what produced hug job is. So what I'm saying is that there's a of the Venezuelan voter, the average Venezuelan, I wish we had it here in the United States because they understand as Fred, I know you're going to get sick of me quoting Fred Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:35:47): Hampton. Right? I'll never get sick of you quoting Fred Hampton. Speaker 3 (00:35:50): But it's like the Venezuelans understand. I wish we understood it. I wish you peace if you willing to fight for it. The Venezuelans, they live by that, right? And so, I don't know. I can't tell you, the United States is very powerful, even though we're a diminished force, I can't tell you they'll always be able to hold off the United States, but they're going to have to fight them for Venezuela. Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:36:10): So we started this with your piece, how the Democratic Party committed suicide by biting the hands that feed it. And the way that we got to this discussion about Venezuela was a discussion about democracy and how Joe Biden tells us democracy is on the ballot. And Kamala Harris, the democracy is on the ballot. And Donald Trump democracy, we ought to protect democracy while we're going around the world, overthrowing democracies. That's why we're fighting in Vene in Ukraine because the United States overthrew the democratically elected government. We're trying to have regime change in Russia while the Russians, you can talk about their form of government, all you want to, it is democratic by their definition. And he was democratically elected. We can talk about Syria, we can talk about what they're trying to do in China as it relates to Taiwan. We can talk about what's going on in Gaza. We keep talking about we're defending democracy in Israel, democracy for who Speaker 3 (00:37:19): Democracy. Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:37:19): You even have, there are even Jews in Israel that aren't a part of the Democratic. So that's how we, so, okay. I just wanted to kind of bring us all back to this vice President, Kamala Harris, and still use the word presumptive, because even though she got the vote she needed through the Zoom process, they're going to have a convention which I will attend as a journalist not carrying anybody's banner. Speaker 3 (00:37:56): You sure you don't have that vote blue? No banner who? Banner at home you going to take Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:38:03): No. So, okay, so now she has announced her running mate, and Tim Walsh has debuted as her VP pick in Philly. And my question to you relative to this, is the story that Harris selected Waltz to be her running mate, or is the story that she did not select Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro, as the team gets ready to kick off its five state tour, which of those, and they both could be the story, but because we kept hearing that she was going to, A lot of people thought Shapiro was going to be the pick and the fact that they were kicking off in Philly, and now they're not awkward, but which one is the story? Speaker 3 (00:39:18): Yeah, that's a great question. I have to say, if I had to bet money, if I had to bet the farm, I would say that the Democrats are going to lose this election. But I do think Waltz is probably the best choice that she could have made. Shapiro would've been catastrophic, I think just because whether exactly, whether they want to admit it or not, Zionism is on the ballot, right? Right. We know Kamala has said she's a Zionist, right? We know she's had meetings with APAC in which she has asked for it not to be recorded. She is a Zionist. She supports Israel's right to defend itself when it has no such, right? No more so than the Nazis did in Germany. Anyway. So waltz, I think really Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:40:02): Minute. Wait a minute, wait a minute. I need to say. So folks can clearly understand that you are stating that Israel does not have the right to defend itself. That statement is based upon international law, Speaker 3 (00:40:21): Law, Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:40:21): Law. Yes. You're not making this up, right. Kamala Harris coming out and saying, Israel has the right to defend itself as a prosecutor. She should know better because that's wrong. It is just, you might as well say the world is flat and the sun revolves around the earth. The world is not flat, even though when you stand out on the horizon, it looks that way. It ain't necessarily so, and the sun does not revolve around the earth. Speaker 3 (00:40:56): And the rest of the world knows this. Right? The Palestinians are an occupied people. You have the right to, that's why Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:41:02): They're called oppress occupied Speaker 3 (00:41:05): Territory's not right. International law. It's not international law. We'll Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:41:08): Continue, but I just want to be very, very clear on that point. Speaker 3 (00:41:12): Yeah. I just think it's so interesting though. I mean, it seems to me that their choice of, am I pronouncing his name right? Waltz? Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:41:20): Waltz. Waltz. Waltz. No, WALZ. Speaker 3 (00:41:24): Wall. Okay. Waltz. Okay. I think it's a concession to the anti-Zionist protests that I still think are going to be a very big factor in this convention. Chicago is home to the biggest, the largest Palestinian population in the country. And Lord knows how many black people are going to come out and support because they're protesting their mayor there who did a mini, he's a Obama Mini me ran, left, and is governing, right? So it does seem like it's like the best choice. It gives them a shot. He softens their edges, Kamala's edges, the Biden Harris administration's edges in terms of Zionism. But it softens his edges. It doesn't eliminate, from what I understand, he still supports Israel, right? Absolutely. And I don't know. Look, one thing we have to be honest about now is that the media is very much complicit in this game that the Democrats are running, and that's what it is. (00:42:26): The media is very complicit in this. And so are they going to really ask the Harris ticket, Kamala Harris' ticket to tough questions? I don't know. But you'd have to assume that somewhere between now and November that they're going to be confronted in a very public fashion with this question though. Well, what are you going to do about Israel? And that's why I see them losing this race, if nothing else. And I know that foreign policy does not often decide a presidential election, but I think given the state of the first live stream genocide in history, which Daily is bringing these unbearable images into our homes, that combined with their failure to do anything for their black base, especially black men, I have a hard time seeing a path to victory for the Democratic party. Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:43:19): Well, staying in that region. Another thing that folks, you got to stay tuned because these dynamics are changing minute by minute, Hassan Nala, the head of Hezbollah, came out and said, look, we are going to respond. Lemme take a step back. Secretary of State was telling us, Monday, 24 hours, 24 hours, and we expect that Iran is going to respond with man you Speaker 3 (00:43:57): Like he knows. Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:44:00): So Cassandra Sharla comes out and says, well, we're going to respond, and now we don't care what the outcome is. He came out Monday in a very clear speech and said, we are going to respond. We're going in hard, and we don't care what you do. Anah in Yemen saying, please send missiles our way, because every missile you send towards us is a missile you can send in the Palestine. Now, this is the poorest country in the world, the poorest country in the world. They have shut down. I'm talking about Yemen. Yemen, they have shut down the Red Sea. You can't get nothing in or out of the Red Sea. There's a port in Israel called the Port of OT has gone bankrupt because Ansara Allah has been sending missiles into the port of ot, like 13, 1400 miles away. And they're saying, we welcome the fight. Look, that's some smoke you don't want, Speaker 3 (00:45:36): Right? Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:45:37): Because if we were in South central la, this would be the bloods and the Crips saying, I'm about that life. Speaker 3 (00:45:45): Right? Right. The ties and Hezbollah and Hezbollah, you know that about that life. They handed a behind whooping to Israel in 2006, which Israel's never forgotten, right? No. And the ties, I mean, man mean you talk about solidarity. I mean, they, they're what anybody who says they're a revolutionary aspires to be a revolutionary needs to look at. They have a picture. We can take the picture. Well, no, maybe don't take the picture Martin Luther King down, maybe put the Houthis right next to it everywhere kitchen. Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:46:19): And see, they're not new to this game. Speaker 3 (00:46:23): No. Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:46:24): When Anah, I believe means a helper of God, Speaker 3 (00:46:30): Know that, Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:46:31): And I believe that comes from the time of the prophet. May peace be upon him. They traced their lineage that far back when he came through that region, they were assisting him. Speaker 3 (00:46:46): Oh, I did not know that. Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:46:48): So when that's your psyche, when that's your North star look, when Mike Tyson tells you to stop kicking the back of his seat on an airplane, you might want to stop kicking his backseat back of his seat on airplane. Speaker 3 (00:47:02): You might consider doing what he says. Yeah. I Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:47:05): Dunno if you remember that story. Yeah, Speaker 3 (00:47:06): I do. I do. Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:47:07): When they had to carry that guy off of the plane Speaker 3 (00:47:10): And he got off lucky Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:47:13): Because he was able, he survived the assault. Speaker 3 (00:47:15): And I Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:47:16): Don't mean assault in illegal term ass whooping. So anyway, anyway, all of this, I bring this up again, folks. I'm trying to connect these dots. We get into September and October, vice President Harris may be asking questions about the regional war that is ongoing, because that's where we're headed. That's what Israel wants. They are trying to bait the United States into a conflict in the region. And now you've got the supreme leader in Iran saying to Hezbollah, go ahead on, do what you got to do. He's not saying, pump your brakes. Partner saying, do what you got to do. And he's saying, do what you got to do, because we about to do what we got to do. Speaker 3 (00:48:17): We about to put in that work too. And I don't mean to be glib about it, man, this is a horrible thing that's happening. But you've got to look at it. Americans really need to look at it in context. Context. Wait minute. Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:48:27): Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Don't send your money yet, because there's a bamboo steamer that comes with this deal. Turkey Toa, Speaker 3 (00:48:34): Right? Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:48:36): Erwan is saying we in it too. He says, if we have to go in now, he can be a funny dude. Speaker 3 (00:48:43): Yeah. Yeah. Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:48:45): He is at least saying, oh, if we got to go in, we're going in. Speaker 3 (00:48:51): Yeah. This is a perfect storm. I mean, this is the worst perfect storm I've ever seen in my lifetime. You've got this on the one side you've got, and you really think about it, this revolutionary consciousness that has been strengthened and amplified by Israel's decision to commit genocide in front of cameras. And then when we say, yo man, that's the genocide. They say, what's your point? Right? This is the end of Israel. Your Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:49:22): Problem is, Speaker 3 (00:49:23): Yeah, exactly. As we know it, Israel, Israel will never go back to what it was on October 6th of last year. It just won't. Right? It's not going to happen. And the United States, I don't think it's going to go back to what it was on October 6th of last year, either what it's going to be, I don't know. But this is, we're really seeing the end of it, and you can see it in a couple things. One is the congealing of this resistance movement in the Middle East against the white settler colonialism of Israel and the United States and the West. You see it with the bricks whose GDP cumulatively has surpassed the United States. Russia, I believe, has said at reported, they're arming the Houthis. Right? They're arming the Houthis. I've read the, but I dunno if it's true or not, right? And then you've got the peace day resistance, a recession. (00:50:12): Oh, I didn't even think about that. Right? You've got, in the Sahel region in Africa, you've got this resistance is forming, and you've got all of Africa starting to sort of assert itself and say, wait a minute, why do we need these people who speak French, who speak English in here, telling us what to do? They claim to be the boss. Why do they take our resources out? Pay us nothing, take our resources out. You've got that congealing, and then you've got the peace state resistance. You've got that also in South America, although it's in bits and starts, the pink tides kind of a ebb and of flow. But then you've got the peace state resistance, which is what some economists and financial people believe is, at the very least, a very brave and very deep recession. And some people are saying, could be the greatest depression, the greatest depression that the world has ever seen. And there are numbers. I mean, United States has never been 35 trillion in debt. Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:51:07): That Speaker 3 (00:51:07): Never Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:51:08): Happened against a $25 trillion GDP. Speaker 3 (00:51:11): I mean, come on, man. So we've got a lot of issues said Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:51:16): That, try to get a mortgage with that bank balance, Speaker 3 (00:51:19): Man. I was looking at the loans for, and then we've got credit card debt up the kazoo, and the average interest rate, I believe is 25% of these credit card rates. And we're dealing with all these, no, that's the problem. We're not dealing with these problems. We don't address, we don't face these problems. Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:51:34): So all of that, I wrote a piece, you're with her, but is she with you? Yeah. And the piece is contrary to what many people want to say. It's not anti Kamala. It's pro us. Yes. The question in the piece is, what are you as an African-American community demanding from her? And we have just articulated a number of very important issues that are and will impact how much you pay for a pack of chicken wings, a gallon of milk, and a loaf of bread Speaker 3 (00:52:18): Question. Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:52:19): So it's great that she's an AKA. It's great that she went to Howard. It's great that she can do what she do, but what does she stand for? What if you go to her website right now, zero policy, zero, not nary policy reference, Speaker 3 (00:52:47): But she has Megan, the stallion, twerking for Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:52:49): Her. Oh, well, then that gets my Speaker 3 (00:52:51): Vote. I'm just saying, Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:52:53): Hey, I, amen. Speaker 3 (00:52:55): You know what, Earl? You know what Earl but said about black voters, right? Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:52:59): Go ahead. Speaker 3 (00:53:01): I dunno if I can repeat it here, but all we want is a warm toilet seat. A tight, tight, what was it? And a pair of shoe apparently to say, Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:53:17): So here's folks, here's the question. Politics. We are so caught up in the politics of personality and the politics of phenotype. We are trying to defend, oh, Donald Trump said she isn't black. Who cares when a pack of chicken wings is $21 a pack, when organic, a gallon of organic milk is $12 a gallon. That matters to me. I drink organic milk. Why are we so caught up in that? When your tax dollars are funding genocide, when your tax dollars are paying the salaries and the retirement of Ukrainians, and you don't have a retirement plan, your pension plan went out the window 25 years ago. That's right. We're paying Ukrainian pensions and healthcare. And healthcare and education budgets are numeric representations of priority. Speaker 3 (00:54:36): That's right. That's right. A moral document, as King said. That's Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:54:40): Right. And we keep being told, we don't have the money. We don't have the money, but F sixteens just landed in Ukraine, which I'll say in the next 10 days will probably be blown into rubble. But we're sending F sixteens. So Lockheed Martin is happy. John Jeter, am I hating black women because I'm questioning policy issues related. Oh, we have to give her a chance. What did Barack Obama say when members of the Black Press said, you didn't really do anything for the black community, said you did not demand anything. Speaker 3 (00:55:34): Yeah. Yeah. Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:55:36): Frederick Douglas says, power yields nothing without demand. It never has. And it never will. That's Speaker 3 (00:55:43): Right. That's right. Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:55:44): But when I asked the question, well, what are you demanding? Oh, no, Wilmer. See, you have to give her a chance. Oh, here's the other. I'll make, explain. Now I'm going to turn it over to you. So you've got folks like Simone Sanders that say, well, she's been vice president for four years. Kamala has earned it. And then you say, but wait a minute. So while she was vice president, what'd she do? Oh, well, you have to understand that vice presidents, those jobs, their job description is really very vague, and you can't really expect, well, no. See, you can't have it both ways, Speaker 3 (00:56:23): Right? That's right. You Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:56:24): Can't tell me she earned it by being vice president. And then when I ask you, well, what did she do? You can't tell me. Well, she didn't do anything because vice presidents don't do anything. John Jeter. Speaker 3 (00:56:35): Yeah. We really need to raise our level of play. All Americans do, but particularly African Americans, because we have historically been the vanguard of this revolution, of the revolution in the United States, a progressive working class revolution. We need to raise our level of play. We need to deepen our understanding of politics. We need to do exactly as you say, we need to develop a list of demands, make them and stick to them. I'll try to say this very succinctly. I'm coming out with a new book in September next month, class War in America, how the elites divide the nation by asking, are you a worker or are you white? I began the book talking about a political movement in the 1870s in the reconstruction period in Virginia where blacks were the majority of a political party called the read adjusters. Poor whites, mostly farmers and blacks in Virginia, who decided to team up and to the elites of both parties, Republicans and Democrats were trying to take their tax money and pay the bonds, the money that was loaned to Virginia by the wealthy, the aristocrats, the Confederates, the people who really were responsible for the war, the Civil War. (00:57:55): And they said they wanted to pay exorbitant interest rates 6%, which would be actually pretty low these days. This coalition said, no, we won't do it. So this group, the Readjusts, they lowered interest rates, they Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:58:07): Readjusted the loans. Speaker 3 (00:58:09): They spent this money on schools and things like that. They started feeling themselves, and the white party leader said, well, the blacks were saying, well, we want also, we want enter the whipping post. We want this and we want that. And the whites in that party, the adjusters didn't hear 'em. They didn't feel 'em, right? So they didn't do it. So the brother said, because it's just black men who voted at that time, although we know that their black women supported them in this. But black men said, okay, cool. So the next election, the readjust lost everything. And they realized, to their credit, they said, oh, they were serious. And so when they returned to power, they did everything the brother said, they eliminate the whipping votes. In the book, there's a point where they talk about the Patronist jobs. They handed out to blacks because black were 60% of this party. There's a postmaster who said, I think it was 1881. He said, my office is so full of blacks, or might have said colors at that time. My office is so full of colors. It looks like Africa in here, right? This is 1881. So I said, that's the same in Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:59:18): Virginia. Speaker 3 (00:59:18): In Virginia, the heart of the Confederacy, right? 1881, people read this and they said, I was lying. I did not make it up. It is a true fact, as we say, right? We need to return to that mindset, that understanding. We need the people in Venezuela like the Houthis, like the Lebanese, the Hezbollah, Lebanon. We need to return to that level of understanding and raise our revolutionary metabolism. Look, man, as Fred Hampton said last time, I'll quote Fred Hampton today, if you say you want to do something revolutionary, but you say, I'm too young to die, you don't realize you are already dead. It's a lot of dead men walking in this country right Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:59:59): Now. John Jeter, my brother, thank you for joining me today. Speaker 3 (01:00:05): My pleasure, man. Always a pleasure. Dr. Wilmer Leon (01:00:08): Folks. Thank you all so much for listening to the Connecting the Dots podcast with me, Dr. Wilmer Leon. Stay tuned for new episodes every week. Also, please follow and subscribe. Go to that Patreon account. Help us out, please. This isn't cheap. We need you to make this work. Leave a review and share the show. Follow us on social media. You can find all the links below in the show description. And remember, this is where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge. Because talk without analysis is just chatter, and we don't chatter here on connecting the dots. I'm going to see you again next time. Until then, I'm Dr. Wier Leon. Have a great one. Peace. I'm out Jon Jeter (01:00:58): Connecting the dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge.  

The Harris-Biden administration yesterday announced that Edmundo Gonzalez overwhelming defeated Venezuelan dictator Nicholas Maduro in recent elections. Maduro insists that he won. It's unclear what, if anything, the United States and its “international partners” will do to end the regime in Caracas that has long oppressed its own people and threatens ours.   After all, the devastation wrought by Maduro and his predecessor, Hugo Chavez, has been one of the “root causes” of dangerous illegal immigration here.   Although addressing such problems is the only part of Kamala Harris' immigration czar portfolio she acknowledges, her response to date has largely been to perpetuate Maduro's misrule – buying his oil, ignoring his strategically perilous ties to our enemies and allowing him to send operatives, criminals and much of the rest of his population to this country.   Help Venezuelans free themselves, and send Maduro's illegal aliens home.

Venezuela is in chaos! Just hours after their controversial presidential election, protestors have taken to the streets demanding the end of President Nicholas Maduro's reign, all as National Guard troops have been summoned to suppress the uprising! Learn the latest in what's happening in Venezuela and what it all means going forward!  -- Go to https://twc.health/TURLEY and use promo code ‘TURLEY' for an exclusive Turley Talks 10% discount on The Wellness Company Medical Emergency Kit! Have REAL peace of mind when it comes to being prepared for your family's health and safety! Attend the Imago Dei Workshop - Knowing Your Role [Live Workshop] FREE with your paid Courageous Conservative Club membership: https://fight.turleytalks.com/join *The content presented by our partners may contain affiliate links. When you click and shop the links, Turley Talks may receive a small commission.* -- Thank you for taking the time to listen to this episode.  If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and/or leave a review. FOLLOW me on X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/DrTurleyTalks Click here to partner with us and defy liberal culture! https://advertising.turleytalks.com/sponsorship Sign up for the 'New Conservative Age Rising' Email Alerts to get lots of articles on conservative trends: https://turleytalks.com/subscribe/. **All clips used for fair use commentary, criticism, and educational purposes. See Hosseinzadeh v. Klein, 276 F.Supp.3d 34 (S.D.N.Y. 2017); Equals Three, LLC v. Jukin Media, Inc., 139 F. Supp. 3d 1094 (C.D. Cal. 2015).

Kamala Harris surging in swing state polls (00:00) Secret Service, FBI officials grilled over Trump shooting (11:04) Venezuela's Nicholas Maduro deploys deadly crackdown on protesters (19:48) Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh killed Tehran in alleged Israel strike (30:40) Trump speaks at NABJ, Harris skips conference (42:01) Trump team warns against linking Trump and Project 2025 (51:42) Simone Biles makes comeback in Paris Olympics (01:04:43) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Independent investigative journalism, broadcasting, trouble-making and muckraking with Brad Friedman of BradBlog.com

It's Tuesday, July 30th, A.D. 2024. This is The World View in 5 Minutes written by Kevin Swanson and  heard at www.TheWorldView.com.  Filling in for Adam McManus I'm Ean Leppin. Increased Violence Towards Pro-Lifers Certain people who advocate the killing of children in their mother's wombs are acting more violent towards people who oppose killing babies. Police have arrested a man who attacked two elderly men outside an abortion clinic in Baltimore Maryland last year. Both 80 year old Mark Crosby and 73 year old Dick Schaeffer were injured. . . Crosby's “plate bone in his upper right cheek is completely fractured and the bones in his right eye orbit are completely shattered and will have to be replaced with metal,” according to Baltimore County Right to Life. Also, an 83 year old woman was shot in the back while distributing pro-life literature in Lake Odessa, Michigan just prior to the 2022 election. Psalm 10 points out that “The wicked in his proud countenance does not seek God;   He sits in the lurking places of the villages; In the secret places he murders the innocent . . . He has said in his heart, “God has forgotten; He hides His face; He will never see. Arise, O Lord. O God, lift up Your hand!” Pastor in Laos Assassinated Another pastor in Laos has been assassinated — at least the second in two years. Pastor Thongkham of Vanghay village in northwestern Laos, was being closely monitored by the authorities. . . and, He had been warned several times to stop his “Christian activities, according to Morning Star News.  Then, last week the pastor was shot to death by a masked assailant. Another  prominent Christian leader from the Baw tribe in Khammouanne Province, central Laos, recently avoided capture at the hands of government agents. According to local sources, the pastor was warned by a family friend of authorities planning to kidnap and possibly kill him. Despite the increased persecution, the Laotian church is rapidly growing every year, with hundreds of Khmu coming to the Lord.  Venezuelan Dictator Claims Victory in the Election No surprise here. Venezuelan's dictator-president, Nicholas Maduro claims a victory in the nation's election over the weekend.  The opposition led by Edmundo Gonzalez also claimed victory, based on unofficial exit polls.  US Secretary of State Antony Blinken expressed “serious concerns that the result announced does not reflect the will or the votes of the Venezuelan people.”   BLINKEN: “We've seen the announcement, just a short while ago, by the Venezuelan electoral commission.  We have serious concerns that the result announced does not reflect the will or the votes of the Venezuelan people.  It's critical that every vote be counted fairly and transparently; that election officials immediately share information with the opposition and independent observers without delay, and that the electoral authorities publish the detailed tabulation of votes.  The international community is watching this very closely, and will respond accordingly.” One quarter to one third of Venezuelans are planning to leave the country (according to recent polls), if the communist dictator remains in power. Almost 8 million Venezuelans have already left, and these results could mean another 7 million to leave the communist country. . . or about 50% of the population in all - many of whom end up in the United States.  US Stock Prices Vary Wildly US stock prices are varying wildly in an extremely volatile market. . . especially the top 7 tech stocks of Tesla, Nvidia, Meta, Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft, and Apple. Since June 10th, the 7 stocks gained  $1.77 trillion in valuation, and then lost it all in the last week. Incredibly, the seven stocks had gained 6.5 Trillion since January — an almost 50% increase in value in just 6 months! Tesla has lost 70% of its value in the last 15 months,  California Park Fire 6th Largest in CA History The California Park Fire burning some 80 miles north of the state capital has already consumed 368,000 acres — now slated as the 6th largest fire in California history. 9 out of 10 of California's worst fires have occurred in the last 6 years.  Oregon is experiencing its worst fire season since 2020 - -including the 288,000 acre Durkee Blaze. Keep in mind Psalm 89: “O Lord God of hosts. . . You rule the raging of the sea; When its waves rise, You still them.” Deadpool and Wolverine Glorifies Wickedness The most popular movie release last weekend, Deadpool and Wolverine. . . supports abortion, glorifies vengeful mass killings, includes 150 profanities, and makes light of and supports every form of sexual sin — including bestiality, homosexuality, bisexuality, and worse. The mass culture-  nihilist flick produced by Disney raked in $438 million in its first weekend out, setting the record for the highest grossing opening weekend for an R-rated movie. And it remains the biggest blockbuster of the summer. Controversy Around Oklahoma State Mandate Concerning the Bible Controversy surrounds the Oklahoma state mandate that all classrooms be furnished with copies of the Bible, the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and, like Louisiana, the Ten Commandments — only to reflect on the impact of the Bible on history, culture, and Western Civilization.  While some school districts are resisting the requirements, Superintendent Ryan Walters, issued a warning on X, quoted: “We will not allow rogue districts and administrators to indoctrinate hatred of America by refusing to teach foundational Oklahoma standards.” The guidelines issued by the Oklahoma Department of Education require that quote “all instruction is conducted in a neutral and objective manner. Teachers must not promote or favor any religious beliefs, focusing solely on the historical and literary aspects of the Bible.”  And, that the Bible is “not to be used for religious purposes such as preaching, proselytizing or indoctrination.” Reactions to the Olympic Opening Ceremony More reactions have come out of the Opening ceremonies for the Olympics in Paris which included a blasphemous depiction of the Last Supper, using drag queens for playing the part of Jesus's disciples. Bishop Emmanuel Gobillard, spokesperson for the Pope, commented that, “The fact that our religion should be mocked is usual and we are used to blasphemy in France, but the context isn't the same.. . . I found this staging hurtful and out of place.” First Lady, Jill Biden led the U.S. delegation to the Olympics referring to the opening ceremony “spectacular."  And, Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson called the Olympics ceremonies “shocking and insulting to Christian people,” and he went on to say that “The war on our faith and traditional values knows no bounds today.” Following the lewd, homosexuality-themed Olympic Opening Ceremony, the lights went out in Paris Saturday evening.  What officials have called a “technical anomaly” cut power, and plunged the city into darkness. And that's The World View in 5 Minutes on this Tuesday, July 30th, in the year of our Lord 2024. Subscribe by iTunes or email to our unique Christian newscast at www.TheWorldView.com. Or get the Generations app through Google Play or The App Store. Seize the day for Jesus Christ.

Tension in Lebanon as Israel vows to strike Hezbollah following Saturday's deadly attack on the Golan Heights. Also in the programme: President Biden proposes an overhaul of the Supreme Court; Venezuela's president, Nicholas Maduro claims victory; and could Zambia honour its commitments for free primary and secondary education?(Photo: Empty hall in Rafik Hariri International Airport as airlines cancel their flights to Lebanon. Credit: Shutterstock)

In Venezuela's presidential elections, incumbent Nicholas Maduro fights a movement against him lead by Maria Corina Machado, who's been barred from the race. In Russia, Russian American journalist, Alsu Kurmasheva, is sentenced to prison in a case similar to that of jailed Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

President Nicholas Maduro has asked voters to support him to secure peace and stability, a week after saying there would be a "bloodbath" if he lost. The opposition candidate, Edmundo Gonzalez, leads most opinion polls but there are fears the vote won't be fair. Also: Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has met President Biden to discuss efforts towards a ceasefire-for-hostages deal in Gaza, and why Donald Trump's running mate, JD Vance, is no friend of the Hollywood star, Jennifer Aniston.

Find me and the show on social media. Click the following links or search @DrWilmerLeon on X/Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube!   FULL TRANSCRIPT: Wilmer Leon (00:00): There have been tensions between the US and its neighbor 90 miles to the South Cuba since 19 59, 65 years. Why? And are there indications that changes on the horizon or will the issues become more significant? Announcer (00:27): Connecting the dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge. Wilmer Leon (00:33): Welcome to the Connecting the Dots podcast with Dr. Wilmer Leon. I am Wilmer Leon. Here's the point. We have a tendency to view current events as though they occur in a vacuum, failing to understand the broader historical context in which these events occur. During each episode of this program, my guests and I have probing, provocative, and in-depth discussions that connect the dots between these events and the broader historic context in which they occur. This enables you to better understand and analyze the events that impact the global village in which we live. My guest for today's show is a Cuban American journalist, radio host, author, and host of RTS Direct Impact. He is Ricardo Leon Sanchez de Ronaldo, also known as Rick Sanchez. Let's connect some dots. Rick, welcome to the show. Rick Sanchez (01:33): Hey, it is great. Great to be here with you. Wilmer. Always a pleasure, doctor. Wilmer Leon (01:37): Did I get it right? Rick Sanchez (01:38): Well, yeah, you did. I mean, I don't use it anymore, but it's funny. I guess one point back in 1958, when I was born on July 3rd, my mother named me in little Guanabacoa, Cuba, a suburb just outside of Havana. The doctor said, what are you going to name this kid? He's ugly as hell, but let's give him a name anyway. And she said, Ricardo de San Aldo. So there you go. Is part of the history in Latin America, which I think is a great thing in our culture, you carry the mother's name for at least one generation. So when a woman marries a man and they have a child, that child will carry her name for at least that one generation. Whereas in our culture, you just throw the mother's name away. Wilmer Leon (02:17): Well, out of respect to your mother. So just a little historic context, because context for me is always so important. Cuba's ruler CIO Batista. Rick Sanchez (02:35): Oh yeah, the old Batist. You're Wilmer Leon (02:37): Starting there overthrown. He was overthrown by Fidel Castro, his brother, Raul Checo Rivera, and a lot of other folks in 1959. Rick Sanchez (02:47): That's correct. Wilmer Leon (02:47): This revolution had and continues to have powerful and profound domestic and international repercussions. Give us your thoughts on where the countries, the US and Cuba is today. Because for example, a lot of people don't really even appreciate the impact that this relationship has on us. Domestic politics. Rick Sanchez (03:14): Oh my God. Politics are fascinating in that sense. I don't think there's ever been a better example of a country that is being castigated more than Cuba has been castigated by the US government. No country in the history of the world has been sanctioned and castigated economically for a longer period of time than Cuba has. The United States has done everything possible for some 70 years to literally keep Cuba under its thumb, by the way. And Cuba's economy has paid for it drastically. Remember when I was in Cuba interviewing Fidel Castro in 1991 during Glas and Troika? I remember at the time that I talked to Castro and I asked him about what was happening. He seemed desperate. He had to be desperate to invite me to give me an interview on the island. At the time, they don't usually talk to Guanos. I am a guano. (04:15) A guano means a worm. A worm is somebody who left the revolution and betrayed the revolution. But I left because my parents left. I mean, I was two years old when I left Cuba. But it's funny because I'll just say this, that era, that 1991, I go and I talk to Castro in Cuba, which was really fascinating. Then I go to New York and I talk to Gorbachev, and I asked Gorbachev, I was working as a correspondent at NBC, and I was assigned to go to New York to speak with President Gorbachev, and I asked President Gorbachev about Fidel Castro, and I said, you were recently in Havana. You and Mr. Castro apparently have had a falling out. He didn't even go see you at the airport. And Gorbachev stops right there, Wilmer. And he says to me, you know what your problem is. You know what the problem you have and the problem with all you Cubans, you're obsessed with Castro. (05:07) Why are you asking me a question about Castro with all the things going on in the world? I don't want to talk about Castro. Next question. I was like, whoa. I couldn't believe he was coming at me like that. But it just shows. There's an old story if you want to talk history, and I wrote this once in one of my books. I said, let's see if I can quote myself here. Cuba was the slave of the Spanish, the prostitutes of the Americans and the child of the Soviets. It has always been taken and oppressed and used and mistreated by somebody. First, it was the Spanish. They broke from that. Then they got the Americans. The Americans really screwed the Cubans over in every way they could. Americans just owned 70% of the land in Cuba. Think about that for a minute. So it was easy for Fidel Castro to turn to these people back then and say to them, they own 70% of your land. You can't own a business here. They control the government. Batista works for the mafia, which he did. By the way. He was one of the most corrupt presidents. Literally, the mafia ran Havana. So when he says, Wilmer Leon (06:20): Watch the Godfather, Rick Sanchez (06:22): Yeah, the scene in Godfather two. So in the end, let me close with this. The US government, like the Spanish government, and in many ways, like the Soviets all used and abused Cuba. And to this day, Cuba is suffering the consequences of it because it's a sad place economically to go. And the US to this day is doing everything possible to punish Cuba and keep him under the thumb with an embargo that still persists. And they also have him on a list called the States that condone terrorism lists. There's only like three or four countries, Iran, Cuba, North Korea, and a couple others. And I mean, really, Cuba, it's tough to be Cuba because of that. Wilmer Leon (07:10): So to that point, at the end of May, it was reported that the Biden administration eases some economic restrictions on Cuba. Private enterprises with no link to the government will be granted access to US banks and additional internet services. The Biden administration seems to have amended and clarified a number of sanctions against Cuba, allowing private entrepreneurs and businesses again to open US bank accounts. They portray this as increasing support for Cuban people. But we'll talk about what that really means. The acronym Micro and Deanna's impress us. Rick Sanchez (08:10): Yes, Wilmer Leon (08:10): Rick Sanchez. Small Rick Sanchez (08:11): Businesses. Small Businesses is what Businesses Small. Yeah, yeah, essentially. I mean, it's a bunch of acronyms. Too many letters for a very simple description. You're absolutely right. And you know what? I think the Biden administration did a good thing with that. A lot of people have been pushing for it. And what it basically says is the Biden administration is looking at Cuba and saying, wow, there's something going on in Cuba for the first time in some 60 or 70 years. Now, I thought what Obama did was fantastic. Obama was the first president, thank God, who came along and said, why do we hate these people? Why do we have to have an enemy that's 90 miles away because of something between Khrushchev and Kennedy? And Eisenhower? Man, that's been a long time. Let's turn over a new leaf. Let's start something new. And Obama allows the United States and people in the United States to start traveling to Cuba. Suddenly, Cuba starts doing really well. People in Miami start going to see their cousins. They're buying, they're trading. Suddenly the Cuban economy starts to show signs of life. It was all really good Wilmer Leon (09:13): Cruise lines. Rick Sanchez (09:14): What cruise lines, exactly. The whole thing had the promise of starting all over again. So let me attack that first before I tell you about the people you mentioned a little while ago. But we have these absolute morons in Florida politics in particular. You have some idiot named Marco Rubio, for example. You got another guy named Rick Scott. These guys, they live off of hate. The only way that they can stay in power is to make sure the people in South Florida vote for them. And the only way they think the people in South Florida will vote for 'em if they scare them into thinking that somehow Cuba is the boogeyman. It's a horrible communist country that's coming to kill and blah, blah, blah. And because of that, people in South Florida, even if they really deep down don't think that, and even if they really deep down would love nothing more than to be able to visit their mom and their dad and their brothers and their sisters, and to somehow create some kind of reproachment with Cuba, they're afraid to say it. (10:18) So they say publicly, oh, I hate Cuba. It's horrible. Yay. Marco Rubio. They're afraid because they live in an environment in South Florida, which is run by the older exiles and by the Marco Rubios, where they think if they say that they're not going to get a job, they're not going to be hired. Nobody wants to be called a communist in Miami. So it's this vicious cycle that has continued for so many years, and it's the politicians who continue that. Marco Rubio went to President Trump as soon as President Trump came into office, and he said, here's what you have to do. Cancel everything Obama did. Kill it, destroy it. Make sure people are never allowed to go to Cuba, make sure families are not allowed to see themselves, et cetera, et cetera. And this idiot Biden went along with it. When he got into office, instead of going back to the Obama thing, Biden's been acting like more of a Republican than the Republicans. So finally, Wilmer Leon (11:12): Wait a minute, because he was playing to the politics in South Cuba, Rick Sanchez (11:19): In South Florida. Wilmer Leon (11:20): I'm sorry, south Florida. Thank you. Exactly. He was playing to the politics. Because if my memory serves me correctly, when I look at the demographic data of both Obama elections, when you break it out by age, the older Cuban Americans voted Republican. Their children voted. Obama did, which is why Obama carried Florida both times, Rick Sanchez (11:57): And they voted for Clinton as well. But Wilmer Leon (12:01): Yeah, Rick Sanchez (12:01): It's interesting that soon after that, to be elected president in the United States, you must go to Miami and say that you're an anti-communist and down with Castro, even though he's dead. But people still think he's alive. People still think Russia's a communist country, but whatever. That's another thing. And Wilmer Leon (12:16): Elvis, Elvis is still alive. Rick Sanchez (12:18): It's like, it'd be stupid, but Wilmer Leon (12:20): Whatever. In fact, Elvis and Castro are going to be in Vegas in August. Rick Sanchez (12:26): So you have to come to South Florida if you're running for president and say all these patented lines like a script. But then Obama said, okay, I'm going to say all that crap. But then when I get into office, now that I'm in my second term, you know what? I'm going to try and open Cuba back up. Nobody's had the intestinal fortitude to do that, and by golly, I'm going to do it. And he did. Wilmer Leon (12:47): Credit was that partially due to agribusiness, US agribusiness seeing a market in Cuba, Rick Sanchez (12:56): Which still exists by golly. But for some reason, Trump got rid of it because Trump does whatever he thinks some guy tells him, and he has a bunch of rich friends who are Cubans. So they told him, get rid of everything Obama did. So he did. And along now comes Biden, which brings us back to your point, and it's the me Pimas along. Now comes Biden and enough people get to Biden and say, look, there's actually entrepreneurs in Cuba right now. There's these young guys who are starting these small businesses, and they're distribution centers, and they're actually beating the government at their own game. You've got a socialist country and you have all these young entrepreneurs who are selling vacuum cleaners and clothes and water bottles and glasses. I visited them. I was just there the other day in Cuba, and I was amazed by what I saw. (13:43) So somebody got to Biden and said, look, if nothing else, throw these guys a bone. There is right now, so many restrictions on any Cuban citizen. They can't use phones, they can't use internet, they can't use American banks. They can't trade with other countries. They are totally isolated, locked up. It's nasty in a horrible, one of the worst sanctions in the world. So finally along comes Biden or somebody in the Biden administration, and they open that up a little bit, and they let these entrepreneurs start to have banks in Florida. Good idea. Now, the other side, the Cuban government looks at this and says, well, wait a minute. But the way you wrote this, you say they can't have any ties to the Cuban government. So you're saying you're going to run an enterprise again in our country, but we're not allowed to monitor it. (14:31) We're not allowed to tax it. We're not allowed to have contact with them. Go to hell. We're not going to do that. I mean, this is back to Batista again. You guys want to control the economy of our country. So when I met with Cuban officials in Havana last weekend, and I sat down with somebody from the president's office, but not the president himself, but one of the high ranking foreign policy guy, he said, look, here's how we feel about, because I told him, I said, look, whatever it takes, go along with it. This will be good for the Cuban people. And he goes, look, we want to go along with it, but we've got to protect ourselves too. I mean, we want to make sure that we at least have some say in this new system. Wilmer Leon (15:13): It is our country. Rick Sanchez (15:15): Yeah. See, that's where the thing is difficult. But you know what, in the end though, I think my bottles half full. I'm going to half full guy. I think this is a good thing. It might be a starting place, and it might be the beginning of something that could hopefully flourish and turn Cuba into what it should be. It's a beautiful island, a mecca for tourism where a lot of very successful people have come from. It's such a shame that it's deteriorated into what it's become simply because the United States was angry 70 years ago and has never stopped being angry and has now turned it into a political football. Wilmer Leon (15:59): First of all, it was the mob that was pissed 70 years ago. Rick Sanchez (16:03): That's true. Wilmer Leon (16:04): And so one of the things that I've been saying for a number of years, United States, if your game is as good as you says it is, (16:15) Then alleviate the sanctions, remove the sanctions. Let the Cuban people see the benefit of the United States. And if your game is as good as you say it is, then stop sanctioning them. Because we know sanctions have never worked. All sanctions do is create a greater sense of nationalism because the entity in charge is able to say, your suffering is not my fault. Your suffering is their fault. They're the ones that are not allowing you to trade. They're the ones that are not allowing you to talk to your relatives in the united. All of that. So it creates a greater sense of them versus US nationalism. So I've been saying for years, just release the sanctions, let the Cuban people decide for themselves. Now, with all that being said, and Rick Sanchez (17:19): Let me just underscore here's where you're right, because what you're saying is by having sanctions, you give the Cuban government an excuse to fail, which they have taken. And most countries do. They say, well, and by the way, I mean they're partly right. How the hell can we succeed? We're not allowed to trade with other countries. We can't trade with you. We're not allowed to do business in the United States. We can't buy oil and gas from any of NATO countries or any European countries or any G seven or anything. So we're kind of flummoxed in not being able to succeed the way we should. Now, the Cuban government has also made its economic stupid mistakes as well, to be fair. But nonetheless, they do have that excuse, and it only exists because of the embargo. You're right. Wilmer Leon (18:03): So now my question to you, when you've talked to the Cuban officials, did anybody mention the National Endowment for Democracy? And here's why I asked that question, because what this whole, and help me up with the pronunciation. Rick Sanchez (18:25): No, that's right. Me. Wilmer Leon (18:27): What this whole thing sounds like to me is the NDA, the national end down for democracy. Like they went into Ukraine and Victoria Newland threw around a bunch of cookies to a bunch of Nazis, and they overthrew the Ukrainian government. This sounds eerily reminiscent of a tactic used by the NDA. We're going to fund Cuban small businesses. We're going to show them the wonderful benefits of democracy in the United States as we entice them to overthrow their government. Is that a concern that the Cuban government has? Rick Sanchez (19:06): It is, and it should be. But at the same time, speaking to you as a Cuban who has watched the history of this country for so many years, when you're eating dirt, anything becomes a sirloin steak. So at this point, the level of desperation in Cuba is so bad. I mean, I don't know if you've had a chance to go there, but recently I have not. I've ever seen it. The people are really hungry. I mean, nothing works. Everything's slow. There's no efficiency. I mean, it is down to a crawl in Cuba. And if they can at least have something that works. I mean, you compare it to Ukraine, but Ukraine is like one of the basket, the bread, the corrupt Wilmer Leon (19:52): Countries Rick Sanchez (19:52): In the world, and it has a good economy. The only problem with Ukraine was it was super corrupt, but the economy was good. There's billionaires in Ukraine. I mean, there ain't no billionaires in Cuba, my friend. I mean, Wilmer Leon (20:03): No, no. I only compare it to Ukraine in the context of the NDAs involvement in fomenting a coup. Because the president in 2014 was that Jankovich. Yeah, was in the eyes of the United States. Too close to Russia in order to, you're Rick Sanchez (20:25): Smart to say that. You're smart to say that. And I think you're right. I think we would be foolhardy not to consider that given our history, the United States of America, this country we love, but can't help but notice that our CIA goes all over the world and screws things up and abuses people and kills people, and assassinates people. They tried 13 times to assassinate Fidel Castro. I mean, they put poison in his cigar. They put poison in his diving suit. I mean, it's crazy. So yeah, we need to also remember and reconcile into anything. We look at exactly what our state department and our CIA and the administration, whatever administration it is, is capable of based on the history and what they've done in the past. That said, I still believe we should try and be optimistic about this and try and figure out a way to use good old fashioned ingenuity to make this work. (21:18) And I think it's at least the beginning of an opening that didn't exist before. The problem is as soon as there's another presidential election, whatever's done that moves the needle forward will be pushed back because Marco Rubio and Rick Scott and all these other morons who could give a crap about the people of Cuba who are really the ones suffering, not the government, they could give a crap about those people. We'll do whatever it takes to squeeze the hell out of the Cuban economy even more just like they've done in Venezuela and in other places around the world, Guatemala, et cetera, et cetera, because they're mad at some guy who may have said something leftist. Its nuts. But that's actually what has taken place and what our government has done, as you well Wilmer Leon (22:03): Know. So the question that I posed is are there indications that changes on the horizon or will the issues become more significant? And the latter part of that question has to do with, last week, a squadron of Russian ships, including a frigate capable of firing hypersonic missiles, arrived in Cuba as part of an international partnership program. Now, that immediately took me back to the Cuban Missile Crisis. Rick Sanchez (22:33): It was a show. It was Well, go ahead. Wilmer Leon (22:35): Go Rick Sanchez (22:35): Ahead. The genesis of that, you well know because I know you and I speak a lot and we talk about these things, but the genesis of that is that both Macron and President Biden intimated that they would be willing to use missiles, our missiles. They will give permission to Ukraine to shoot missiles into Russian territory. The next day, Putin picked up the phone and says, oh, so let's see. They have a country next to our territory. Guess what? We've got some friends next to their territory too. He picked up the phone and sent three ships to the Cuban Harbor. Why? To send the world a message that two can play that game. And essentially it's a tit for tat where Putin is trying to tell the US administration, okay, you got some missiles in Ukraine. I got some nuclear subs in Havana. Let's talk. By the way, we got more nuclear warheads than you guys. (23:30) Do you want to start this thing? Let's go. I mean, it was like, oh my God and the world, and I'm sure there's a lot of bravado coming from Washington, but in the end, I guarantee you they kind of got the message. I almost get the sense there's already backing off going on a lot of NATO countries, and certainly half of the mps in the German parliament came forward and said, this is crazy. Stop this crap. No more weapons to Ukraine that can be used to shoot into Russia. That can start another world war that we are going to have to pay for, not the Yankees, not the Americans. So I wouldn't be surprised if the genesis of that, which led to that, which what you just mentioned, is the three ships in Havana, is what may be causing a little bit of a slowdown now in the Ukraine push, especially on the part of many members of the European community. Wilmer Leon (24:22): There you go. So what does that say to you about the empire? What does that say to you? Because 10 years ago, going back to the Godfather, I'm drawing a blank. I'm going to Des name. When the Turk hit the Don and they said 10 years ago, could we got it? Could we have gotten to the Don like that Soso, when Soso hit the Don 10 years ago, could we have got the Don is slipping, so is the Don, the us, is the Don slipping because 10 years ago, Vladimir Putin couldn't have made that play. Rick Sanchez (25:08): No. Let me just say this, and it's a two part answer, I think. One, I think if you ask the average American in the United States, should the embargo be lifted, I think 90% of them will say yes, Wilmer Leon (25:21): Absolutely. Rick Sanchez (25:22): They think it's silly. Wilmer Leon (25:23): Absolutely. If Rick Sanchez (25:23): You ask the average young American under 30 or something and tell 'em they can't go to Cuba unless they fill out 19 forms and get a special visa and all kinds of crap, whatever Wilmer Leon (25:35): It is, or fly to the moon and get a flight from Southwest from the moon, Rick Sanchez (25:39): They're going to say, why? What's the difference between that and Mexico? That and The Bahamas, Cuba's right next to The Bahamas. People go back and forth between The Bahamas and Cuba every day, and they're fishing together and stuff. So it makes no sense. It's silly. So two things, A, as time goes by, younger people will look at this and think it's just ridiculous, shameful and foolhardy. Two, when I spoke with Cuban officials in Havana last weekend, and we were sitting in the hotel bar, and I asked the ambassador, the guy who used to be the ambassador to the United Nations Kabana, who's an interesting man and very guarded, and I said, are you guys going to play a waiting game? And he goes, what do you mean? I said, well, you know what's going on in the world? The Western powers are now being pushed back by Brazil, which is your friend by Iran, which is your friend by Wilmer Leon (26:32): Russia, Venezuela, your friend, Rick Sanchez (26:34): Right? China, which is your friend. So suddenly you have all these allies who've created these interesting consortiums which are fighting back against the western power, which have always had you under your thumb. So does that make you look at things a little differently? And he just kind of smiled at me and he said, we're playing by different rules now. And I said, okay, we'll leave it at that because I don't want to get myself or you in trouble. So I get a sense that they know that and they think that could be a reproachment as well for the island. Wilmer Leon (27:11): And for people to really understand, they have to understand the development of bricks. Rick Sanchez (27:16): Of course, Wilmer Leon (27:17): They have to understand a number of the leaders that the United States labels as dictators and labels as anything but a child of God. President Xi Jinping is traversing the world and is a respected diplomat. Vladimir Putin traversing the world a respected diplomat. Nicholas Maduro traveling. He's sitting in Iran talking with President. Well, now the Supreme leader, these guys are being recognized internationally as diplomats. Tony Blinken is considered a goon. Rick Sanchez (28:11): Yeah, it's funny the way things have now developed, and we are seeing a world that's changing, and I think that the world order for lack of a better term is not what it was before. And Cuba is really, I think, in a unique position. I mean, here's an island with 11 million people that's 90 miles away from the United States and has had a 70 year torment of economic sanctions and resistance against it. And suddenly it's in a position where it can finally make peace with Washington. Or it can tell Washington to go to hell and say, you know what? We're going to be a part of B bricks. We're going to be a part of the global south. We're going to be a part of all of these things, and we don't want anything from you anymore. We think we can get it over here, especially if there's a change in currency or in the monetary policy that these guys are able to adjust, which Wilmer Leon (29:05): They are in fact implementing. Look at the deal between India and Russia. India is buying Russian oil based on the ruble, which by the way, Joe Biden said he was going to turn it into rubble, but that's now one of the top five fastest growing economies in the world. Rick Sanchez (29:28): Well, but the thing is, the thing that look bothers me about all of this, and I think it probably bothers you too, is just the all out hypocrisy. I'll give you an example of something that happened overnight, just within the last 24 hours. The Chinese have apparently come up with a fantastic ev. I drive a Tesla. I love EVs. I think apparently they've come up with something that they make for 20 to 30,000 less than what I paid for my, Wilmer Leon (29:55): I thought it was 15. They make it for 10. Rick Sanchez (29:57): Yeah, it's crazy. They're making, and it's a great vehicle. It's fantastic. So they basically said, we want to introduce this car, this Chinese car, the Chinese technology into Europe. And the Europeans are saying, no, screw you. We're not going to let you do it. You want to put your cars in here? We're going to give you a 40% tariff, 38.7 actually, but pretty close, man, that's almost half. That means if they sell a car for $20,000, they really have to sell it. People there still have to pay 40 plus be the administrative fees and everything else. The tariff alone is brutal. It's punishment. So yesterday afternoon, Beijing announced it's going to start considering putting tariffs on all pork products. Now, the Chinese eat more pork than anybody in the world. 50% of the pork that's eaten in China comes from Europe. So the Chinese are now telling the Europeans, okay, you want to put a 40% tariff on our cars and our technology? We're going to put a 40% tariff on the pork, the pork Spaniards, which by the way is where all the 50% of the pork eaten in China comes from Europe. And 20% of that comes from Spain. So the who's going to get screwed? The poor farmer in Spain who has the pig farm. So the whole thing is cyclical. But my main point in that story is I thought that we were the country who pushed for democracy and free markets. Free Wilmer Leon (31:21): Markets, Rick Sanchez (31:22): Where Wilmer Leon (31:23): The fuck, the invisible hand let the market decide winners and losers. Adam Smith told us that. Rick Sanchez (31:30): Right? It goes back to your point about Cuba. It's like we say, well, we don't like Cuba because it's a communist country. So we do everything possible for them not to be able to compete in the free market. And then we say, we believe in the free market. Well, if you believe in the free market, you got to let China play. You got to let Cuba play. And you can't say, I don't like how they smell, or I don't like their policies, or I don't like their system of government. Everybody gets to play, right? That's what the free market means. Oh, Wilmer Leon (31:59): And by the buy, just really quickly, the United States made the conscious decision to export its manufacturing to China. We de-industrialized. That's true. The United States (32:17) Why? For cheaper labor. Why for greater profit? Now, what we found is the Chinese have found a better way to beat us at our own game. Once you learn how to play the game, then you got to learn how the game gets played, and we can't break that code. I got it. My brother, Rick Sanchez, thank you so much for joining me today. I love you, man. You're a great guy and a great friend and a great golf partner. Well, you are too kind. You probably just need to get out more. Hey folks, thank you so much for listening to the Connecting the Dots podcast with me. I'm a great guy. I'm a great friend. I'm a great golf partner, according to Rick Sanchez with me, Dr. Woman Leon. Stay tuned for new episodes every week. Also, please, please follow and subscribe. Leave a review, share the show, follow us on social media. You'll find all the links below in the description. Go to that Patreon site. Please make a contribution because, hey, I got to pay Rick. It ain't cheap. Anyway. This is where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge talk without analysis. It's just chatter. We don't chatter here on connecting the dots. See you again next time. Until then, I'm Dr. Wimer Leon. Have a great one. Peace and blessings. I'm out Announcer (33:54): Connecting the dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge.

Authorities in Venezuela are using all manner of tricks to try to ensure President Nicholas Maduro is reelected next month. However, as we hear, it seems that the stunts and intimidation are not working. And in China, the number of American's studying abroad is increasing, but is nowhere near pre-COVID levels. We look at why.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

In Atlanta today, we'll be holding the first of several urgent briefings in key swing states about what should be one of this year's most important voting issues: The strategic arson creating a global conflagration properly dubbed not World War III, but World War Xi.   After all, it was at a meeting two years ago between Chinese dictator Xi Jinping and Russia's Vladimir Putin that they announced a “No Limits Partnership.” Its first manifestation was Putin's Chinese-enabled  invasion of Ukraine. Successive meetings in Beijing between Xi and Iranian and Palestinian leaders preceded their invasion of Israel and ensuing, regional crises. And Venezuela's tyrant Nicholas Maduro returned from a visit to Xi in China pledging to attack neighboring Guyana.   The question occurs: Will today's Beijing summit with Putin result in Xi's next act of arson – perhaps against Taiwan, or even us?       This is Frank Gaffney.

Before Russia's Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, he met with Chinese dictator Xi Jinping in Beijing. Before Israel was invaded, Iranian and Palestinian leaders did the same.  And after Venezuela's Nicholas Maduro returned from meeting Xi in China's capital, he announced that he would invade Guyana – an as-yet unfulfilled threat or, more to the point, an unexecuted order.  Could yet another invasion loom after Secretary of State Tony Blinken's current visit with Xi in Beijing?  Actually, the Chinese Communist Party has already illegally inserted into this country multiple divisions-worth of unaccompanied, fighting-age men, apparently personnel of the People's Liberation Army. If the CCP regards Blinken and Joe Biden, who have allowed this invasion, to be – like Xi's aforementioned interlocutors – its “controlled assets,” our home front may soon be the locus of the next act of strategic arson by Xi Jinping.  God help us. This is Frank Gaffney.

In this video I discuss the growing number of Venezuelan gang members that have infiltrated the United States through the southern border as well as the theory that the Venezuelan president Nicholas Maduro is emptying the prisons in order to send these people here Website: https://www.actualjusticewarrior.com/https://linktr.ee/ActualJusticeOdysee: https://odysee.com/@actualjusticewarr...Rumble: https://rumble.com/ActualJusticeWarriorInstagram NEW:   / actualjustice  Twitch:   / actualjusticewarrior  Utreon: https://utreon.com/c/ActualJusticeWar...2nd Channel:    / ajw2dreamscometrue  TeeSpring Store: https://teespring.com/stores/actualju...New Store: https://actualjusticewarrior.myspread...Gettr: https://gettr.com/user/iamsean90Parler: https://parler.com/profile/Actualjust...https://www.minds.com/actualjusticewa...Support me on Patreon:   / seanfitzgerald  Paypal: https://www.paypal.me/Iamsean90Venmo: https://venmo.com/iamsean90Support me on Subscribe Star: https://www.subscribestar.com/seanfit...Gab: https://gab.com/Iamsean90Twitter   / iamsean90   Backup Twitter   / ajwsean  Bitchute: https://www.bitchute.com/actualjustic...Discord:   / discord  3rd:    / dudemonkeyhq  Get Storable Food: https://www.preparewithajw.comGet Pocketnet: https://pocketnet.app/actualjusticewa...Podcast Links:Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1o0q86A...Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast...Google Podcast: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0...Sources:US Being Infiltrated:    • FBI agent, others warn of Venezuelan ...  Biden Wants A Border Surge:    • Candidate Biden Calls On Illegal Immi...  Letter To DHS Secretary:   / 1573073597790314498  Migrants Who Attacked NYPD Gang: https://nypost.com/2024/02/15/us-news...Venezuela vs Gangs Article: https://insightcrime.org/news/is-vene...Venezuela vs Gangs:    • Powerful Venezuelan prison gang disma...  AOC Clip:    • 'Grow a little bit of a spine': AOC r...  Venezuela homicide case: https://www.statista.com/statistics/9...El Salvador Homicide: https://www.statista.com/statistics/6...#MigrantCrisis #Crime #IamSean90FAIR USE NOTICEThis video may contain copyrighted material; the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available for the purposes of criticism, comment, review and news reporting which constitute the 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. Not withstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work for purposes such as criticism, comment, review and news reporting is not an infringement of copyright.

Darrell Castle talks about the crises of illegal immigration or what many describe as a crises but the federal government doesn't seem to see as a crisis. In fact, the federal government maintains an immigration policy that makes murder of Americans by illegal invaders inevitable but no one seems to care. Transcription / Notes MURDER BY EXECUTIVE ACTION Hello, this is Darrell Castle with today's Castle Report. This is Friday the 1st day of March in the year of our Lord 2024. I will be talking about the crises of illegal immigration or what many describe as a crises but the federal government doesn't seem to see it as a crises, in fact, the federal government maintains an immigration policy that makes murder of Americans by illegal invaders inevitable but no one seems to care. A lot of things are happening at the border right now and those things are likely to make it a top focus of the 2024 presidential election. I know that if I were a presidential candidate this year the border would be my main focus followed closely by stupid, pointless foreign wars. The millions of migrants assisted into the country by Joe Biden are causing havoc for a lot of people and states, but my focus today is about how that problem affected one person. That one person was a 22 year old nursing student in Georgia named Laken Riley. I hope her family will forgive me for using her name, but I could see no other way to tell her story. Laken was a beautiful young woman with a great future in front of her until she was brutally murdered by Joe Biden's immigration policy. Yes, that's right Joe, this one's on you so just go ahead and eat your ice cream while her family grieves. She was an Augusta University nursing student, a graduate of River Ridge High School where she was a great student and star athlete. She was enrolled at the University of Georgia until she transferred to Augusta to pursue nursing. She went out for a run one day and when she didn't come back her friend reported her missing. Accolades of her young life poured in from her relatives and those who knew her. Her younger sister described Laken as her best friend. The superintendent of schools sent condolences as did the pastor of the Riley's church. Neighbors who knew Laken said they just could not fathom what happened. “We were heartbroken because we have a daughter that could very well be in the same situation. Our heart goes out to the family. I just cannot even imagine; you think of the young ladies that you know there and it makes me worried. I grew up, my mom always said, you do everything in numbers, you never do anything by yourself and that is what I've taught my daughter.” Well yes, it's shocking and one's heart goes out to her family but I do understand it and I do know what happened. She was murdered by a man invited into the country by the policies of one of the most uncaring, unfeeling people to ever occupy the White House. Law enforcement did their jobs and arrested a suspect right away, but that doesn't bring Laken back or relieve the suffering of her family. Somehow it would be nice if Joe Biden could be required to respond in damages to that family for the incurable grief he caused. He should be able to cover it easily from his Burisma deal. The illegal arrested for Laken's murder crossed the border into Texas September 8 of last year and was sent to a processing facility there. I supposed the border patrol looked at him and said he looks like one of the people Nicholas Maduro released from a Venezuelan prison so come on in and welcome. His name is Jose Antonio Ibarra and he and his wife Layling Franco and her 5-year-old son entered El Paso together but were then sent to New York City on September 15 where Jose posted happy, smiling pictures of himself on social media. He apparently enjoyed his time in New York at the expense of the people of New York. They, like their president, Joe Biden, invited it by voting themselves a sanctuary city.

Find me and the show on social media @DrWilmerLeon on X (Twitter), Instagram, and YouTube Facebook page is www.facebook.com/Drwilmerleonctd   TRANSCRIPT: Speaker 2 (00:14): Welcome to the Connecting the Dots podcast with Dr. Wilmer Leon. I'm Wilmer Leon. Here's the point. We have a tendency to view current events as though they occur in a vacuum, failing to understand and to truly appreciate the broader historical context in which most of these events occur. During each episode of this program, my guests and I will have probing, provocative, and in-depth discussions that connect the dots between current events and the broader historic context in which they occur. This will enable you to better understand and analyze the events that impact the global village in which we live. On today's episode, the questions are why are American neocons hell bent on starting a conflict with Russia? What's going on in Ukraine? Who was Alexi Naval? And is NATO really still relevant? For insight into all of this let's turn to my guest. He's a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer who served in the former Soviet Union implementing arms control treaties in the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert Storm, and in Iraq overseeing the disarmament of WMD. (01:31) His most recent book is entitled Disarmament In the Time of Perestroika, he is Scott Ritter. Scott, welcome. Thanks for joining me and let's connect some dots. Well, thanks for having me. And first of all, I have to say I love the name of your show in the intelligence business, connecting the dots is what we do. You never get the full picture. You get little pieces of information, and the question is, how do you connect them to get a proper narrative? So I like the idea. Well, thank you, Scott. I appreciate that. So the answers to each of these questions I think could be a show of their own, but let's start with in 2024, why are neocons so afraid of Russia? I mean, when we go back to this nauseating ongoing narrative, Hillary Clinton blamed Russia for hacking into the DNC server. No evidence was presented, but the narrative held and continues to hold in spite of scientific empiric evidence. (02:39) To the contrary, the whole Russiagate fiasco, even now, representative Mike Turner from Ohio, the chair of the House Intelligence Committee, he warns that Russia may be developing a space-based weapon that can target US satellites, NBC reported on the 19th of this month, alarming new warnings about Russia held zapper erosion. Nuclear power plant may be on the verge of explosion. These are just a few examples and we'll get to the specifics of each of these in a few, but just these are just some overarching examples of example, this Russia phobia. Why? Well, I mean, let's just look at historic examples. At the end of the Second World War, we had built up this economy that was a lot of people forget that before the Second World War happened, we had a thing called the Great Depression, and our economy was not the healthiest in the world, and we used global war as a way to mobilize our economy, to get it up to war footing. (03:48) And there was a recognition that with 12 million guys coming home, we needed jobs. And if we tried to transition back to a civilian economy, we ran the danger of going backwards instead of forward. So we had to keep this military industrial complex up and running. But to do that, you need an enemy, you need a bad guy. Therefore, we have the Iron Curtain, Winston Churchill's, Fulton, Missouri speech in, I think 1946, the creation of nato and then the Red Scare. I mean, Russia has always been communism back then. Not just Russia, but communist China was always the perfect boogeyman to say, Ooh, danger lurks. We therefore now have a justification to militarize our economy and back this up politically by pointing to this threat. Back in the fifties, we had the bomber gap. You remember that? (04:52) Read about it little before my time, but I got you. Yeah, I mean, we weren't around back. We're old Wilber, but we're not that old. But yeah, the idea of, I think the Russians took, had like a dozen bombers, but on a military parade, they just flew them over and over and over again in a circle over Moscow, and the people on the ground looked up and said, oh my goodness, there's a whole bunch of bombers. And so the CIA used this, the Congress used this to justify building more American bombers, even though once we got our satellites up, we went, there's only 12. There's not that many, but we never told the truth. Then there was the missile gap. John F. Kennedy was responsible for that one too. The Russians have missiles. We have to build missiles, missiles, missiles until we found out that they didn't have the missiles. (05:40) But it didn't matter. We continued to build them anyways, and this led to the Cuban missiles crisis, which scared the live and you know what out of everybody and got us on the path of arms control, at least trying to contain, but we still called them the threat. That's all that's happening here. I can guarantee you this Wilmer, the neocons aren't looking for a war with Russia because as politically biased as they are, as fear mongers are, they're not suicidal and they know what the consequences of a war with Russia would be, but what they're doing is they're pushing it right up to the cusp of conflict, especially now when you have an American society that's sort of waking up to the fact that we're spending a lot of money over there when we need to be spending a lot of money back here at home, and people are starting to ask questions. (06:30) So the way that you avoid answering these questions is to create that straw man that threat, the Russian threat. The Russians are evil. You said it perfectly. They interfered with our election. They're doing this, that and the other thing, and therefore we must spend 64 billion in Ukraine even though we can't spend $64 million in Flint, Michigan. I mean, it's this sort of argument that's going on, and this may seem as a somo or a juvenile question, but how dangerous is this? World War? I was to a great degree, started on a fluke. It is in many instances or in many minds attributable to the assassination of Archduke Fran Ferdinand. But that in and of itself isn't what started the war. There were a number of skirmishes and a number of tensions that were going on in Europe, and this was really just the spark that led to World War I. (07:33) If my understanding of history is accurate. So do we find ourselves now, whether it be Russia and Ukraine, China and Taiwan, North Korea and South Korea, I mean the United States, what's going on in Venezuela as the United States is interfering in the Venezuelan elections? There are a number, of course, we've got Gaza in the Middle East, so we've got our hands, we're smoking at the gas station and smoking at a lot of gas stations. I'm going to steal that, by the way. I like that analogy. Just letting everybody know I'm using that from now on. Look, first of all, there's no such thing as a sophomore question. The one thing I learned, and I learned this from guys who are 20 times smarter than me, that the only stupid questions, the one you don't ask, you don't ask, but you're a hundred percent right. Barbara Tuckman wrote a book, the Guns of August, I think it was a PO prize winning book about how we got to World War I. (08:38) And one of the key aspects to that wasn't just the different crises that were taking place, but how people responded to that and the thing that made World War I inevitable, even though everybody, if you read the book, everybody in the summer of 1914, nobody wanted war. Everybody believed it would be avoided, it was just suicidal. But then they got into this cycle of mobilization, mobilizing their societies economically and militarily for conflict because that's just what you did when you had a crisis. But it's okay, we're just mobilizing and we're not really going to war. What scares me about today is there's a recognition on the part of everybody that war would be suicidal, that we don't want this, but look at what we've done. We built up the Ukrainian military from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands and got it equipped, organized, trained to go to war against Russia. (09:44) What do you think we were doing in Ukraine from 2015 to 2022 when we were training a battalion of Ukrainian soldiers every 55 days for the sole purpose of fighting Russians? This helped trigger a conflict. It got Russia to respond. Then we poured more money into Ukraine. What did Russia do? Mobilize People need to put on their hats and go, wait a minute, that's a word we don't want to hear. Russia mobilized not just the 300,000, but the process of mobilization continued to where they trained 450,000 volunteers since January 1st, just for everybody who's wondering what's going on in Ukraine, I know that's going to be later on question. Russia mobilized 53,000 volunteers. This is at a time when Ukraine's thumping people on the head and takes 'em to the front because nobody wants to fight. 53,000 Russians volunteered to go fight in the war since January 1st. (10:42) They're coming in at 1000, 1,500 a day. And let me reiterate, that's not press gangs like they're using in Russia. G roaming the villages taking the men and now women from the streets and putting them into the military. That's not conscription, that's volunteer. And let me make this following point, it's even more interesting than that. It's not a bunch of 22-year-old red meat eating young men who are looking for adventure and romance. The average age of the Russian volunteer going in is about 35 years old. He's married, he has a family, and he has a job. It's the last person in the world that you'd expect to volunteer to go to a war zone. And yet they're doing it because they love their country, because they say we have to do that. What's going on right now is an existential struggle for the survival of Russia against the collective West, which again speaks to the danger of mobilization because Russia is a nation that is mobilizing and has the potential to mobilize even more if necessary. (11:55) And this should scare the heck out of everybody in nato because right now you have nato. What's NATO talking about doing Wilmer mobilizing. They're talking about mobilizing. You have everybody in NATO saying, well, they never say, well, since we kicked this hornets nest and the hornets are now coming out and stinging us, maybe we should stop kicking the hornet's nest. They don't acknowledge the role they played in building the Ukrainian army to trigger this, but what they're saying now is, oh, because Russia now has mobilized and is defeating the proxy army that we built. We have to mobilize in turn. And you have Brits talking about general mobilization, Germans, and what this does. Now, you're a Russian. You're sitting there going, huh? They're talking about mobilizing. Well, if they do that, what do we have to do? I mean, Finland just joined nato. We really don't care until they put on Russia's border, pardon on Russia's border, on Russia's border until they put NATO troops there. (12:50) Now Russia has to say, well, we didn't want to do this. But to give you an example, we keep the determinants mobilized. Wil Russia was compelled to create a new military district, the St. Petersburg military District, because Finland joined nato. There wasn't a St. Petersburg military district. Russia didn't have 70,000 combat troops on the finished border until Finland joined nato. Now, Russia has built mobilized Wilmer. They've put in 70,000 frontline troops divisions ready to march on Helsinki. Not because they wanted to, but because they were compelled to by the mobilization. Bringing Finland and Sweden into NATO is a form of mobilization. What we have here is we are moving in the wrong direction. We are accumulating military power in Europe, and at some point in time you're smoking at the gas station and it's going to go, I'm going to have to use that one, Scott. That's pretty good. (13:51) Feel free. So this time last year, Ukraine was on the front page of every newspaper as of the morning of that we're taping this conversation. I don't see Ukraine referenced. And let me suggest folks, Reid, I don't know if you've read Nikolai Petro and Ted Snyder's piece to end the war in Ukraine expose its core lie. Let me read two quick paragraphs. This is how it opens. The essential argument used to avoid negotiation and continue support for the war in Ukraine is based on a falsehood. That falsehood repeated by President Biden is that when Putin decided to invade, which we can debate that word, he intended to conquer all of Ukraine and annihilated its falsity, has been exposed multiple times by military experts who have pointed out both before and after the invasion, that Russia could not have intended to conquer all of Ukraine because it did not invade with sufficient forces to do so. Scott Ritter, well, look, that was my argument all along. I kept saying they're only going in with around 200,000. Ukraine at the start of the war had around 770,000, and I went, the normal attack defender ratio is supposed to be three to one in favor of the attacker. And Russia's going in with a one to three disadvantage. (15:21) Why? And the answer was because they weren't trying to occupy Ukraine. They were trying to, oh no, it's because Russians can't do math. Well, that too, I mean, I must be Russian because I'm not very good at math either. But my military math was like, this isn't adding up. But Russia's goal is to get 'em to a negotiating table. But I also then when Russia mobilized, because I basically said that Russia's going to have to get 500, 600,000 men to stabilize the frontline just to stabilize the frontline. And they mobilized to do that. And then people said, well, they're going to go on to Odessa. And I went, if they go on to Odessa, they're going to need around 900,000 guys to go on to Odessa and take those things. Russia's got about 900,000 guys there now. So they have enough troops to do that. (16:09) But to go on to Poland, they're going to need about 1.5 million guys. They don't have that. And to go from Poland to Germany, they're going to need around 3 million guys. It's just basic military math. I mean, I could bore you all day about how I come up with these numbers, but it's the logistics of war. It's the scope and scale of the fronts, how to protect flanks, how to sustain offensive operations. The math doesn't lie. I'm pretty good with those numbers and Russia doesn't have it. And here's the thing. We know this. I mean, there's, look, I was a major and I only was a major for a little while. The main part of my military life was spent as a captain. Now, captains are pretty cool, but we're not seniors. We're not the most senior people in the world. So I admit that my perspective was a captain's perspective at senior headquarters. (17:01) I saw the big picture, but I know enough to know what it takes to move troops. I was part of moving 750,000 troops into the Middle East. I know what a tip fiddle is, time phase deployment list, how to surge things in. I planned a core sized operation and had to plan on the logistics sustainability of that. I'm pretty good with the numbers. And so are the people in the Pentagon who are more senior than I am. People who see the bigger picture in more detail. They know what I'm talking about too. And they know no matter how much you talk up somebody, you're only as good as your logistics. I mean, you can have the Lamborghini, but if you ain't got the gasoline, you don't have anything. You have a piece of metal sitting in your driveway, but you got to have the gas and you got to have the gas sustained. (17:53) You got to be able to maintain it, fix it. Lamborghini's brake. You got to have people trained to drive the Lamborghini. We can talk the Russians up all we want to about this, that and the other thing. But the bottom line is they're only human and they can only do that which is physically possible to do. And they don't have the troops to invade NATO to drive on nato. It's a 100% fabrication on the part of these people to justify their own mobilization. But everybody knows that Russia can't. Right now, Russia has sufficient troops to take Odessa to take cargo, to take Nikola, to take nepa, Petros, that's it. They can't do anything more than that. If they want to drive on Kiev, they're going to need another 300,000 troops up in Belarus that they don't have right now. So people just have to put on their thinking caps and think rationally. (18:46) But right now, rational thought isn't in the cards. Apparently, you know a hell of a lot more about this than I do. You speak the language, you listen to the broadcast, I listen to you and other folks, but when I keep hearing statements about what Russia is going to do, the one thing that I never hear following that is evidence to support the position Russia wants to take over Europe. Europe, I've never heard President Putin say that. I've never read anything coming out of Russia that says that. All I hear is Nikki Haley and Joe Biden and Kamala there. There's a litany of folks that'll tell me that, but I haven't seen them present one video of President Putin standing at a podium or taking off his shoe like Stalin and pounding on the podium saying, I'm kicking your, and the other point is, 80% of what I see is defensive, not offensive. Here's another one you might want to use. Don't start nothing, won't be nothing. And it seems as Joe Biden would just shut the up. (20:14) You using my language? I want to be a Marine. Marine. So, okay, you get my point, Scott. Well, here's the thing. If we go back to the January, December, 2021, January 22 timeframe, the US government's running, going, Russia is going to invade, Russia is going to invade. Now, they may have had some intelligence about Russia moving up, logistics and all that stuff, but I said, Russia won't invade right now. They said, why? And I said, because Russia is a nation and the Russian government is ruled by law. Believe it or not. It's their law. It ain't our law, but it's their law. And there are things that have to happen before you can talk about an invasion. I spelled it out. I said, first of all, Russia will not operate in violation of the United Nations charter. So they will have to come up with a cognizable case for invasion. (21:12) And right now, the only one they have is preemptive self-defense. But to get preemptive self-defense, Russia will have to form a security relationship with the Doba, a formal security relationship, which will require the doba to not only declare their independence, but for Russia to recognize that independence. And then once Russia recognizes that independence, then Russia will have to go through, the President will have to go to the Duma, the Duma will have to approve something, go to the Senate, and then the Senate takes it back to the President, who then signs it. And then, and only then can we talk about military intervention. Now, this can take place in a short period of time, but I can promise you guarantee you that Russia ain't crossing the border until that happens. And if we're not seeing that happen, then there will be no military intervention and everybody's like, oh, scout up. Well, everything I said is 100. That's what happened in February. Russia began the process. Now, they did it in a very compact period of time, but every step that I said had to be taken was taken. Why? The rule of law. Putin is not a dictator. Putin is governed by the rule of law. He is not permitted to do things on a whim, and it's the same thing. If he wants to. (22:30) Russian troops cannot operate outside of the border of Russia without the permission of the Duma. He would have to go to them constitutionally, say, Hey, I'd like to send troops to Poland because he can't just send troops to Poland. And then the Duma would say, why are we doing this? What is the threat? And normally, the only reason to justify it is Poland attacked us, so we have to wait for that one. And that's the thing. In order for him to do anything to begin mobilizing, he can't just, why didn't he have 300,000 troops already mobilized to go into Ukraine? Because to justify the mobilization, you need legal justification. He didn't have it, didn't have it, couldn't go to the Duma, couldn't justify it. None of the steps that would be required for Russia to attack Europe are in place. First of all, it's not in Russia's doctrine, their entire approach, and you hit it on the head, their defense. (23:33) Now, the Russians are very good at the counter offensive, so if we attack them, Russian defensive doctors is to receive the attack, to destroy the attack and then to counter attack, and you counter attack to destroy the political center of the beast that attacked you. So yeah, if you want Russian troops in Warsaw, if you want Russian troops in Berlin, attack Russia. But otherwise, don't worry about it because it isn't going to happen. Don't start nothing. It won't be nothing. Won't be nothing. I like it. Alexi Navalny described as, and this is the description, the dominant Western narrative described as Russian President Putin's most formidable domestic opponent fell unconscious and died at polar wolf, Arctic penal colony. Biden described him as a powerful voice for the truth. What has happened to Navali is yet more proof of Putin's brutality. No one should be fooled. Well, the first thing is, if that was true, then what does this say about Biden's unyielding support for genocide in Gaza? What does that say about his brutality looking at the thousands, tens of thousands that people have fought, but that's not the point. If you could quickly unpack the myth of Alexi Navalny and the alleged poisoning and all of that stuff to kind of dispel this myth that Putin has assassinated his most formidable domestic opponent. (25:25) Okay, first of all, we have to understand that the United States government has been in the business of trying to control Russian politics since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The decade of the 1990s was premised on an American policy of promoting democratic reform inside Russia. But what it means by that is by creating institutions that are controlled by the United States and banking and well, money is everything. And what we did in the 1990s is we started using non-governmental organizations. We'd set up these civic societies, these groups for furtherance of democracy, and then we would fund them through various fronts like the National Endowment for Democracy, which in 1983 was created to take over the covert political action functions of the CIA and make it more overt. The US Congress created it, funneled money to it. There's a democratic branch, there's a Republican branch they filter money in. (26:28) The whole idea is again, to create fund, so-called democratic institutions that will lead to the restructuring of a society the way we want it to be restructured. The United States did that in Ukraine in 2014 with the, well, well, we did it before that. If you remember back in the early two thousands, we did a color revolution in Serbia. It was a very successful color revolution, and so we use that as a template that would then repeat it in Georgia, and then we repeated in Ukraine, remember 2004, 2005, the Orange Revolution. What a lot of people don't realize is that we were actively trying to do a color revolution in Russia in 2007, 2008. Why that time period? Again, I don't want to bore people, but this is very important. Vladimir Putin became president end of 1999. He won an election in March of 2000 constitutionally. (27:24) He got to run for two terms, those two terms. It became clear that he was not going to continue the Yeltsin policy of doing whatever the United States wanted to be done, that he was going to try to reform Russia in a Russian image, which we didn't like. So we were pouring money into Russia through these non-governmental organizations for the purpose of carrying out a color revolution in 2007, 2008. The way we were going to do it is in 2007 was the parliamentary elections. The idea of that 2007, 2008 period was that Putin couldn't stand a third term as president, so he was going to do a swap with Dmitri Veev, who at that time was the prime Minister. So Putin was going to become prime minister. Veev would become president, but for this to happen, United Russia, which was Putin's party, had to win the parliamentary election. (28:10) If the opposition could deny United Russia the majority, then Putin couldn't become Prime Minister, and if Putin couldn't become Prime Minister, then vie was vulnerable as president and you could pick him off and suddenly you've swept Putin out of power. This is literally the stated objective of the United States, and we started pouring money into Russia to promote this. One of the guys that got caught up in this was a young lawyer named Alex Navalny. He started working, it's CIA all the way. Look, the CIA trained some people. One of them was this Y Guinea albo. She's a journalist, but she went to Harvard, got groomed by the CIA, whether she knew it or not, but she left the balling, went to Yale. Well, later on, yes, he went to Yale in 2010, but Allach comes in in 2004 and she sets up this political parlor. (29:05) Now she comes from Harvard, she got her PhD. She comes to Russia. The first thing she does is sets up this political parlor funded by British money coming from oligarchs funneled to her through British intelligence. And this parlor attracts these young people, including Navalny, and their job is to create a youth movement that can lead to a color revolution. That's his whole thing. Bottom line is it failed. It failed miserably. But Navalny was identified at that point in time as somebody with potentially started this anti-corruption campaign when mid became the president mid said, I'm against corruption. Naval went good. Let me help you. And he jumped on this thing. He got picked to go to Yale in 2010 where he was groomed by the CIA for what purpose. The next target was, okay, we couldn't stop Putin from doing the swap in 2007, 2008. What we can do now is keep mid in power. (30:01) We can prevent Putin from coming back into office in the 2012 presidential election. Remember Hillary Clinton working the opposition, Michael McFall going in there. It's a big deal. And the volume, he became the front man for this. He went to Yale. He got dipped in, greased by the CIA and he got sent back to Russia. He's a CIA asset, straight up funded by British intelligence trying to overthrow or prevent Putin from coming back in power. Well, what's that thing? If you don't start nothing, there won't be nothing. Don't start nothing. Won't be nothing. Well, Navalny, I mean, before he went to Yale, he spent a summer in Kiro, which is a province about 800 kilometers northeast of Moscow. He got involved in restructuring the timber business, and it looked like he might've done some things that weren't so good. Normally that would be ignored, but he comes back and he immediately starts attacking the interest, the economic interest behind United Russia and Putin. (31:04) And so you started something, okay? So they opened up a criminal case against him, and now you have this situation where Navalny is trying to make himself relevant. And look, he had some traction early on. He ran for Mayor of Moscow and he got 27% of the vote. That ain't bad, but he didn't have any traction outside of Moscow. He couldn't get the kind of numbers necessary to win, but he was a pain in Putin's side. So they started legal, this legal stuff against him, and it ended up in him being convicted of a fraud and embezzlement, some people call it politically motivated. There's no doubt it was politically motivated, but that doesn't mean that the crime didn't take place. He got a suspended sentence. He's on parole. Basically, they did this to keep him from running. They said, because you're convicted, you can't run for office. (31:52) Something needed to happen. And so in 2020, he was poisoned, but he wasn't. Again, I don't want to get too much down the conspiracy track, but let me just put it this way. His medical records clearly show that he wasn't poisoned by Novak. This was a setup to get him out of Russia where he had been effectively neutered over into a safe area, and we know that he landed in Germany, he was flown into Germany, had a miraculous recovery by December. He wait a minute, had a miraculous recovery from Nova Chuck, which from my understanding is one of the most dangerous nerve agents created. I've read. It's so dangerous. It really can't even be used. The story was that he was poisoned at the airport. They poisoned his tea before he got on the plane. No, no. They poisoned his underwear in his hotel room. (32:45) No, no. But wasn't that afterwards, because the story changed. The story changed a couple of times. That's my point that they said that they poisoned his tea in the airport. If I understand it, if you were to put Nova chuck in a cup of tea damn near everybody, at least in that area of the airport would be dead. Then they said, oh, they poisoned his water bottle on the plane. Nobach is so toxic that if they had done that, everybody including the pilot would be dead. Then they poisoned his underwear. The story kept, and this is also interesting to me, is that during all of these changing of the stories, Russia kept saying, send us the toxicology report so that we can investigate this. No toxicology report was ever presented. Yeah, again, I'm not a big conspiracy guy. I don't like it. I am Hamm's razor kind of person. (33:48) But the problem is, CCAM razor points to this because we did get the toxicology, not the ones that the Germans and everybody were saying prove Novare, Wilma, you're a hundred percent right. This is the most deadly substance on the planet, but apparently it can't kill anybody. And by the way, whatever the new name of the kgp is, they're pretty good at assassinating folks as is the ccia. A, if they want you done, cancel your distance and cancel your five bullets. Five bullets in the front of your body tends to do it. You don't have to mess around with Novak. Okay? Yeah. I mean, just look. A Ukrainian pilot, a Russian pilot defected earlier this year to Ukraine and had two of his crew members killed as a result. I mean, he's a murderous traitor in the eyes of the Russians. They just found his body in Spain with five bullets pumped into the front of it. (34:45) That's how the Russians get you. They don't go around doing this Novak stuff. But the point is this Nozek was a manufactured event. It didn't happen. What the German doctors who treated him released the blood work and everything. It showed that Navalny had a whole bunch of different health issues, some serious health issues, and he was also, they found evidence of antidepressants, which is okay. I'm not attacking him, it's not a problem, but it looks like he deliberately overdosed on antidepressants to generate the result that happened so he could be flown out. This was a pre-planned event. I just want everybody to understand that, that Navalny deliberately overdosed on antidepressants to generate a medical crisis that then got him flown out of Russia, because remember, he's on house arrest. He can't leave, but they got him out. What's the first thing that happens after his miraculous recovery? (35:42) They fly him to Germany to a CIA safe house where a film crew comes in and they produce two feature length documentaries in one month, one month, including elaborate computer generated graphics, the whole thing. He claims that he came up with the idea while he was recovering from his and wrote it in a feverish in October, November. Wilmer, I've made a documentary and I'm making one right now. I can guarantee you they didn't get it done in a month. This was prepackaged by the CIA and British intelligence. And then he was, everybody's saying, stay in Germany. And he went, no, I'm going back. Why? Again? In 2021, these election cycles matter. In 2021, Putin was going to change the Constitution so that he could continue to run for office, and he changed the length of the term from four years to six years. He was restructuring the government and everybody who was anybody, including myself, looked at it and went, he's basically guaranteeing that the West will never subvert Russian democracy by doing this. (36:49) He's iron proofing it, bulletproofing it. So the last chance to get rid of Vladimir Putin was to disrupt this effort. Navalny was picked as the guy to do it. Navalny job was to go back to Russia stand trial, and while he's standing trial, they're going to release these documentaries. The first one was called Putin's Palace, which was supposed to expose the corruption of Putin and everything, and the idea that it would generate so much unrest inside Russia that Navalny would be acquitted, put in, become the presidential candidate to oppose Putin. That was the dream. The problem is the people coming up with that didn't understand that Navalny had no support in Russia, never could never get it outside of Moscow. You couldn't get 5%. You might get 12% in Cabo, but that's it. You're not going to win election with 12% support. The numbers I saw for him was about somewhere between two and 5%, more on the 2% side. (37:44) Nationwide, like I said, there's certain bubbles in there where you could get support, but nationwide, he wasn't going anywhere on this. So he goes back and the Russians, what's that? Don't want nothing. Don't start nothing. The Russians know exactly what's going on. I mean, look, Pesco, who's the pre spokesperson in October of 2020, he said, we know what's going on. Navalny is working with the CIA. We know this. We know everything. So they brought him back and they knew what his plan was. They knew what he was supposed to do. So they quickly turned just really quickly because that's what President Putin said to Tucker Carlson when he talked about it's good that you applied to the CIA and that they did not accept you. He was sending a message. I know who you are. I know what you do. Yeah, well, so here's the deal. (38:39) The Russians said, we're not playing this game anymore. We've letting Navali do this stupid stupidity because he's irrelevant. But now you're playing, playing a serious game of messing around with our democracy. So we're just going to end it. The vol, the hammer's coming down, boom, nine years, boom, 30 years, you're in jail for life. Goodbye. Get out of here. Now they did that, and then a lot of people just came out and Bill. Then the Russians turned around and said, okay, we know he's your spy. Do you want him back? We'll trade him for a guy that we want back from Germany. Now, here's the part that gets conspiratorial two days before he died, minute before you get there. Isn't there also footage of Navalny or one of his representatives, but I think it's him talking Tom, I six, about money, about how much money he's going to need to sustain this democracy movement in Russia. (39:38) 2012, Navalny deputy met with a member of MI six in Moscow. Again, how did they get the video? Because the Russians know everything. I mean, when people are sitting there going, Evan Sitz isn't a CIA spy. He couldn't be. I just want to tell you right now, ladies and gentlemen, the Russians have him on film talking about this, about receiving the documents. It's conspiratorial. Putin was very clear about it. He's a CIA spy and Navalny, the Russians know who was paying for him. They know this. So they're sitting there going, we want to give them back. But that's the last thing. The ccia A wants. Why? Because then they have to admit that we're messing around in Russian politics politic. They can't. So this is the part that, this is what I firmly believe, because I believe that Navalny was induced by his handlers to deliberately overdose on depressants in 2020 to get him out, to get involved in the CIA operation to come back in and disrupt the election. (40:37) That is clear. Two days before he died, he was visited by his lawyer. Some people say that his wife was there as well, and they brought medication that's documented. Have you seen Godfather two so many times? I can't tell you how many Freddy five fingers. Freddy. Five fingers. Okay, so Tom goes to talk to Freddie five fingers. You just take a nice warm bath, you slit your words, nice warm bath, open up your veins with the woman. The family will be taken care of, throws the cigar away, shakes his hand, and it's understood. Navalny daughter got a free ride to Stanford courtesy of Michael McFall. Navalny wife now has been appointed. I mean, she was at the Munich Security Conference ready to step in before he died. He died. The script comes in, boom. She's now the new figure of the opposition. She's not tainted by crime. (41:32) She's at Navalny. That's a headline in the Washington Post today. Yeah, she's the new face of the opposition because Navalny had been neutered by the Russians, but as long as he was alive, he was a problem for the CIA. So Freddy five fingers, that's all I'm going to say. He was told Your family will be taken care of. All they have to do is lie in the tub and open up my veins, and it's a quiet, painful day. He overdosed on the drugs they gave him. He went for a walk and he died, didn't come back. His family's taken care of, and that's what I believe happened. I believe that the CIA knocked this guy off in prison. He took a long walk on a very short pier. Yeah. (42:20) So you've got Alexander the Butcher, sarky Ky, the commander of Ukraine's Ground forces. Since the start of the military operation, he is now the new military chief after Emir, Zelensky replaced zany in this leadership shakeup. What does that tell us at this stage of the game? What does that type of move tell us? Are they transitioning now to another phase of this process, recognizing that the war is lost? Again, everything has to have a setup because nothing happens in a vacuum. Ukraine is called the greatest democracy in the world. We know that's not true, but it's called the greatest democracy in the world by America. We overthrew it in 2014. Yes, we would know. But the key aspect of democracies is civil military relations, meaning that the civilian is the commander in chief, and the military always obeys the orders. Let's look at American history. (43:32) George McClellan, Abraham Lincoln McClellan was the commander of the army of the Potomac, and he thought he knew how to win this war, and Abraham Lincoln disagreed and fired him. And McClellan said, sir, yes sir. And he resigned because civil military relations, that's what you do. McClellan went on to challenge Lincoln in the elections and lost, but he didn't launch a coup. That's not what you do. Douglas MacArthur, during the Korean War thought he knew how to win the war, wanted to drop atomic bombs on China. Harry Truman said, Nope, that's not how we're going to do it. And they met in Midway, and Truman fired him, and MacArthur went, sir, yes sir. And he resigned. That's what civil military relations supposed to be in a democracy. Zelensky met with zany, who's the commander of the Ukrainian Armed forces, and he said, I don't like the fact that you're articulating policy that goes against what I want. (44:31) I want to be more aggressive. I have to go out and sell this conflict to the West, and I have to sell it, that we're going to regain all the lost territory. And you, as the general is supposed to say, sir, yes, sir, but you've gone out and given interviews behind my back saying it's a frozen conflict, a stalemate. I can't do that. You're fired and solution. He said, no, I'm not. And Zelensky went. Zany said, not only am I not fired, but here, let me show you this. Here's my picture. Given a medal to a right sector, Nazi from the organization, said, they're going to hang you from the deck, and if you ever go against this, and behind me is a picture of step on Bandera and the right sector flag. Go ahead and fire me now. Zelensky, you're a dead man walking. (45:14) And when Zelensky started calling people up saying Aslu saying no, one of the people he called up was Ky, who said, I just want to tell you right now, Mr. President, myself and the entire Ukrainian general staff support slu, you fire 'em. We come marching, it's over. And now Victoria Newland, and everybody's back there going, can't do this, guys. We're supposed to be giving 64 billion to the world's greatest democracy. We're against coups, and you're getting ready to launch a coup. She flies in panic, and so she cuts a deal. She explains to everybody, if you do this coup, we can't support you. It's over, and then you're all going to die. And the generals realized that, and they went, yeah, we understand that. Zelensky realized that. So zany stepped aside, Zeki took over, but understand what happened. It's a coup. There's one man in charge of Ukraine today, and his name is not Mir Zelinsky. (46:07) His name is Ky. He's the commander of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, and they're calling the shots. How do we know this? Because within days of him coming in, he said, we're going over to the general defensive. He's calling the shots. Zelinsky said, we'll never leave at vca. KY came and said, get 'em out. Pull 'em out, red, destroy the line. We're going to be pulling back the military's in charge. And now you have some interesting things because the coup we didn't want to happen may happen because the nationalists are all upset. And there's talk about driving on Kiev right now. The Nazi nationalists are you're talking about, yeah, the Nazis, the N right sector guys who became Ovv, who now have renamed themselves. They're the third assault brigade, and everybody's going, there's no Nazis in Ukraine because there's nothing called the Azov, except the Nazis are so stupid. (47:03) They say, nah, third of assault brigade we're azo. And they do it right on camera, seeling all this kind of stuff in the West, everywhere. Oh, no, we don't want to see this guy's just calling himself the third assault brigade. But no, the Nazis are there. They're upset. It's a mess right now. But America, I'm just telling everybody's this, right? There was a coup deta in Ukraine. The generals are in charge. Zelinsky is a figurehead right now, but the people calling the shot is the military. Now, that's a new reality. I just want to quickly take a step back and to the point you were making about Navalny, to those that think what you're saying is fanciful and crazy, the United States did a similar action. They didn't kill him, but they did a similar action in Venezuela with Juan Gudo. The United States told the world that Juan Gudo was the president of Venezuela, even though Nicholas Maduro is the democratically elected president. (48:11) And when Gudo failed, now the United States is trying to do the same thing with a woman named Marina Machado, and she has been convicted by the Venezuelan Supreme Court as having worked with, I think it's Peru, against the interests of Venezuela. So the Venezuelan Supreme Court said, because you've gone outside the country and tried to overthrow this government, you are no longer qualified to be a candidate for president. The United States is trying to ignore the, dictate the decision of the Venezuelan Supreme Court and put this woman in place. Anyway, I bring that up just to show that what you have talked about in terms of, now I forgot the guy's name, Naval, Naval, Navalny, the United States is doing this in doing this, a number of places, and Venezuela is the most recent. But yeah. How about President Diem in Vietnam? Well, we can go for people going, well, this is fanciful. (49:19) This is out of a guys. We do it all the time. All the time. When leaders become inconvenient to the Sharan, the Sharan, the Sha Saddam Hussein. I just want to remind people, one of the more interesting, I was involved with a lot of defectors, Iraqi defectors in my time as a UN weapons inspector, and one guy that I interviewed many, many times was Wafi Samara. He was the head of military intelligence for Saddam. He ended up being in London and run by the Brits. So I'd go there and the MI six would take you to a safe house, and Wafi would come in and we'd have long conversations, and I tried to extract information from him that could lead to good inspections. But he just sat there and he talked about how the US intelligence would fly in, because the place I wanted to inspect was a specific office with a specific safe. (50:13) And he said, Hey, when you're in that safe, if you go down to this drawer, boom, you might find some photographs that you recognize. And I said, whatcha talking about? He goes, that's where we kept the American Spy satellite photographs that were given to us by American Intelligence officers who came in and sat in that conference room right next to it. You'll see it when you go in there. I did. And we met there, and they would brief us on the spy satellites, give us the newest signals, intelligence laying out the Iranian ground forces, and they helped us plan the chemical weapons attacks against the Iranians in 1988 and afa. We had this wonderful relationship. He gave me the names of all the guys that he worked with. What I'm trying to say is, ladies and gentlemen, there was a time in 19 88, 19 89, where Saddam was our boy. (50:58) US intelligence was there. Then Saddam became inconvenient. He fired scud missiles at Israel, which is a capital crime, and we ended up going to war removing them and having him hung by the neck until dead because his continued survival would've been inconvenient for America. Let me just make it as clear as this. Navalny had become inconvenient because the Russians were sitting on, the Russians never go public about anything, and their words mean everything. And when Pesco said, in October of 2020, we know what the CIA is doing, the cia, we know who he's working with. We know what's happening. It meant they know. They know everything. They have all the financials, they have all the videotapes, they have everything. And the US knew it too. That interview with Tucker is very telling. He said, I'm not going to talk to Biden. There's really nothing for me to say, but he says, our special services are talking. (51:58) They're talking the language of the special services. Having been in the special services and engaged in those kinds of conversations, they're very frank, because we don't have to play games. When you sit down with somebody and they know what your background is, we don't have to pretend. We talk about human recruitment, we talk about technical surveillance, we talk about the tools of the trade, we talk about the language that we know is going on. And so when the special services of Russia sit down with the special services of the CI and say, we know exactly what you guys did. You met here, boom, boom, boom. We got the goods. He's your boy. Do you want him back? And the CIA went, Nope, we don't want him back. We're going to have a lawyer visit him. And again, it may sound something like that, a movie. (52:40) But remember, Hollywood gets its greatest cues from reality. Frank Pan, angel, Freddy, five Fingers, Freddy, five Fingers baby. Favorite scene in the world. And it's real. I mean, I'm giving away my article, but I'm writing an article that this is going to be explained in great detail, and I talk about Freddy Five Fingers. So the next point here that I want to get to with you quickly is Mike Turner, Republican of Ohio, chair of the House Intelligence Committee. He's warning that Russia may be developing a space-based weapon that could target US satellites. And a lot of the narrative that's surrounding what he said over last weekend is that now Russia has violated, there were some treaties I think signed in the mid eighties that the countries agreed that they would not militarize space. But what seems to be left out of this conversation is that I think when the United States announced the Space Force that was militarization of space, therefore the treaty that they now want to wrap themselves in and call foul based upon, really the United States has already violated it. (54:00) So go ahead. Well, the treaty is the 1967 treaty, the outer space Treaty 67. Okay? And it talks about, it doesn't say demilitarization. What it says is that space should be used for exclusively peaceful purposes and that nobody should deploy nuclear weapons in the space. Now, what Turner has to show the stupidity of Mike Turner and these people. Apparently there's raw intelligence. That's the term that's used, and that's an important phrase. Finished intelligence is when I collect information, I corroborate it with different sources. You connect the dots, I connect the dots. That's right. Bingo. Good job, Wilmer. And you connect the dots, and then you write up an assessment that it's fact-based. But here's the important thing. You disguise the sources of information because if you're going to release finished intelligence to a congressman or Congress, they do what politicians do. They talk. They bring in somebody, Hey, read this. (55:05) You're not supposed to write about it, but wink, wink, read this. And they go, oh my God, the Russians are going to put a nuclear weapon in space. What are we going to do about it? Okay, finished. Intelligence gets leaked all the time. Everybody does it. The president on down. It's just the name of the game in Washington dc. Raw intelligence though, is almost never leaked. Why? Because raw intelligence means we haven't protected the source. So Turner released raw intelligence. He released a raw intelligence report to Congress. He put it in the reading room and said, everybody needs to come and read this thing. Now, a lot of people did, a lot of people didn't, but it created a storm because he issued a public statement, which means the media now, because he knows how the game's played. Now, every reporter worked their salt in Washington. (55:55) Dcs found their congressional sourcing. What the hell is on that report? And people started talking. So what we do know now is that the Russians are developing an anti-satellite capability that incorporates a nuclear device designed to generate an electromagnetic pulse that can shut down all of our satellites in outer space. Now, why is this important? Understand this. Turner released his report on Wednesday, knowing that on Thursday, the gang of eight, four senators, four Republicans from the Intelligence Committee, the leadership was going to meet with the White House National Security Council about this very report and talk about it. So why would you release it when they're already going to talk about it? What are you trying to do? (56:42) On Wednesday, the day he released his report, SpaceX sent up a Falcon Nine rocket with two satellites. These satellites were experimental missile monitoring satellites, part of a constellation of satellites that the United States started deploying last year. We deployed 28 of them last year. It's going to be a constellation of hundreds. It's sort of like a militarized starlink. And the purpose of this constellation is give America total control over the informational domain. That means that we communicate faster, we navigate, we can target, we can collect. We've militarized space. And the Russians have said, they've written reports to Secretary General saying, Hey, this is a violation of the outer space treaty. You're militarizing space. You're creating an advantage at a time when you say you want to strategically defeat Russia, remember, that's the American objective. And the Russians are saying, if you do this, you could launch a first strike against us, and we might not be able to respond. (57:45) You're getting a unilateral advantage here, and if we do go to war, you're going to have this total control over intelligence, collection, communications, et cetera, that gives you an operational and tactical advantage. We can't allow this to happen. So what the Russians did is they developed a weapon. They haven't deployed it yet, but it's a weapon that it will go up. And in one winding flash of a moment, that doesn't threaten any life here in America. It's not like they're going up there with a giant dirty bomb. It's going to be a neutron type device, a small device that's geared towards emitting radiation, the pulse, and it's going to blind the entire in an instant shut down this entire satellite network. But here's the important thing. From Turner's perspective, the entire American military approach to war depends on this. If we don't have this satellite thing, we put talk about putting all the eggs in one basket, we have literally put all the eggs in one basket. (58:44) Everything we do depends on this. If you shut that satellite network down, ladies and gentlemen, we can't go to war. We can't go to war. It's over. And Turner knows it. So what Turner's trying to do is say, guys, why are we investing all this money? This is going to go on for years when we know the Russians can undo it. This is stupid. We need to either get involved in arms control to prevent this from happening, or we need to come up with a backup plan because these satellites ain't going to work the way you want 'em to work when you want 'em to work. That's noble. But here's the problem. He released raw intelligence, which means the Russians now know how we collected it, and at a time when we need to have continued access to this stream of reporting. Now more than ever, let's imagine that the president says, Hey, what are the Russians up to today on that satellite thing, the thing we've been monitoring, you guys came to me and you said, Hey, boss, we put a, I don't know how they did it. (59:49) We tapped a cable and now we're listening to the conversations of these guys. Oh, wow, that's cool. Okay, but boss, we can't talk about, we can't mention the following words because if we mention the following words, the Russians will know what conversation we listen to, and then they'll stop communicating. Well, raw intelligence gives you those words. It wasn't finished product. Mike Turner compromised his source. We will never listen to them again at a time when we actually need to be monitoring this to come up with a strategy. Remember, let's say we want to do the right thing for once in our pathetic lives as Americans, and we say, maybe it's time we do engage in meaningful arms control. This is when we need to know what Russian intent is. How far along are they? Are they going to deploy this? Is this something that the Russians are doing to get to the negotiating table, or is this something that the Russians are going to keep, no matter what, what's going on, it affects our negotiating strategy. (01:00:44) We don't know now because Mike Turner released the raw intelligence to do an honorable thing to get people, he knew that they were going to sweep it under the rug. He knew that the Gang of eight and the White House were just go, Nope, we're not going to worry about this. We're going to keep deploying the satellites. And he's going, that's stupid. But now we are blind. And that's why I call it Turner's folly. I mean, trying to do the right thing. He did the absolute wrong thing. And now at a time when we need to have this intelligence, it's not there. I know there's a lot of people out there that thinks intelligence is a bad word, and it's been misused throughout history. There's no doubt about that. But I'm here to tell you right now that collecting information of this nature is absolutely essential to the national security of the United States because you want our leaders to be informed about the potential threats that exist around the world. (01:01:32) And there's a need for intelligence, not Iris. I'm not talking about violating American constitutional rights. I'm not talking about, I'm saying there's a need for people like me who did it honorably. It's a tough job. It's a dangerous job. Sometimes you have to do things that you wouldn't want to talk about at the PTA, but it's the reality of the world that you have to go out there and you have to get this information so that your leaders are informed so they can make the right decisions. And Mike Turner has cost us that information at a time when we desperately need it. Final question for you. And that surrounds nato and Donald Trump's comments about nato, and there seems to be an awful lot of furor about his talking about defunding NATO and all this kind of stuff, when all that I can read and understand is that NATO is now really obsolete and that it's a money laundering scheme. (01:02:26) Yeah, let me put it this way. There's a foreign minister of Lithuania Landsburg out there, and he's, I mean, Lithuania, the Baltic countries, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, they're making a lot of noise right now about Article five and how it's essential that NATO must come to the collective defense. But Lithuania is talking about, for instance, blockading Coing grad, the Russian enclave on the Baltic Sea. They're talking about sanctions. They're talking about a whole bunch of stuff that could lead to a war with Russia. And they're saying, that's okay because we're nato, and NATO will protect us. (01:03:05) The American people need to understand that Lithuania has a population of 2.8 million. The greater East Coast megapolis from Boston to Washington DC is 50 million people. Do you really think that we're going to sacrifice 50 million people to defend 2.8 million people who are kicking a hornet's nest right now? The answer is no. And that's the bottom line about nato. The American people are waking up to the fact that NATO is not about defending Europe from the evil Russians, NATO's a suicide pill. Because you have nations like Poland, you have nations like Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, that think that because they have this NATO shield behind them, they can behave aggressively to Russian and not have any consequence to it. If they start a war against Russia and a blockade of Coing, grad is an act of war, Russia will respond militarily. And now if you're Joe Biden, it's a sacred thing. (01:04:04) Every inch of NATO soil is sacred. Article five is a sacred, no, it's a suicide pill. It's a trap having poodles trying to get the rottweilers to fight. NATO is an organization that has outlived its usefulness. Donald Trump, he's not the most eloquent person or the most articulate person. And there's a lot about him that just cannot be supported 100%. But I'll tell you right now, he's speaking the mind of many Americans when he says, we ain't doing this anymore. We're not paying your bills. We're not going to be there for you. When you want to kick a hornet's nest. We don't want to get stung. So you're on your own, and that's what's going to happen. I am predicting that nato, it may not last 10 years. It's out. It's on its way out because it's, here's the thing. Remember we talked about mobilization at the beginning? (01:04:56) We talked about mobilization. It's funny to watch the schizophrenia that exists in people like Jan Stoltenberg who stutters his way through everything. Russia is evil, and we must must stand up through Russia. NATO must do, but we cannot afford to mobilize right now. We have no money. Our industry is no longer working, and we don't, but America will pay for it because NATO is a, I mean, it's going back and forth. NATO can't mobilize right now because they don't have the industrial base to mobilize. Not only that, nobody wants to be part the British who are out there. Boris Johnson doing that ridiculous thing. Lance Corporal Johnson reporting, sir, we're going to mobilize the people. First of all, Britain has two aircraft carriers. They built for, I forget how many billions of dollars they can't get out of port because they don't work. They build a whole bunch of new frigates, brand new modern frigates to defend these aircraft carriers, but they don't have enough sailors. (01:05:51) So in order to get the sailors on these new frigates, they have to retire frigates that are still good. So they're military. We're going to fight the Russians. I mean, you hear this British general, we're going to be on the front lines of the next war with Russia, with what? Your military's 72,000. Right now, you can't fill up a soccer stadium, and in five years it's going to be 56,000. Nobody wants to join the British military anymore. Nobody's joining the Navy. Nobody's joining anything because the youth of Europe don't believe in Europe. They don't believe they're not willing to give their lives for this pathetic little enterprise called Europe or nato. So all this talk about 300,000, this, that mobilize. It's all talk. And that's the good news is it's all talk. The better news is I think NATO's done because you used a word that's very important. And normally, as I said, I shy against conspiracies, but NATO's a money laundering scheme, that's all it is. It's an employment vehicle. I mean, I have to be careful. I have relatives that work for nato. They're not Americans, and thank God, I mean, one's married to my sister. So I like the fact that he has a paycheck. It keeps my sister fed and a roof overhead. (01:07:07) But the jobs not a real job. None of NATO's a real job. It's just an employment vehicle for a political economic elite that automatically fallen on these ES because that's what NATO is. It's a sinecure for people just to sit there and collect a paycheck doing nothing. If I have the chance to speak to President Biden, and I know he watches the show regularly, I would have to ask him about the sanctity of NATO that he holds so near and dear, if you believe in NATO to the degree that you do, Mr. President, why did you engage in an act of war as in blowing up the Nord Stream pipeline? Why did you engage in an act of war against a NATO country that being Germany? Because by doing so, article five, the other NATO countries are supposed to respond to Germany's defense in a manner in which they see fit. (01:08:10) So I guess the fact that they didn't respond means they didn't see a manner that they see fit. But I don't hear anybody asking that question. Why? If NATO is NATO and it's sacrosanct as it is, why did you engage in an act of war against a NATO member? That's my final question, Scott Ritter. Well, I mean, it's a great question, but here's even an equally relevant one. Why did the German chancellor stay silent at the press conference in February when the president said that if Russian and invade Ukraine, I'll take out Nord stream. And when he was asked the question, but it's German, how could you do that? It'll get done, I promise you. And Olaf Schultz is sitting there going, not saying a word, not saying a word. So how can you, I mean, the thing about Article five is it has to be invoked by the person attacked. (01:09:05) And Germany never once said, we've been attacked because they were there when it was designed. Olaf Schultz knew all along that this was going to happen because Germany's not a sovereign state. And that's the thing about NATO that people need to understand. It exists only for the United States. It's the exclusive tool of the United States. It exists to promote American national security interests. And this is why when you have Latvia and Poland now believing that NATO's there for their interest, no, it's not. NATO doesn't exist for anybody's interest, but our own. And as Europe wakes up to this reality, they're going to realize that we don't need to be part of NATO anymore because it doesn't benefit us. And there's a lot of talk now about a European security agency and things of that nature. Yeah, and President Putin asked, I thought, a very relevant as we look at, so people say, well, why did the United States blow up nato? (01:10:05) Well, I mean, blow up Nord Stream basically to de-industrialized Germany de-industrialized Europe, and have the Europeans start buying natural gas from the United States and other things. Putin during his speech said, well, you realize they didn't destroy the entire Nord stream pipeline. There is one pipe that can still transmit gas. Why don't you open that up? He said, there's the ability to send gas through Ukraine. Why don't you open that up? There's the ability to send gas through Poland. Why don't you open that up and haven't heard an answer? But that's, you want the best answer. Go ahead. I'll just say this. I grew up in Germany and the car that I loved, I was in love with the Porsche nine 11 SC Turbo, rough modified, and well, guess what's happening. Wilmer Porsche is moving its production to the United States. Michelin, the French Tire company. Michelin has shut down, I think two tire plants in Germany, and they're moving them. (01:11:15) I don't know where they're moving, but they're moving 'em out of Germany. I know that. Can you imagine a Porsche plant and a Michelin plant? I tell you what, there's going to be a new car in my driveway pretty soon. It's going to stay made in the USA on it, but that's what's going on. We've de-industrialized Europe to our benefit. And again, we come b

The "FuDA" files appeal after cigar industry wins federal lawsuit last August. Ultra liberal actress and millionaire Alyssa Milano whining after backlash to her GoFundMe appeal for her son's little league team. Stamford, Connecticut school board hates veterans; and Venezuelan dictator Nicholas Maduro forbids top presidential opponent from holding elected office using kangaroo Supreme Court to affirm his edict. Sound familiar? Cigar Selection: Herrera Esteli Miami Libation Selection: Hartman's Straight Rye Whiskey

Today, Jamil, Jess, Morgan, and Les discuss the developing situation in Guyana where on Tuesday, Venezuela's dictator Nicholas Maduro ordered the creation of a new state dubbed “Guyana Esequiba” in the wake of the recent referendum in which Venezuelan voters overwhelmingly approved the annexation of the oil-rich land from its neighbor. How does this impact the stability of the region? What role, if any, does the United States have in this developing crisis? Or is this just a domestic political tactic to ensure the survival of the Maduro regime? Get the answer to these questions and more in this episode of Fault Lines!Check out the sources that helped shape our expert's discussion!https://apnews.com/article/guyana-us-military-aid-venezuela-essequibo-cdb2b1ac1e469c7324d1be8f18c507c6 https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/us-conduct-flight-operations-guyana-concerns-mount-over-border-spat-2023-12-07/https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/06/americas/venezuelas-president-orders-creation-of-new-state-and-map-including-land-from-guyana/index.htmlhttps://www.state.gov/secretary-blinkens-call-with-guyanese-president-ali/ https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-12-08/nicolas-maduro-stirs-up-guyana-conflict-in-an-attempt-to-corner-maria-corina-machado.htmlFollow our experts on Twitter: @notTVJessJones@jamil_n_jaffer @lestermunson@morganlroachLike what we're doing here? Be sure to rate, review, and subscribe. And don't forget to follow @masonnatsec on Twitter! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Venezuela's government is one of the world's most odious. Under the late dictator Hugo Chavez and his successor, Nicholas Maduro, what was among Latin America's most prosperous and promising nations, has been despotically misruled, plundered and transformed into a dangerous hemispheric beachhead for Iran, Hezbollah, Russia and China. Of particular concern is the Maduro regime's practice of issuing Venezuelan passports to Iranian nationals headed here. While they're hardly the only illegal immigrants we have to worry about, the favored treatment Team Biden has afforded so-called “refugees” from Venezuela means that we are likely accepting large numbers of the mullahs' jihadists, as well – which amounts to a serious national security threat.                                             Now, Biden has swapped a top Maduro crony for American hostages, further legitimating an enemy and undermining our allies and interest in achieving his removal. We should be doing the opposite.  This is Frank Gaffney.

Larry Bellorín began making his living as a singer, multi-instrumental musician and music teacher when he was a teenager in Venezuela. His career was interrupted abruptly in 2013 when Venezuela's state-run economy crashed and socialist President Nicholas Maduro cracked down on opponents and folks like Larry, who refused to choose sides. He and his family fled to Raleigh, North Carolina and have added their names to a huge backlog of asylum applicants. Larry worked construction and thought his musical career was behind him until he met Joe Troop, a GRAMMY-nominated musician and North Carolina native who introduced him to the folk music and traditions of Appalachia, which Larry found eerily similar to the joropo he played in Venezuela. Their duo, Larry & Joe, is the realization of a dream for both musicians. It's also a reminder for Larry of what - and who - he had to leave behind. Us & Them host Trey Kay tells the story of Bellorín's musical beginnings, his “magical” kinship and duo with Troop and the song he can't yet bring himself to sing.

Photo: No known restrictions on publication. @Batchelorshow #NewWorldReport: Lula shepherds South American summit to include Nicholas Maduro Latin American Research Professor Evan Ellis, U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute. @revanellis #NewWorldReportEllis https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/venezuelas-maduro-meets-lula-first-visit-brazil-since-2015-2023-05-29/

Venezuela is known to have the world's biggest reserves of crude oil - but more than 90% of its citizens live in poverty. Millions of people have fled the country since 2015, in what the United Nations has described as the second biggest displacement disaster in the world. The policies of the Hugo Chavez government live on in the Bolivarian regime and leadership of Nicholas Maduro - but can the communists be ousted? One Decision speaks with former United States Ambassador to Caracas Patrick Duddy and exiled opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez to consider what is at stake and whether the opposition can chart a route forward before elections in 2024. And former President Juan Guaidó sits down exclusively with One Decision's Brett Bruen for his first interview in Washington as an exile to talk about the details of his family's flight from Venezuela and why he felt it was no longer safe to stay. International Intrigue is a

Join Cherise as she discusses the appreciation of free speech with Jorge Andres Galicia. Jorge is a Venezuelan dissident who has been fighting since college to oppose the corrupt socialist regime currently led by Nicholas Maduro. Hear Jorge's story and his warnings to Americans not to stop fighting to protect our most fundamental rights such as free speech. Jorge knows first hand what happens to a country where these freedoms are taken for granted.

​ @NicolasMaduroM MADURO ENVÍA #militares #mercenarios MERCENARIOS A DESESTABILIZAR #peru Y A ATACAR MARCHA PARA DEFENDER AL INE #elinenosetoca EN #MÉXICO. #EMBAJADORDEVENEZUELA DE VENEZUELA ORDENA ATENTADO CONTRA EL PERIODISTA @cirogomezleyvaporlamanana6666 INTELIGENCIA DE LA @SEDENAmxOficial SIGUE POR ORDENES DE @lopezobrador A FAMILIARES DE LOS QUE ORGANIZAN Y PAGAN LA MARCHA MULTITUDINARIA LA #cia INDICA EN REPORTE DE INTELIGENCIA ENTREGADO AL PRESIDENTE @presidentjoebiden5753 @JoeBiden @charlasdelanochepalabrasco9663 @FranciscoManuelDuranRosillo #frankduranrosillo --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/franciscomanuelduranrosil/support

Over 7-million Venezuelans have left their homes since 2017, when Nicholas Maduro seized power and the state started to collapse. Most refugees have tried to start anew in nearby countries, like Colombia, Peru and Ecuador. But an increasing number are headed north on a dangerous trek that will take them to U.S.'s southern border. It's a journey that is hugely shaped by policy decisions being made continents away.Kerli Vasquez and her family are on this journey and met Doug Saunders, the Globe's international affairs columnist, on the road. Doug tells us about the years they've spent trying to re-establish themselves in multiple different countries, and are now en route to try and reach the U.S.Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at thedecibel@globeandmail.com

 Read on for today's agenda below prepared by David (thank you very much). - Retired US Diplomat to 5 different nations  David Hunter shares his knowledge, passion, interest, and experience. 1)Was Biden's "Summit of The Americas" Almost A Disaster?: The LA, California event hosted by Pres. Biden last week was an attempt to 'reset' relations with his Southern neighbors after the Trump era dust-ups. But he refused to allow Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua to attend---and these 3 countries represent most of the immigrants coming to USA right now. As a protest, Mexican President Obrador refused to attend, boycotting the US-hosted Summit. And Venezuela's President Nicholas Maduro went to Iran at same time, and made some trade and defense deals with Iran. Why did this happen?2)China Defense Minister Issued 'Red-Line' Statement about Taiwan in Keynote Address at International Security Conference: The Chinese Defense Minister, General WEI Fenghe as keynote speaker at an international defense conference attended by US Sec. of Defense Lloyd Austin threatened China will 'smash to smithereens' Taiwan if it declares independence from mainland China, and promised to start a war with anyone who dares split Taiwan and China. Should we be worried?3)Does Putin Think He is Peter the Great?: On the 350th birthday of the Russian Tsar Peter the Great,--- who built St. Petersburg, ---Putin made statements that this is Russia's manifest destiny to rule as an imperial empire, and his actions in Ukraine are partly to restore Russia's former greatness. Is this delusional thinking, or just clever geopolitics?

Hour 1 of The Dawn Stensland Show: Local News Headlines/News Rundown An ATV rider was killed in Northeast Philadelphia Thursday night after colliding with a Kia sedan. Police say the ATV was not licensed or street legal. With COVID-19 cases increasing, Cheltenham and Lower Merion Schools will reinstate mask mandates for students and teachers beginning on Friday. On Thursday, Malvern police were forced to shoot and kill a person while making a routine welfare check. Gas prices continue to rise across the country—one caller says he is going to be forced to quit his part-time job because he can no longer afford to commute as prices approach an average of $5 per-gallon in the Philadelphia-area. While speaking before the Senate Energy and Commerce Committee, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland refused to classify gas prices as “high” when questioned by Wyoming Senator John Barrasso. Earlier in the week, the Biden Administration announced they will loosen sanctions against Venezuela. Following negotiations, oil-company Chevron is expected to be licensed to resume business within the country. According to the New York Times, Venezuela and the Nicholas Maduro regime currently rely upon economic transactions with China, Russia, and Iran. According to the Wall Street Journal, credit reporting firms are noticing a substantial rise in missed loan payments from subprime borrowers. Goldman Sachs Chairman Lloyd Blankfein warned there is a “very, very high” risk a recession is coming.

Gerald Horne, professor of history at the University of Houston, author, historian, and researcher, joins us to discuss Ukraine. Russia accused the US of exhibiting a desire for an invasion of Ukraine during heated exchanges at a meeting of the UN Security Council. Also, observers are discussing the possibility of a US-inspired coup in Ukraine due to a number of significant policy disagreements between Washington neocons and Ukrainian leadership. George Koo, journalist, social activist, and international business consultant, joins us to discuss US foreign policy in Asia. Philippine Presidential hopeful Ferdinand Marcos, the son of the infamous late leader of the Pacific nation, has staked out a claim for close relations with China and secondary relations with the US empire. Also, China has again warned the US about close talks with Taiwan signaling that a military conflict is inevitable if this behavior continues.KJ Noh, activist, writer, and teacher, joins us to discuss China. Presidents Putin and Xi Jinping will be meeting in Beijing soon to discuss bilateral security issues. Also, Russia's strategic alliance with China is getting more difficult for the US empire to navigate. Netfa Freeman, host of Voices With Vision on WPFW 89.3 FM, Pan-Africanist and internationalist organizer, joins us to discuss Africa. The government of Mali has kicked out the French ambassador after he made derogatory comments about the nation's relationship with Russia. Also, the African Union has suspended Burkina Faso from all activities. Andrew Korybko, Moscow-based American journalist and analyst, joins us to discuss the US foreign policy crisis. Ukrainian authorities have arrested thousands of citizens, arguing that they were plotting an illegal coup. Many observers argue that the suspects were part of a legitimate protest movement. Also, President Zelenskyy's pushback against the Russian invasion narrative reveals serious political divisions between the US neocons and those whom they wish to sacrifice as cannon fodder. Scott Ritter, former UN weapon inspector in Iraq, joins us to discuss Iran. While the US says that there are only weeks left to renew the JCPOA, Iran argues that there are significant differences between the two sides.Medea Benjamin, co-founder of Code Pink, joins us to discuss Honduras. Ending the nightmare of right-wing rule orchestrated by the US empire, the Central American nation of Honduras inaugurates its first female president who is viewed as a visionary socialist. Nicholas Davies, peace activist and author of "Blood on Our Hands: The American Invasion of Iraq," joins us to discuss the Global South. A retired Venezuelan general has revealed that the US was aware of the coup plot against President Nicholas Maduro. Cliver Alcalá, facing charges in the US for narcotics trafficking, stated in a letter that “The efforts to overthrow the Maduro regime have been well known by the United States government.” Also, a large number of nations are joining Cuba in a demand that the US empire drop sanctions against the island nation.

Restricting Trading in Venezuela's Sovereign Bonds: Has it Worked? The Biden administration has continued the Trump administration's strategy of restricting trading in Venezuelan sovereign bonds as a way of bringing to heel Venezuela's Nicholas Maduro. Has that (innovative?) strategy shown any signs of working? Thomas Laryea (Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe) is one of the most respected voices in the policy space on sovereign debt, with extensive experience in both the public and private sector, joins us to answer this and other questions. We ask Thomas both about what is going to happen with Venezuela's eventual debt restructuring given the policies that have been in place for the last five years and about his evaluation of the two new mechanisms that the Official Sector put in place to deal with the debt fallout from Covid, DSSI and the Common Framework. Producer: Leanna Doty

Dr. Clarence Lusane, author, professor, and activist, joins us to discuss Afghanistan. The withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan and the subsequent seizure of power by the Taliban has sent a message to American vassals and collaborators worldwide. Also, it is clear that US presidents have repeatedly lied to the American people about Afghanistan and many other military engagements.Dr. Jack Rasmus, professor in economics and politics at St. Mary's College in California, joins us to discuss the economy. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell stated on Tuesday that the covid pandemic has forever altered the US economy and that we must adapt to those changes. Dr. Jack tells us whether the government's response is adequate to mitigate the pain and suffering of the American people. Nick Davies, peace activist and author of "Blood on Our Hands: The American Invasion of Iraq," joins us to discuss Ramzy Baroud's article in Mint Press News titled "Greed and Consumption: Why the World is Burning." He warns that global warming is the "outcome of a destructive pattern instigated and sustained by capitalism."Professor Peter Kuznick, author and historian, joins us to discuss Operation Cyclone. The US ran a covert war in Afghanistan long before acknowledging their actions. Did US training and support of Osama Bin Laden's Mujahideen fighters give rise to the Taliban and other Islamist organizations in the region?George Koo, journalist, social activist, international business consultant, and chemical engineer, joins us to discuss China. US Air Force leaders are arguing that they need new technology to "scare" China, but is this simply another cry for massive military expenditures to enrich the war profiteers? Also, China has stated that they are willing to work with the US on the Afghanistan issue under certain circumstances.Dan Lazare, investigative journalist and author of "America's Undeclared War," joins us to discuss the results of the fall of Kabul and how it affects US foreign policy worldwide. Some observers argue that the sight of Afghan collaborators fleeing the city and falling from departing US aircraft marks the end of the US as the unipolar world power. Ted Rall, political cartoonist and syndicated columnist, joins us to discuss propaganda. Ted reviews the propositions in a new book titled "Manufacturing Militarism: US Government Propaganda in the War on Terror'' by Christopher Coyne and Abigail Hall. The duo of writers cite example after example of the US media acting as public relations operatives for the US empire's neocon war machine.Nino Pagliccia, activist and writer, joins us to discuss Haiti and Peru. The government of Nicholas Maduro in Venezuela has shipped 30,000 kilos of non-perishable food items and medicine to the people of Haiti in the aftermath of a devastating earthquake and storm. Also, many observers fear that the US is plotting a coup attempt in Peru.

UN Special Rapporteur Alena Douhan Report on Human Rights on the Impact on Unilateral Coercive Measures on Venezuela following her 2/1- 2/12/21 visit is reviewed. It called for an immediate end to the US and Allied sanctions on Venezuela. The report found that sanctions have resulted in economic and human calamities for the entire population especially the poor and most vulnerable. While billions in Venezuelan assets that could be used for medicine and vaccines remain frozen at foreign banks the report claimed some 2.5 million Venezuelans now face severe food security. With the hardening of the sanctions over the years since 2005, state revenues to Caracas have been slashed by a staggering 99% leaving the country to live on just 1% of its presanction income. The UN rapporteur concluded by urging the US and UK and other allies, to “review and lift targeted sanctions in accordance with principle of international law, the rule of law, human rights and refugee law.” Please join us Monday night 5/31 at 6pm as our guest and investigative journalist Roger Harris brings light into the darkness around the well-hidden history of Venezuela that reveals the predatory nature of US relations with Venezuela and the south. More compelling is the detailed nature of the Venezuelan democracy and electoral process compared to US and other nations of the world that our guest explicates. In addition, the false image making that our government and its obedient mainstream media conduits feed and shape US public opinion around the issue of who is the real president of Venezuela, the US led “alleged” Venezuelan president Juan Guiado or the elected President Nicholas Maduro, is discussed in detail and explained. While surly the government of Venezuela led by its President Nicholas Maduro has made its share of mistakes that have led in part to the economic problems facing Venezuela today, this show brings light to the staggering influence US led foreign policy has had on the resulting consequences for Venezuelans. Our one-sided media coverage results in mistaken US public perceptions around who is most responsible for the Venezuelan economic meltdown. The dialogue between our guest, Board Member of the human rights organization Task Force on the Americas, Roger Harris and host Pedro Gatos provides documentable historical and contemporary insights, combining a macro and micro analysis of a host of Venezuelan related fact vs fiction precepts we may each have, for you to rejudge and reconsider for yourself as desired.

UN Special Rapporteur Alena Douhan Report on Human Rights on the Impact on Unilateral Coercive Measures on Venezuela following her 2/1- 2/12/21 visit is reviewed. It called for an immediate end to the US and Allied sanctions on Venezuela. The report found that sanctions have resulted in economic and human calamities for the entire population especially the poor and most vulnerable. While billions in Venezuelan assets that could be used for medicine and vaccines remain frozen at foreign banks the report claimed some 2.5 million Venezuelans now face severe food security. With the hardening of the sanctions over the years since 2005, state revenues to Caracas have been slashed by a staggering 99% leaving the country to live on just 1% of its presanction income. The UN rapporteur concluded by urging the US and UK and other allies, to “review and lift targeted sanctions in accordance with principle of international law, the rule of law, human rights and refugee law.” Please join us Monday night 5/31 at 6pm as our guest and investigative journalist Roger Harris brings light into the darkness around the well-hidden history of Venezuela that reveals the predatory nature of US relations with Venezuela and the south. More compelling is the detailed nature of the Venezuelan democracy and electoral process compared to US and other nations of the world that our guest explicates. In addition, the false image making that our government and its obedient mainstream media conduits feed and shape US public opinion around the issue of who is the real president of Venezuela, the US led “alleged” Venezuelan president Juan Guiado or the elected President Nicholas Maduro, is discussed in detail and explained. While surly the government of Venezuela led by its President Nicholas Maduro has made its share of mistakes that have led in part to the economic problems facing Venezuela today, this show brings light to the staggering influence US led foreign policy has had on the resulting consequences for Venezuelans. Our one-sided media coverage results in mistaken US public perceptions around who is most responsible for the Venezuelan economic meltdown. The dialogue between our guest, Board Member of the human rights organization Task Force on the Americas, Roger Harris and host Pedro Gatos provides documentable historical and contemporary insights, combining a macro and micro analysis of a host of Venezuelan related fact vs fiction precepts we may each have, for you to rejudge and reconsider for yourself as desired.

Ariel Gold, co-founder of Code Pink, and Laith Marouf, broadcaster and journalist based in Beirut, Lebanon, join us to discuss Israel. Israeli airstrikes killed twenty Palestinians, including 9 children, as tensions continue to rise over the brutal crackdown in Jerusalem. However, when asked if the Palestianians have a right to self defense, US State Department spokesman Ned Price answered, “Broadly speaking, we believe in the concept of self-defense. We believe it applies to any state.”Wyatt Reed, Sputnik producer and writer, joins us to discuss Colombia. Wyatt is in Colombia covering the massive protests and government violence. The Colombian people have taken to the streets to oppose neoliberal economic policies, including proposals for worsening the nation's regressive tax structure.Dr. Yolandra Hancock, board certified pediatrician and obesity medicine specialist, joins us to talk about covid. A new "variant of concern" has been discovered in India. Also, there is an ongoing discussion about the vaccination of adolescents.Dan Lazare, investigative journalist and author of "America's Undeclared War," joins us to talk about the US Coast Guard. In what should be reported as a strange occurrence, US Coast Guard vessels are now being used as normal navy patrol boats. Recent reports show that Coast Guard cutters are patrolling the straits of Hormuz off the coast of Iran and in the South China Sea under the absurd guise of monitoring fishing activity.K. J. Noh, peace activist, writer and teacher, joins us to discuss China. A spokesman for the Chinese foreign ministry states that China has to speak up for itself and oppose US global hegemony. Also, Hua Chunying, the spokesperson, pointed out that China, as the second-largest economy and the largest developing country in the world, deserves to have a voice in the global public opinion domain. Dan Kovalik, writer and human rights activist, joins us to discuss Venezuela. Recent investigations reveal that neighboring Columbia has been involved in numerous attempts to overthrow the government of Venezuela and assassinate President Nicholas Maduro. Also, so-called humanitarian aid from USAID has been used for regime change operations in the besieged nation.Gerald Horne, professor of history at the University of Houston, author, historian, and researcher, joins us to discuss Iran. Iran reports that US demands outside of the original JCPOA nuclear deal are complicating matters. Also, notorious neocon war hawks are intentionally disrupting negotiations by arguing that any sanctions relief enacted by President Biden will be easily undone by Congress.Niko House, political activist and independent journalist, joins us to discuss domestic spying. The Biden administration is upping the domestic spying anti as they work on using private security firms to bypass the Constitution while spying on Americans.

Venezuela har hatt harde tider det siste tiåret, med rekordlav oljepris, mat- og medisinmangel, og et autoritært regime med Nicholas Maduro i spissen som har klamret seg til makten. I dagens sending har snakket om situasjonen i Venezuela, hva tidligere opptøyer har gjort med landet, og hva som har skjedd etter parlamentsvalget høsten 2020. I studio er Magnus Nordal Røtnes, med Victoria Croff Dreyer og Hauk Andreas Fossen. Kommentar er produsert av Helene Knag. Jakob Kirkholt har intervjuet Leiv Marsteintredet, professor ved Instituttet for Sammenligende Politkk. Produsent er Mathilde Angletveit.

Dr. Colin Campbell, a Washington, DC, news correspondent joins us to talk about domestic politics. Neera Tanden's OMB chief hopes fade as bipartisan opposition against her nomination grows. Also, in hindsight, Joe Biden's numerous calls for unity and cooperation seem unrealistic as GOP leaders reject a number of his proposals and progressive democrats blow up over Joe Manchin's plan to reduce the fifteen dollar minimum wage to eleven dollars. Ray McGovern, former CIA analyst and co-founder of the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, joins us to discuss the Biden administration's policies towards Russia and China. The Biden team has rejected a Chinese plea for improved relations. US State Department spokesman Ned Price responded by saying “You've heard us speak before about the way in which we will approach China, through the prism of competition from a position of strength.” Also, the Biden team is rumored to be preparing a large suite of sanction for the Navalny sentencing and a number of other dubious claims against Russia.Dan Lazare, investigative journalist and author of "The Velvet Coup: The Constitution, the Supreme Court and the Decline of American Democracy," joins us to discuss Iran. The Washington Post is reporting that a number of former Obama officials were negotiating with Iranian diplomats while President Trump was in office. They are rumored to have met with the Iranian foreign minister on numerous occasions setting the table for a new round of negotiations after Trumps' departure. Also, US Secretary of State Tony Blinken has said that he plans to "strengthen" the Iran nuclear deal but Iran is holding fast that they will only return to the agreement in its original form. Laith Marouf, a broadcaster and journalist based in Beirut, Lebanon joins us to discuss Israel. A recent Saturday Night Live skit has received international attention for pushing back against Israel's failure to provide equal access to Palestinians for the covid vaccine. A new Mintpress article argues that the massive pressure campaign against those who call out Israeli apartheid measures should really be addresses towards the Israeli goverment's unfair policies. Also, the Biden administration is demonstrating that the democrats are as dangerous as republicans to peace in Palestine.Scott Ritter, a former UN weapons inspector in Iraq joins us to discuss NATO. Ritter's latest article posits that the US is increasing engagement with NATO in an attempt to hide the fact that the empire is in a steep decline. In a futile attempt to maintain global hegemony, the US is confronting a plethora of global and regional powers while facing massive pressure from home grown disasters. Ritter also argues that NATO's plans for the Baltic States defense is unrealistic and poorly conceived. Lastly, former US ambassador Michael Mcphaul has been caught in a lie as he claims to have never met Aley Navalny while pictures of the two of them together surface. Caleb Maupin, journalist and political analyst joins us to discuss Election interference in Latin America. The EU is imposing additional sanctions on Venezuela arguing that the December 6th elections were rigged for the Party of president Nicholas Maduro. Also, many in Ecuador are greatly concerned that there is mischief afoot as the Moreno government works to undermine the integrity of the upcoming runoff between popular leftist Andres Arouz and western imperialist favorite Guillermo Lasso.Ted Rall, a political cartoonist and syndicated columnist, joins us to discuss the expanding covid scandal involving the administration of New York governor Andrew Cuomo. Governor Cuomo is being compared to an authoritarian crime boss as he is alleged to have threatened politicians who are looking into his actions during the spring covid lockdown. In March, Cuomo signed an executive order requiring nursing homes to accept patients who were presumed to have the virus. This action seems to have been a catalyst for a quick and massive outbreak in those facilities statewide. He is also accused of making political decisions to benefit one of his top donors.Elisabeth Myers, lawyer, former editor-in-chief of Inside Arabia and democracy lead for Democrats Abroad, joins us to discuss. The UN is pushing for an end to hostilities as a recent report shows that hundreds of fighters have been lost in the Maarib area of Northern yemen. Weeks of fighting produced a reported standstill, with sources describing a “blood bath” and both sides reporting massive losses. Also, US moves to stop the Yemen war are proving fruitless as the UK continues to supply Saudi Arabia with the arms necessary to continue the slaughter. Some analysts are questioning whether the US and UK coordinated actions to give a false appearance of trying to end the conflict while fueling it with british war material.

Podcast #10 Censorship, Deprogramming and Cost of Paris Accord Welcome back to In My Right Mind again folks. As always, I am the liberty-loving Russ Andrews, here with my good friend PJ Jaycox. How goes it PJ?   First, here is a prediction: Ever notice how MSNBC and CNN keep a ticker on their tv screens showing the number og Covid cases and Covid deaths? I predict now that Biden is in office, they will start tracking the number of vaccine doses that have been administered…as long as that news is POSITIVE for the Biden administration.   Before we get going on this week's material, I want to go back and cover some short topics we didn't get to last week PJ. First, did you hear about how the democrats want UNITY, PJ? That's ….that's..why they impeached Trump for a second time w/7 days left in his presidency. Because they want UNITY! Sure they want “unity” which means the rest of us need to “unite” around one point of view. You need to understand conniving, manipulative, lefty-speak to understand what they really mean by UNITY. They want to UNIFY…their power and control over us. That's the only UNITY these people want. And they want us to ENDORSE that unification of power and control over us…not just tolerate it…..but endorse it.   BTW, these are words from Creepy Joe's Inauguration speech: “Our history has been a constant struggle between the American ideal that we all are created equal, and the harsh ugly reality that racism, nativism, fear, demonization have long torn us apart.” As the WSJ put it: “So our political differences are between those who believe in American ideals and those who are racists and nativists? This sounds too much like Barack Obama's habit of casting differences of ideology or policy as divisions between enlightenment and bigotry.”    I know I hit on this concept last week, but I believe it bears repeating; how will you be voting on the confirmation of Joe Biden's far left cabinet picks PJ?  Of course you won't be voting on cabinet picks…because we live in a Constitutional Republic…not a democracy. In a democracy, citizens are encouraged to vote almost daily on new laws and regulations. In a democracy, 50.01% of us could wake up one day and decide to vote you,…. PJ out of your house and home, ….and we could likewise vote to confiscate all of your assets.   On the other hand, OUR constitution protects the individual from the state, which is precisely why socialist democrats despise it. The Constitution protects our speech from being condemned by the government. The Constitution enshrines our right to self-defense and, more importantly, wrote the 2nd Amendment to allow us, in the WORST-CASE SCENARIO, to battle tyranny, if and when it occurs. So there. We live under the protection of a Constitutional Republic, and we elect REPRESENTATIVES to vote FOR us.  We DO NOT live in a DEMOCRACY!     Tucker carlson and others predicted the left would use the siege on the capitol to clamp down on conservative free speech. And so it began as early as 2 weekends ago. Remember how Facebook and Twitter stifled free speech during the weeks leading up to the election? They wouldn't allow the stories of Hunter Biden's corruption, as reported by the nation's oldest newspaper to be dissemintaed on their platforms. Same for the rest of the left-wing-nut media. All of them ignored Creepy Joe's cognitive disorders.  Then they all shut Pres Trump out of their social media platforms because he represents a threat to our…wait for it… to our DEMOCRACY. Nevermind that Nicholas Maduro, Vladimir Putin and the Iranian Ayatolla, who advocates for genocide and kills gay men…are still more than welcome on Twitter, et al.  “The day before Trump was permanently banned...

Professor Richard Lachman, Professor at the University at Albany, SUNY and author of "Capitalists in Spite of Themselves," joins us to discuss the change of power at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The political conversation now changes from Donald Trump to policy priorities for the new administration. Will the Biden team be able to focus on internal problems or get hung up with hawkish militarism and external economic confrontation?Jim Kavanaugh, Writer at thepolemicist.net and "CounterPunch" and the author of Over the Rainbow: Paths of Resistance after George Floyd, joins us to discuss President Trump's last-minute flurry of pardons. Trump granted clemency to 143 individuals totaling 73 pardons and 70 commutations. Trump granted clemency to his former policy adviser Steve Bannon and rap star Little Wayne. Bannon was arrested and charged last August with defrauding donors who contributed to a fundraising campaign for a private border wall. In a surprise action, Trump reduced the sentence of former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick by 20 years effectively freeing him now. Kevin Gosztola, managing editor of Shadowproof.com, joins us to discuss Julian Assange. President Trump issued a number of pardons but Julian Assange was not one of them. There are reports that Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell threatened to support the impeachment of the President if he pardoned Assange and/or Edward Snowden. Also, there are reports that Rudy Giulliani asked for 2 million dollars for a single pardon.Margaret Flowers, pediatrician, health reform activist and co-director at Popular Resistance joins us to discuss the DC military occupation. We review a Michael Tracey article in which he discusses the positive media coverage towards this event. Tracey asks why media outlets refrain from asking basic questions about the necessity and safety of the occupation. Also, we discuss whether this is a temporary deployment or it could end up being a permanent occupation of a US City. Scott Ritter, former UN weapons inspector in Iraq, returns to discuss the hawkish nature of the Binde foreign policy team. Notorious war hawk Antony Blinken testified that the US would seek to expand the Iran nuclear agreement, a position which is a non-starter according to Iranian Foreign minister Javid Zarif. Blinken indicated that the Biden team plans to continue Trump's China policies and increase tension with Russia. Additionally, Joe Biden selected China hawk Ely Ratner to advise the incoming administration's Pentagon chief on matters related to Beijing.Margaret Kimberley, editor and senior columnist at Black Agenda Report and author of "Prejudential: Black America and the Presidents," to discuss the potential for a crackdown on dissent. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has called for a new version of the no-fly list which includes people classified as domestic terrorists. Also, as Senator Dick Durbin introduces a new domestic terrorism legislative package a recent Glenn Greenwald questions the potential for government overreach. Teri Mattson, Latin America coordinator for Code Pink, joins us to discuss the Biden policy towards Venezuela. Secretary of State and notorious hawk Antony Blinken stated that the Biden administration will continue to recognize Juan Guaido as the interim president of Venezuela. Also, Blinken said that they will continue with targeted sanctions in an effort to overthrow the Government of Nicholas Maduro. Blinken's testimony implies that the Maduro government's desire to engage with the Biden team may fall on deaf ears.KJ Noh, peace activist, writer and teacher, joins us to discuss the Biden administration's recent statements about China. Biden's selection of noted China Hawk Ely Ratner to advise the Secretary of Defense coupled with recent statements about the US taking back world leadership are ominous signs for those who seek a resolution through multipolar negotiations. Biden's selection of another China hawk, Kurt Campbell, as his “Indo-Pacific czar” further cements the notion that a significant economic and possibly military confrontation may be at hand.

On this week's #HollowNet, Matt talks about the #AntiLockdown #Coronavirus Protests and #MayDay protests around the world, #Trudeu's abortive gun-grab in Canada and a failed attempted to oust Nicholas #Maduro in Venezuela Source Links:https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/05/01/849017021/protestors-swarm-michigan-capitol-amid-showdown-over-governors-emergency-powershttps://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2020/05/01/us/new-mexico-town-lockdown-coronavirus-trnd/index.htmlhttps://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-gun-control-measures-ban-1.5552131https://nypost.com/2020/04/30/michigan-to-deliver-condoms-during-coronavirus-lockdown/amp/https://www.usnews.com/news/healthiest-communities/articles/2020-04-30/coronavirus-cases-deaths-growing-at-faster-rates-in-rural-areashttp://www.americanuckradio.com/blog/2020/5/1/trudeau-cancels-quick-gun-confiscations-after-massive-resistancehttps://nypost.com/2020/05/01/new-yorks-anti-lockdown-protests-fizzle-with-just-dozens-showing-up/https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/may-day-protests-take-on-different-look-this-year-due-to-coronavirus/https://www.keeptalkinggreece.com/2020/05/01/greece-may-1st-communist-union-pame/https://www.fox10phoenix.com/news/protesters-gather-in-downtown-phoenix-for-2nd-protest-against-arizonas-stay-at-home-orderhttps://apnews.com/32d5564a7774aae7c2b45b850d1000f5https://www.chicagotribune.com/coronavirus/ct-coronavirus-chicago-reopen-protest-loop-thompson-center-20200501-u5swaqzdgvhxhnlph4pu72prfq-story.htmlhttps://www.dw.com/en/labor-day-berlin-workers-rally-defies-social-distancing-ban/a-53303301https://www.oregonlive.com/coronavirus/2020/05/coronavirus-in-oregon-anti-government-protesters-to-rally-against-social-distancing-mandates-in-salem.htmlhttps://www.keeptalkinggreece.com/2020/05/01/greece-may-1st-communist-union-pame/Support Links:https://suenodetorres.com/pages/constitutionalhttps://americanprideroasters.com/http://preparewithmojo50.com/https://www.newlifeholistic.com/https://www.patreon.com/TheHollowNethttps://www.subscribestar.com/the-hollownet

Jim and Greg shudder as 3.28 million Americans lost their jobs last week. They also recoil at an alleged plot to bomb a hospital full of COVID-19 patients. But they cheer the U.S. lowering the boom on Venezuelan dictator Nicholas Maduro.This episode is sponsored by Acre Gold. Go to getacregold.com/martini. Acre is giving away a gold bar for the month of March. Tweet why you should win and mention @get_acre for a chance to win the free gold.

SoftBank unveils $41B asset sale to expand share buy-back Softbank says it will sell up to 41-billion-dollars in assets as it tries to stem a collapse in its share price sparked by the coronavirus crisis. The plan will help the Japanese conglomerate repurchase up to 18-billion-dollars in stock, while the remaining funds will be used to pay-off debt and buy back bonds. Softbank shares jumped nearly 20-percent on the news. Emirates airline to temporarily halt all passenger flights Emirates is halting all passenger flights from late March for at least two weeks as the UAE suspends all inbound, outbound and transit flights. The airline is also cutting staff wages by as much as half due to the coronavirus's impact of travel demand. Meanwhile, planemaker Airbus has boosted its liquidity with a 16-billion-dollar expanded credit facility in response to the pandemic. Venezuela prohibits layoffs, suspends credit payments Venezuela has prohibited company layoffs and suspended rent and credit payments during the COVID-19 pandemic. President Nicholas Maduro says the government will also come-up with a plan to help cover the payroll costs of small and medium businesses for six months. Earlier this month, the government declared a state of alarm and imposed a month-long quarantine for all Venezuelans.

In this week's flagship Lions of Liberty podcast, Marc is joined by two libertarian activists who have been closely connected to Latin American to bring their perspective on the liberty movement in that region: Maria Alejandra Londono - Director of Movimiento Libertario of Latin America - as well as returning guest Dr. Kyle Varner, who has helped to provide medical aid for refugees from Venezuela in Colombia. They give their perspective on the situation in Venezuela, the disputed legitimacy of Nicholas Maduro's rule, and what they have learned from interacting with Venezuelans. As always, my goal is to provide various perspectives on the issues, particularly those topics that often divide libertarians, and this is no exception. To listen to my other interviews on the situation in Venezuela, check out the full show notes over at LionsOfLiberty.com/422. To access our exclusive bonus audio and video content - including Marc and Brian's conversation and borders and immigration -  join the Lions of Liberty Pride on Patreon and gain access to all of our exclusive bonus audio and video content for as little as $5 per month, or dip your toe in the water as a Lion Club and access our secret Facebook group for $2 per month! Add "Sounds Like Liberty" to your podcast rotation today! Considering joining the Libertarian Party? If so, do so through our affiliate link at LP.org/LionsOfLiberty and help the Lions of Liberty at the same time! Get your hands on a "Taxation is Death" Coffee Mug! And fill it with a delicious cup of coffee - try the Morning Roar today! Take a mere 15 minutes of your day to watch "...and Live Free!" The Lions of Liberty Story.     Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this week's flagship Lions of Liberty podcast, Marc is joined by two libertarian activists who have been closely connected to Latin American to bring their perspective on the liberty movement in that region: Maria Alejandra Londono - Director of Movimiento Libertario of Latin America - as well as returning guest Dr. Kyle Varner, who has helped to provide medical aid for refugees from Venezuela in Colombia. They give their perspective on the situation in Venezuela, the disputed legitimacy of Nicholas Maduro's rule, and what they have learned from interacting with Venezuelans.Show notes: https://lionsofliberty.com/2019/10/21/more-perspective-on-liberty-in-latin-america/Commercial free broadcast from October 21, 2019 on the Heartland Newsfeed Radio Network, online at heartlandnewsfeed.com, Spreaker and other platforms.Listen Live: https://www.heartlandnewsfeed.com/listenliveFollow us on social mediaFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/hlnfradionetworkTwitter: https://www.twitter.com/HLNF_BulletinInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/heartlandnewsfeedMastadon: https://liberdon.com/@heartlandnewsfeedDiscord: https://discord.gg/6b6u6DTSupport us with your financial supportStreamlabs: https://streamlabs.com/heartlandmediaPayPal: https://www.paypal.me/heartlandmediaSquare Cash: https://cash.app/$heartlandnewsfeedPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/heartlandnewsfeedCrypto via 1UpCoin: https://1upcoin.com/donate/heartlandmediaBusiness contact: jake.leonard@heartlandnewsfeed.com

In this week's flagship Lions of Liberty podcast, Marc is joined by two libertarian activists who have been closely connected to Latin American to bring their perspective on the liberty movement in that region: Maria Alejandra Londono - Director of Movimiento Libertario of Latin America - as well as returning guest Dr. Kyle Varner, who has helped to provide medical aid for refugees from Venezuela in Colombia. They give their perspective on the situation in Venezuela, the disputed legitimacy of Nicholas Maduro's rule, and what they have learned from interacting with Venezuelans. As always, my goal is to provide various perspectives on the issues, particularly those topics that often divide libertarians, and this is no exception. To listen to my other interviews on the situation in Venezuela, check out the full show notes over at LionsOfLiberty.com/422. To access our exclusive bonus audio and video content - including Marc and Brian's conversation and borders and immigration -  join the Lions of Liberty Pride on Patreon and gain access to all of our exclusive bonus audio and video content for as little as $5 per month, or dip your toe in the water as a Lion Club and access our secret Facebook group for $2 per month! Add "Sounds Like Liberty" to your podcast rotation today! Considering joining the Libertarian Party? If so, do so through our affiliate link at LP.org/LionsOfLiberty and help the Lions of Liberty at the same time! Get your hands on a "Taxation is Death" Coffee Mug! And fill it with a delicious cup of coffee - try the Morning Roar today! Take a mere 15 minutes of your day to watch "...and Live Free!" The Lions of Liberty Story.    

Call on Bernie Sanders to withdraw his call to overthrow the government of Venezuela. "Let me be very clear. Anyone who does what Maduro does is a vicious tyrant. We need international and regional cooperation for free elections so the Venezuelan people can create their own future." - Bernie Sanders, Democratic Debate Sunday September 12, 2019 Call his office today, Bernie Sanders: (202) 224-5141 also try 202-866 220 0044 which works well especially between 6 a.m. and 2 p.m. Pacific time to get to them during working hours, 9-5 in Eastern time zone Eric Mann thanks Voices listeners who called Senator Sanders to repudiate his position on Venezuela. Eric engages his critic who believes that his statement that Senator Sanders is calling for the overthrow of Venezuelan President Maduro is exaggerated and "fraudulent". Keep Calling Senator Sanders and demand he stop his call for the overthrow of the government of Venezuela. I was dismayed to find in my morning email the demand that Bernie Sanders "withdraw his call to overthrow the government of Venezuela." While there is reason to object to Sanders’s answer to moderator Jorge Ramos's question on why he refuses to call Nicholas Maduro a dictator, to conclude that Bernie made such a call to overthrow a government is fraudulent. Sanders in fact supports the opposite position. Rather than backing the U.S. practice of inserting a leader it "likes," he has never once deviated from his belief that it is the right of the people of Venezuela to decide what kind of government they want. People who took umbrage at Sanders’s remarks should call his office to complain. That is what a healthy democracy looks like. Sanders deserves to be called out for his erroneous profile of Venezuela, and many of us did not waste time to do so. On the morning after the debate, several of us contacted members of Sanders's team. We took the trouble to supply them with recent and reliable information, and forwarded articles and the names of informed sources for their further investigation. But loosely applied pejoratives like “vicious tyrant” cannot be criticized more than loosely applied pejoratives like “racist” and “lunatics.” As a point of fact, I have not identified myself as a Sanders supporter. I offer my comments in the strict belief that these important issues should be met with hard facts, not easy mockery. --Patricia Dahl As a Sanders supporter, I applaud your opinion on his position on Venezuela. Sanders is WRONG on this one. Thank you and continue the fight!!!! --Nelson P. --Frank Dorrel addicted to war circulated it Sent from Rachel Bruhnke: sojournerrb@yahoo.com. Dear Eric: I'm with you 100% on demanding Sanders withdraw his call to overthrow the government in Venezuela! Hi Eric! I’m great Sanders supporters but I’m 100% agree with regarding Venezuela as we’ll Syria. I just hope he hires someone with more knowledge about foreign Policy --Jorge M. I have been a Bernie fan since before the last election. I voted for Bernie in the last election primary. I have been an enthusiastic supporter of and donator to his campaign this time around. But the remarks on Maduro and Venzuela in the last democratic debate have made it impossible for me to contribute further. I call on Bernie Sanders to back down his repudiation of Maduro, and his call for foreign intervention in Venezuela - not his exact words, but let's not play dumb here. --Vince M. Listen to Voice from the Frontlines today at 3pm PST on KPFK 90.7fm OR use the button below to Stream the show live on Facebook.

Secret talks between Venezuela and the United States have taken place, aimed at ousting President Nicholas Maduro in favor of the president of the National Assembly, Juan Guaido. Meantime, Venezuela's economic descent has sent nearly four million fleeing the country in search of a better life. Plugged In with Greta Van Susteren explores what next with US National Security Advisor John Bolton, former US ambassador to Venezuela Patrick Duddy and an interview with Juan Guaido.

Venezuela, Klein- Venetië, de naam die een ontdekkingsreiziger volgens populaire wijsheid aan dit Zuid-Amerikaanse land heeft gegeven. Rijk aan olie, unieke natuurgebieden en een melange van ontelbaar culturele invloeden. Maar wij kennen het land helaas vooral van het nieuws en neerwaartse spiraal onder president Nicholas Maduro. Met dichter, kunstenaar en schrijver Rachel Rumai Diaz aandacht voor de politieke situatie, maar vooral voor de gewone Venezolanen.

Venezuela, Klein- Venetië, de naam die een ontdekkingsreiziger volgens populaire wijsheid aan dit Zuid-Amerikaanse land heeft gegeven. Rijk aan olie, unieke natuurgebieden en een melange van ontelbaar culturele invloeden. Maar wij kennen het land helaas vooral van het nieuws en neerwaartse spiraal onder president Nicholas Maduro. Met dichter, kunstenaar en schrijver Rachel Rumai Diaz aandacht voor de politieke situatie, maar vooral voor de gewone Venezolanen.

Alexandra DeSanctis of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America grab some popcorn as supporters of Sen. Cory Booker blast the media for giving far more attention to Pete Buttigieg, calling the coverage gap the epitome of privilege.  They also slam Code Pink for commandeering the Venezuelan embassy in Washington in solidarity with dictator Nicholas Maduro and but get a kick out of Code Pink howling in protest when the water and power are cut off - some of the very same conditions Maduro is inflicting on the people of Venezuela.  And Alexandra highly enjoys the irony as Alyssa Milano and other modern feminists protest state laws banning abortion once a fetal heartbeat is detected by refusing to have sex so they don't get pregnant.

Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America are exasperated as Democrats and the media breathlessly report that Robert Mueller disagrees with Attorney General Bill Barr's summary of the report since the very same story confirms that Mueller did not find the summary inaccurate.  They're also disappointed as Juan Guaido's effort to remove Nicholas Maduro from power in Venezuela appears to be a failure.  And they applaud MSNBC for inadvertently explaining the purpose of our second amendment while watching Venezuela's military crush protesters in the streets.

The Laugh to Learn podcast comes to you every Tuesday evening (EST), bringing you the top news stories and conversational topics with a lighthearted spin in an unfriendly world. Join Jacob Pavao This week as he looks at the status of the Venezuelan crisis, and specifically how Nicholas Maduro rose to the dictator he is today. Oh, and don't worry because Jacob doesn't hold back when it comes to speaking truth to power on this latest episode of the LTL podcast! www.laughtolearnpodcast.com twitter @jacobpavao IG @jacob_pavao

More than 15 European countries are recognizing Juan Guaidó as Venezuela's interim president. They said last year's presidential election in which Nicholas Maduro won was a sham.

Today we talk on the horrendous acts by Nicholas Maduro on his country of Venezuela --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/podcasting/support

Regime change has long been US policy for Venezuela. Trump is following the Neo con playbook when he announced that the United States would no longer recognize Nicholas Maduro as president of Venezuela and would recognize the head of its national assembly, Jose Guaido, as president. Would the US backed coup help Venezuela? Who in the US is working to oust Maduro? CALL In tonight at 8:00 619-638-8559. Last Friday of the month with guest host Rocco P.

LONDON — The Venezuelan people are bearing the brunt of the socialist policies of their President Nicholas Maduro. Images of people looking for food in the rubbish and telling the world of their plight can be seen daily on news outlets all over the world. But Maduro is blocking aid to the country to his starving nation saying that his people aren’t beggars and he doesn’t trust the United States. The Trump administration supported by some Western nations including the United Kingdom has recognised opposition leader Juan Guaido as the interim President of Venezuela in what some political commentators see as a ‘soft coup’. But Russia, China and Turkey are backing Maduro and South Africa has insisted that Maduro is the duly elected leader. In an interview with the former chief of the CIA’s worldwide operations, Jack Devine, who now heads the Arkin Group told Bloomberg that the Americans’ backing of Maduro could be seen as another proxy war with Russia. - Linda van Tilburg

We knew it was coming, and now it's here: A coup is in progress in Venezuela. In this follow up episode to CD176 (Target Venezuela: Regime Change in Progress), learn additional backstory and details about the recent events in Venezuela, including the proclamation by Juan Guaido that he is now the President of Venezuela and all of the efforts being made by the Trump administration to get this regime change to stick. Please Support Congressional Dish – Quick Links Click here to contribute monthly or a lump sum via PayPal Click here to support Congressional Dish for each episode via Patreon Send Zelle payments to: Donation@congressionaldish.com Send Venmo payments to: @Jennifer-Briney Send Cash App payments to: $CongressionalDish or Donation@congressionaldish.com Use your bank's online bill pay function to mail contributions to: 5753 Hwy 85 North, Number 4576, Crestview, FL 32536 Please make checks payable to Congressional Dish Thank you for supporting truly independent media! Recommended Congressional Dish Episodes CD186: National Endowment for Democracy CD176: Target Venezuela: Regime Change in Progress Sound Clip Sources Hearing: U.S. Africa and Southern Command Operations, Senate Armed Service Committee, C-SPAN, February 7, 2019. Witnesses: Admiral Craig Fuller - U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) Commander Sound Clips: 16:10 Fuller While Russia and Cuba and China prop up the Maduro dictatorship, the reminder of the world is united. SOUTHCOM is supporting diplomatic efforts and we are prepared to protect U.S. personal and diplomatic facilities, if necessary. 53:44 Sen. Rick Scott In the Venezuelan military, have you -- have you seen any cracking from the standpoint, what we've been doing over the last -- especially the last two weeks, has any thing changed? Fuller - Certainly, there's been readiness aspects of their military that we watch very closely. It's a degraded force, but it is still a force that remains loyal to Maduro, and that makes it dangerous. We're looking for signs of those cracking, and we can talk in the closed session on some more details in trends we're seeing. 1:00:00 Sen. Tom Cotton (AR) - He said earlier Cuban guards completely surround the Maduro government. Does that mean that Maduro is dependent on the Cuban security and intelligence forces for his continuation in office? Fuller - Senator, I think it's a good sense of where the loyalty of the Venezuelan people are that to his immediate security forces made up of Cubans. Cotton  - So the men that surround Maduro, like our Secret Service, are Cubans not Venezuelans. Fuller - That's my understanding and assessment. 1:01:54 Fuller - I would also mention that the presence of China, China has not been helpful in a diplomatic way. I will leave that to the diplomats. China is there and involved in cyber in ways that are absolutely not helpful to the democratic outcome. 1:18:47 Sen Tim Kaine (VA) - If the world wants to see a democracy versus a dictatorship challenge Venezuela is just like the perfect test case for circa 2019, what do democracies care for an what dictatorships care for, Venezuela government of Maduro is supported by Russia, Cuba, and Iran. And they are enabling him to do all kinds of horrible things economically and in violation of human rights. The interim government, which has a constitutional claim in the vacancy of a president, the speaker of the legislative assembly becomes interim president supported by the United States and the EU. You really can see what the difference between democracy and the aspirations of democratic governments and dictatorship and what they care about very clearly int eh Venezuela circumstance now. Here's the reality, we are dealing with regional institutions like the OAS, every nation has one vote. The U.S. has a hard time to get the UA asked firmly come out against the Maduro government because many Caribbean nations still support the Maduro government. They've been bribed to do so with low-price oil. But it's very hard for us to do something like this on our won and when a principal regional institution like the LAS is not completely with us it's hard to put the appropriate pressure on. Interview: Mnuchin says Trump's economic plan is working and 'we're not going back to socialism', CNBC, February 6, 2019. 00:58:37 Steven Mnuchin : I’ve always watched the stock market a lot. I’ve been in the investment business since I graduated from Yale and I’ve tended to watch the stock market every day since then... As the President talked about last night, his economic program is working. We’re not going back to socialism. We’re going on an economic plan for America that works. 2019 State of the Union Address: Trump appeals for unity to end political gridlock, February 5, 2019. 2019 State of the Union Address: Trump Praises the Venezuela Coup, February 5, 2019. 1:05:28 President Donald Trump - Two weeks ago, the United States officially recognized the legitimate government of Venezuela, and its new interim President, Juan Guaido. We stand with the Venezuelan people in their noble quest for freedom -- and we condemn the brutality of the Maduro regime, whose socialist policies have turned that nation from being the wealthiest in South America into a state of abject poverty and despair. Here, in the United States, we are alarmed by new calls to adopt socialism in our country. America was founded on liberty and independence --- not government coercion, domination, and control. We are born free, and we will stay free. Tonight, we renew our resolve that America will never be a socialist country. Interview: President Trump on "Face the Nation," CBS News, February 3, 2019. 00:42:58 MARGARET BRENNAN: What would make you use the U.S. military in Venezuela? What's the national security interest? PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well I don't want to say that. But certainly it's something that's on the- it's an option. MARGARET BRENNAN: Would you personally negotiate with Nicolás Maduro to convince him to exit. PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well he is requested a meeting and I've turned it down because we're very far along in the process. You have a young and energetic gentleman but you have other people within that same group that have been very very - if you talk about democracy - it's really democracy in action. MARGARET BRENNAN: When did he request a meeting? PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We're going to see what happened. A number of months ago he wanted to meet. Interview: National Security Adviser Ambassador John Bolton, interviewed by Hugh Hewitt, Hugh Hewitt Book Club, February 1, 2019. Transcript Sound Clips: 01:20:23 Hugh Hewitt: There are reports of Venezuela shipping gold to the United Arab Emirates. The UAE is a very close ally of ours. Have you asked the UAE to sequester that gold? John Bolton: Let me just say this. We’re obviously aware of those reports consistent with what we did on Monday against PDVSA, the state-owned oil monopoly where we imposed crippling sanctions. Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury Secretary, is implementing them as we speak. We’re also looking at cutting off other streams of revenue and assets for the Maduro mafia, and that certainly includes gold. And we’ve already taken some steps to neutralize gold that’s been out of the country used as collateral for bank loans. We’ve frozen, and our friends in Europe, have frozen a substantial amount of that. We want to try and do the same here. We’re on top of it. That’s really all I can say at the moment. Council Session: Political Situation in Venezuela, Atlantic Council, January 30, 2019. Witnesses: Ed Royce - Former Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Carlos Alfredo Vecchio - Voluntad Popular Co-Founder, Interim Venezuelan Charge d’Affaires to the U.S. Julio Borges - Former President for the National Assembly of Venezuela David O’Sullivan - European Union Ambassador to the United States Sound Clips: 11:30 Carlos Alfredo Vecchio (via translator): What do we want to do? What is what we are asking the international community to support us with? First, to put an end to the usurpation of power by Nicolas Maduro. We cannot resolve the political and economic and social crisis as long as the dictatorship is in place. And this is something that we have to make clear. That is my priority, is to put an end to that and to help orchestrate international support to put an end to Maduro's dictatorship. 13:30 Carlos Alfredo Vecchio (via translator): Just to make very clear, I mean, from an economic point of view, we believe in an open market, an open economy. We believe in the private sector, we believe in the international and the national sectors, though, often, of course, our main source of revenue is the oil sector. So that would be a key element to recover our country, and we need to open that market. We need to increase our oil production. 39:15 David O’Sullivan: I think we absolutely share the same objective here. The European Union has always believed that the situation in Venezuela is unsustainable. We did not accept the results of the so-called elections last year. We declined collectively to attend the inauguration. And we are wholly supportive of the efforts of the National Assembly and Guaido to restore true democracy and free and fair elections. 48:00 Representative Ed Royce (CA): And a few years ago when the people in Venezuela elected the National Assembly, over two-thirds opposition to Maduro, he doubled down by asking China to bring the ZTE Corporation in and do a social credit system inside Venezuela on the same basis that it's done in China, which means that you now need that card in order to get food or medicine or your pension or your basic services. 48:30 Representative Ed Royce (CA): The fact that this ZTE-type arrangement exists in Venezuela, and now it exists in North Korea, and there's one other country where they have a contract—they're putting it in the Republic of Iran—this represents a new challenge to democracies. 1:15:00 Carlos Alfredo Vecchio: Just to make very clear, I mean, from an economic point of view, we believe in an open market, an open economy. We believe in the private sector, we believe in the international and the national sectors, though, often, of course, our main source of revenue is the oil sector. So that would be a key element to recover our country, and we need to open that market. We need to increase our oil production. 1:23:30 Carlos Alfredo Vecchio: Those agreements that has not been recognized by an international examiner, who has been illegal, we will not recognize illegal agreements. The rest, yes, we will comply with that. And let me send a clear message. For example, the only way that bond holders will not get paid, if Maduro remains in power. Nobody will complain with them. And China has to understand that, and Russia has to understand that. Discussion: Political Situation in Venezuela, Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), January 29, 2019. Witnesses: Gustavo Tarre - George Washington University, CSIS Americas Program member, Designated Venezuelan Ambassador to the Organization of American States (appointed by Juan Guaido William Brownfield - Former US Ambassador to Venezuela, Chile, and Columbia during the George W. Bush administration and Obama administration Michael Matera - Center for Strategic & International Studies, America’s Program Director Sound Clips: 3:30 Michael Matera: In what is shaping up to be a very unstable and potentially explosive situation in Venezuela, the leading authoritarian nations of the world have stood by Maduro. Russia, Iran, Turkey, China, and Cuba, among a few others, have stated their continued recognition of Maduro. The future of Venezuela is turning more clearly than ever into a proxy struggle between the authoritarian regimes and the democratic nations. Venezuela could easily become the active front on which this struggle is defined. 8:15 Gustavo Tarre: Not only because his knowledge of Venezuela— Madea Benjamin: Not easy because you are here representing a coup. You are totally illegitimate. Nobody elected Juan Guaido, and nobody legitimate appointed you. You are taking Venezuela down the path of a civil war— Unknown Male Speaker: Excuse me. Excuse me, ma’am. Madea Benjamin: How dare you go to a civil war? What kind of patriot are you that allow yourself to be manipulated— Unknown Male Speaker: Out. Get out. Madea Benjamin: —by Donald Trump, John Bolton, and now Elliott Abrams, the ultra hawk. It is a very dangerous situation. We need negotiations, which is why we should be supporting Mexico and Uruguay in their call for negotiations. You don't follow the coup collaborators, like this man right here. Say no to coup. Unknown Male Speaker: See ‘ya. Ambassador— Madea Benjamin: We’re in the 21st century. 1:08:50 William Brownfield: What is the Cuban interest? It's 50,000 barrels of oil a day to an energy-starved nation. What is the Chinese approach? It is very much an economic approach, which is to say there are raw materials of great importance to the Chinese economy that are located in Venezuela, and they have a long-term economic interest in having access to them, driven by economics. Russia is more complicated. They do not need oil. They are, in fact, one of the three largest oil producers in the world right now, who produce more than their national need. It is geostrategic politics. I would offer everyone two thoughts—because I have taken this question from excellent representatives of the media over the last week with some frequency—first, don't listen that closely to the words that you hear from the governments of China or Russia. See if they put another billion or two or three billion investment into Venezuela. Money talks, and I have not seen evidence of that, which suggests that they, too, are pausing and taking a look at what happens. And second, if I could be Russia-specific briefly, I would note, and we all realize this, that over the last 10 years or so, Russia annexed the Crimea, and the Western democracies criticized and protested. Russia created two new republics—one in South Ossetia, the other in North Georgia, I believe—and the Western world protested. Russia at least supported, and I would argue actually infiltrated, large numbers of security personnel into the two easternmost provinces of Ukraine, and the Western world criticized. But at the end of the day, geography and history determined the Crimea is still under Russian control, South Ossetia and North Georgia still exist as independent states, and Russian influence is still quite visible in and whatever the other province is called. All right. That is geographic reality. We are now in the Western Hemisphere. If Brazil and Colombia and Argentina and Canada and the United States take a position, those same geographic realities will, in fact, move in the other direction. Of course we must listen to the Russian and Chinese governments—they are two of perhaps the three most important governments in the world—but we're entitled to use our brains as we calculate what they are saying and how we respond to it. 1:16:30 William Brownfield: What if Maduro hangs on yet once again, which by the way, ladies and gentlemen, is not inconceivable; it's happened before. We had not quite this much of a conversation, but in 2017 some sensed that things might be happening, and they did not happen. Is it possible again? Of course, it is. That is why we talk about a strategy, an international community strategy with two elements: one element being focused on the Maduro de _____(00:35) esta, the removal of that government, and that strategic component is not eliminated until someone new has moved into Miraflores Palace; and the second, related but separate element of planning for the day after. Hearing: Hearing to Consider Worldwide Threats, Select Committee on Intelligence, U.S. Senate, January 29, 2019. C-SPAN Report Video Witnesses: Dan Coats - Director of National Intelligence Christopher Wray - FBI Director Gina Haspel - CIA Director Lt. General Robert Ashley - Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) Director General Paul Nakasone - National Security Agency Director Sound Clips: 1:11:00 Senator Marco Rubio (FL): We know they have openly and repeatedly, at least Maduro has, invited the Russians and Putin to establish either a rotational or a permanent presence somewhere in Venezuela, thereby creating a Russian military presence in the Western Hemisphere. In fact, they flew, about three weeks ago or a month ago, two Russian nuclear-capable bombers into the Caribbean Sea. 1:12:15 Senator Marco Rubio (FL): Is it not in the national interest of the United States of America that the Maduro regime fall and be replaced by a democratic and more responsible government? 1:15:15 Lieutenant General Robert Ashley: The reference you made to the Tu-160 Blackjacks that flew those strategic bombers, third iteration of that—first time was in '08, and then '14, and we've seen it again. As far as presence on the ground, we can talk a little bit more detail in a closed session about where we see Russia and China going with that greater instability. But in the open press, what you've seen thus far really is nothing more than just vocal support that's coming out of Moscow and that's coming out of China as well, but there is relationship there. From the military standpoint in the way of training, lots of Venezuelan officers go to Russia for training, and there's a reciprocal relationship for equipping them as well. 1:16:00 Senator Angus King (ME): In light of Senator Rubio's comments, I'd just like to note of caution, he listed refugee flows, human rights abuses, and corruption. There are lots of countries in the world that meet that description, and our right or responsibility to generate regime change in a situation like that, I think, is a slippery slope. And I have some real caution about what our vital interests are and whether it's our right or responsibility to take action to try to change the government of another sovereign country. That same description would have led us into a much more active involvement in Syria, for example, five or six years ago, other parts of the country. I just wanted to note that. Fox Business Video: John Bolton on Regime Change in Venezuela, Iraqi Christian HRC, Twitter, January 28, 2019. White House Daily Briefing: Trump Administration sanctions against Venezuela's state-owned oil company, January 28, 2019. Speakers: Steve Mnuchin - Treasury Secretary John Bolton - National Security Advisor Sound Clips: 1:26 John Bolton: As you know, on January the 23rd, President Trump officially recognized the president of the Venezuela National Assembly, Juan Guaido, as the interim president of Venezuela. Venezuela's National Assembly invoked Article 233 of the country's constitution to declare Nicolas Maduro illegitimate. This action was a statement that the people of Venezuela have had enough of oppression, corruption, and economic hardship. Since then, 21 other governments in the region and across the world have joined the United States in recognizing Guaido as Venezuela's interim president. 3:53 John Bolton: I reiterate that the United States will hold Venezuelan security forces responsible for the safety of all U.S. diplomatic personnel, the National Assembly, and President Guido. Any violence against these groups would signify a grave assault on the rule of law and will be met with a significant response. 4:24 Steven Mnuchin: Today Treasury took action against Venezuela’s state-owned oil company, PDVSA, to help prevent the further diversion of Venezuela’s assets by former President Maduro. 5:21 Steven Mnuchin: The path to sanctions relief for PDVSA is through the expeditious transfer of control to the interim president or a subsequent democratically elected government who is committed to taking concrete and meaningful actions to combat corruption. 5:40 Steven Mnuchin: Today OFAC also issued a number of general licenses that authorize certain transactions and activities with PDVSA for limited periods of time to minimize any immediate disruptions and support of ongoing humanitarian efforts. 6:00 Steven Mnuchin: Citgo assets in the United States will be able to continue to operate provided that any funds that would otherwise go to PDVSA instead will go into a blocked account in the United States. 6:10 Steven Mnuchin: Refineries in the United States have already been taking steps to reduce the reliance on imports from Venezuela. Those imports have fallen substantially in recent months. We have also issued general licenses to ensure that certain European and Caribbean countries can make an orderly transition. 6:20 Steven Mnuchin: We continue to call on all of our allies and partners to join the United States in recognizing Interim President Guaido in blocking Maduro from being able to access PDVSA funds. 7:10 Reporter: Is there any circumstance under which American forces would get involved? John Bolton: Well, the president has made it very clear on this matter that all options are on the table. 7:43 Steven Mnuchin: But effective immediately, any purchases of Venezuelan oil by U.S. entities, money will have to go into blocked accounts. Now, I've been in touch with many of the refineries. There is a significant amount of oil that's at sea that's already been paid for. That oil will continue to come to the United States. If the people in Venezuela want to continue to sell us oil, as long as that money goes into blocked accounts, we'll continue to take it. Otherwise, we will not be buying it. And again, we have issued general licenses, so the refineries in the United States can continue to operate. 9:06 Steven Mnuchin: The purpose of sanctions is to change behavior. So when there is a recognition that PDVSA is the property of the rightful rulers, the rightful leaders, the president, then, indeed, that money will be available to Guaido. 9:52 John Bolton: And the authoritarian regime of Chavez and Maduro has allowed penetration by adversaries of the United States, not least of which is Cuba. Some call the country now Cubazuela, reflecting the grip that Cuba’s military and security forces have on the Maduro regime. We think that’s a strategic significant threat to the United States, and there are others as well, including Iran’s interest in Venezuelan’s uranium deposits. 15:56 Steven Mnuchin: We're dealing with Venezuelan oil that is a rather modest part of our overall supply. Again, we're a net exporter of energy. We are particularly concerned that there were a handful of refineries that had a dependence on Venezuelan oil. I think they read the tea leaves. They reduced that dependence significantly along the way. Most of them have in the neighborhood of 10% or less of their dependent on Venezuelan oil. So, I don't expect that people will see an impact on the gas pumps. 17:10 Steven Mnuchin: I’m sure many of our friends in the Middle East will be happy to make up the supply as we push down Venezuela’s supply. Meeting: Secretary Pompeo Speaks at U.N. Security Council Meeting on Venezuela, January 26, 2019. Speaker: Mike Pompeo - Secretary of State Sound Clips: 2:20 Mike Pompeo: Let’s be crystal clear: The foreign power meddling in Venezuela today is Cuba. Cuba has directly made matters worse and the United States and our partners are the true friends of the Venezuelan people. 16:40 Mike Pompeo: Such scenes of misery are now the norm in Venezuela, where millions of children are suffering from malnutrition and starvation, thanks to a socialist experiment that caused the economy to collapse. 20:24 Mike Pompeo: And now it’s time for every other nation to pick a side. No more delays. No more games. Either you stand with the forces of freedom or you’re in league with Maduro and his mayhem... But no regime has done more to sustain the nightmarish condition of the Venezuelan people than the regime in Havana. For years, Cuban security and intelligence thugs, invited into Venezuela by Maduro himself and those around him, have sustained this illegitimate rule. They have trained Maduro’s security and intelligence henchmen in Cuba’s own worst practices. Cuba’s interior ministry even provides former President Maduro’s personal security... Some countries have publicly taken former President Maduro’s side. China, Russia, Syria, and Iran are just four of them. Just this morning, we tried to find a way for this council to speak in one voice in support of the Venezuelan people and our democratic ideals through a presidential statement not this council. But our Russian and Chinese colleagues refused to let this move forward. It’s not a surprise that those that rule without democracy in their own countries are trying to prop up Maduro while he is in dire straights. Meeting: U.N. Security Council Meeting on the Situation in Venezuela, January 26, 2019. Speakers: Jorge Arreaza - Venezuelan Foreign Minister Elliott Abrams - U.S. Special Envoy to Venezuela Sound Clips: 00:10 Jorge Arreaza: So 2002 is a direct precedent to what is happening. They were behind the coup d’etat. They weren’t as much in the vanguard or in advance as this time. They recognized Carmona, the dictator for the 72 hours that it lasted... It was on the 22nd, where Vice President Pence basically in a tweet gave a green light for a coup d’etat in Venezuela. As Under Secretary General said the interim President is self proclaimed. There was no ceremony. It was self proclamation by a member of Parliament at a public rally, at a peaceful public rally, one of many that there have been over the past years... If one of you can tell me in which article and which provision of the United Nations charter you can find the legal basis for self proclamation who wasn’t elected by anyone as President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, then we can open a discussion on the legal aspects, but I don’t think that will happen... At last we have a chance to speak. We have a written text but before that I wanted to share some thoughts with you. Indeed, we can even thank Mr. Mike Pompeo because in the face of failure at the Organization of American States on the 24th of January, they didn’t have enough weight to impose a resolution, well they convened a meeting of the Security Council. In fact, we - President Maduro - thought of appealing to this body not only to debate the case of Venezuela but rather the blatant and gross intervention, and mechanisms of interference by the United States in our country. In this case, the United States is not behind the coup d’etat, it is in advance in the vanguard of the coup d’etat. It is dictating the orders not only to the Venezuelan opposition but also to the satellite governments in the region, and it seems it Europe and in other parts of the world. 31:47 Elliot Abrams: I can not respond to every attack that was made on every country here. The insults that were made by calling many countries here “satellites”. In fact, it was interesting that every single country that was attacked - or criticized - was a democracy. Every single one that you criticized was a democracy... Today there is a satellite present here and it is Venezuela, which is unfortunately has become a satellite of Cuba and Russia... The regime is hiding behind, and it’s spokesman is hiding behind, the laws and constitution of Venezuela. Hearing: Defense Department Nominations, Senate Armed Services Committee, January 25, 2019. Witness: Vice Admiral Craig Faller - US Southern Command Commander Sound Clips: 1:37:00 Senator Bill Nelson (FL): What do you think that is the proper role of SouthCom in supporting the Venezuelan people now, in this time of exceptional chaos? Craig Faller: Senator, the Southern Command is focused on supporting our partners—Brazil, Columbia, those that have been most affected by the migrants, the spillover of some one-million-plus in Columbia. Recently, visited Columbia was the secretary of defense. President Duque is keenly aware and sharply focused on all his security challenges, and this is at the top of that list. As a result of the Columbian government's request, we intend to deploy the hospital ship Comfort—it will be underway shortly. It was delayed because of the hurricane—to the region to help our partners offset some of the impacts of this, particularly with the medical care that's been required and the strain that's placed on the resources. Fox Business Video: Vice President Mike Pence Tweet about US recognizing Guaido as Venezuelan President, Twitter, January 23, 2019. 00:33:32 Vice President Mike Pence: Today, freedom broke out in Venezuela with the recognition of a new interim president in Juan Guaido, a courageous man who stepped forward, the President of the National Assembly who took the oath of office, and I couldn’t be more proud that at President Trump’s direction, the United States of America became the first country in the world to recognize President Guaido, and now many other nations join us as well. Video: Vice President Mike Pence Tweet about Venezuela, Twitter, January 22, 2019. Vice President Mike Pence: Hola. I’m Mike Pence, the Vice President of the United States, and on behalf of President Donald Trump and all the American people, let me express the unwavering support of the United States as you - the people of Venezuela - raise your voices in a call for freedom. Nicholas Maduro is a dictator with no legitimate claim to power. He’s never won the Presidency in a free and fair election and he’s maintained his grip on power by imprisoning anyone who dares to oppose him. The United States joins with all freedom loving nations in recognizing the National Assembly as the last vestige of democracy in your country, for it’s the only body elected by you, the people. As such, the United States supports the courageous decision by Juan Guaido, the President of your National Assembly, to assert that body’s constitutional powers, declare Maduro a usurper, and call for the establishment of a transitional government. As you make your voices heard tomorrow, on behalf of the American people, we say to all the good people of Venezuela, estamos con ustedes. We are with you. We stand with you and we will stay with you until democracy is restored and you reclaim your birthright of libertad. Muchas gracias y vayan con Dios. Hearing: Foreign Policy in the Western Hemisphere, House Foreign Affairs Committee, July 11, 2018. Witnesses: Kenneth Merten - Deputy Assistant secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Sarah-Ann Lynch - USAID Senior Deputy Assistant Administrator for Latin America and the Caribbean Sound Clips: 27:30 Chairman Ed Royce (CA): And meanwhile, despite sitting on the world's largest oil reserves, Venezuelan oil production has fallen by half in the last few years. Venezuela in the meantime has been sending several hundred thousand barrels of oil every day to China as repayment on the tens of billions of dollars it has borrowed. And more recently, China's development bank announced a new quarter-billion dollar investment to shore up Venezuela's struggling oil production. Video: You're Welcome, Duane Johnson, Moana, YouTube, November 28, 2019. Hearing: The Collapse of the Rule of Law in Venezuela, Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere, Transnational Crime, Civilian Security, Democracy, Human Rights, and Global Women's Issues, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, July 19, 2017. Witness: Luis Almagro - Secretary General of the Organization of American States Sound Clips: 07:15 Senator Marco Rubio: I also know this, and I do not speak for the president, but I’ve certainly spoken to the president, and I will only reiterate what he has already said, and I’ve been saying this now for a number of days: it is my—I have 100% confidence that if democracy is destroyed once and for all in Venezuela on the 30th in terms of the Maduro regime, the president of the U.S. is prepared to act unilaterally in a significant and swift way. And that is not a threat; that is the reporting of the truth. Hearing: Full Committee Hearing Venezuela: Options for U.S. Policy, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, March 2, 2017. Witnesses: Dr. David Smilde - Professor at Tulane University & NYT writer Dr. Shannon O’Neil - Council on Foreign Relations Former equity analyst at Indosuez Capital and Credit Lyonnais Securities Member of the Board of Directors at Rassini, an multinational auto parts manufacturers that make parts for US auto companies Senior advisor for Latin America at Macro Advisory Partners, a multinational consulting firm founded in 2013 Mark Feierstein - Center for Strategic and International Studies Senior Advisor to the Albright Stonbridge Group CLS Strategies GBA Strategies Special assistant to President Obama and Senior Director for Western Hemisphere Affairs Former Assistant Administrator for Latin America and the Caribbean at USAID Worked in State Dept and USAID in Clinton Administration Former principal at Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, an international political consulting firm Sound Clips: 21:53 Shannon O’Neil: Multilateral initiatives are perhaps more important and potentially more fruitful as a means to influence Venezuela. This will mean working behind the scenes to galvanize opposition and condemnation for the Maduro regime. This’ll be more effective than U.S. efforts alone as it will be much harder for the Venezuelan government to dismiss the criticisms and the actions of its South American neighbors as imperialist overreach. And such a coalition is much more possible today than in any time in the recent past, due both to the accelerating repression and the breaking of the last democratic norms in Venezuela, and due to the very different stances of South America’s recently elected leaders, particularly in Peru, in Brazil, and in Argentina. 41:12 Senator Bob Menendez: I’m pleased to have led a bipartisan and bicameral letter of my colleagues, urging the administration to take actions against the administration, and I look forward for a continuing engagement. But I hope we can work together to hold human-rights violators and drug traffickers, send a clear message, “If you’re going to violate rights of others inside of Venezuela, know that you’re next. Know that you’re next.” And while the Maduro regime may have sanctioned me and forbidden my entry into Venezuela, it will not stop me from pursuing this issue. Video Compilation: Either With Us or With the Terrorists - President George W. Bush, YouTube, May 26, 2013 Additional Reading Article: How Washington funded the counterrevolution in Venezuela by Tim Gill and Rebecca Hansen, The Nation, February 8, 2019. Statement: Pelosi statement on the situation in Venezuela, Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House, February 8, 2019. Article: Venezuela says plan from Miami delivered weapons for use by enemies of Maduro by Tim Johnson, McClatchy DC, February 7, 2019. Article: Senators fail to reach deal on recognizing Venezuela's Guaido, aide says by Daniel Flatley, Bloomberg, February 7, 2019. Article: Bipartisan Venezuela legislation fizzles over use of military force by Leigh Ann Caldwell and Josh Lederman, NBC News, February 6, 2019. Article: Spotify podcast acquisitions will bring a lot of money into tiny industry by Taylor Telford, The Washington Post, February 6, 2019. Article: Spotify technology S.A. announces financial results for fourth quarter 2018, Spotify Investors, February 6, 2019. Article: Trump's Venezuela envoy to testify to U.S. House panel amid crisis by Patricia Zengerle and Arshad Mohammed, Reuters, February 6, 2019. Article: Russia starts to worry Maduro's grip is slipping in Venezuela, The Moscow Times, February 6, 2019. Article: French, German farmers destroy crops after GMOs found in BAyer seeds by Sybille de La Hamaide, Reuters, February 6, 2019. Article: Venezuela opposition will name new Citgo board this week: WSJ, Reuters, February 6, 2019. Article: How the neocons captured Donald Trump by Brian D'Haeseleer, The Washington Post, February 5, 2019. Article: Lima group warns against Venezuela military intervention, France 24, February 5, 2019. Article: Maduro's allies: Who backs the Venezuelan regime? by Rocio Cara Labrador, Council on Foreign Relations, February 5, 2019. Article: What does it mean for the United States to recognize Juan Guaido as Venezuela's President? by Scott R. Anderson, Lawfare, February 1, 2019. Article: Venezuela opposition leader outlines plan to revive nation by Ryan Dube and Kejal Vyas, The Wall Street Journal, January 31, 2019. Article: Elliott Abrams, Trump's pick to bring "democracy" to Venezuela, has spent his life crushing democracy by John Schwarz, The Intercept, January 30, 2019. Article: U.S. push to oust Venezuela's Maduro marks first shot in plan to reshape Latin America by Jessica Donati, Vivian Salama, and Ian Talley, The Wall Street Journal, January 30, 2019. Article: The real reason why those foreign powers are so interested in Venezuela by Melik Kaylan, Forbes, January 29, 2019. Article: How Citgo, a U.S. oil company, became Venezuela's lifeline by Adam Taylor, The Washington Post, January 29, 2019. Article: US diplomat convicted over Iran-Contra appointed special envoy for Venezuela by Julian Borger, The Guardian, January 26, 2019. Tweet: America stands by the people of #Venezuela... Nancy Pelosi, Twitter, January 24, 2019. Article: Russia warns U.S. not to intervene in Venezuela as military backs Maduro by Ana Vanessa Herrero and Neil MacFarquhar, The New York Times, January 24, 2019. Tweet: The citizens of Venezuela have suffered for too long at... Donald J. Trump, January 23, 2019. Tweet: Today @POTUS announced the U.S. officially recognizes Juan Guaido as... Vice President Mike Pence, January 23, 2019. Tweet: .@POTUS & the US stand w/ the Venezuelan peopl eas they seek to regain their liberty from... Vice President Mike Pence, January 22, 2019. Article: Brazil's Bolsonaro pledges action to 'restore democracy' in Venezuela, Reuters, January 17, 2019. Article: Venezuela is in crisis. So how did Maduro secure a second term? by Ana Vanessa Herrero and Megan Specia, The New York Times, January 10, 2019. Article: Lima group says it won't recognize Maduro's new term as president of Venezuela by Jim Wyss, Miami Herald, January 4, 2019. Article: Trump taps ex-Boeing executive Patrick Shanahan as acting Defense Secretary by Darko Janjevic, DW, December 23, 2018. Article: Russia sends 2 nuclear-capable bombers to Venezuela by Vladimir Isachenkov, Navy Times, December 10, 2018. Article: Russia signs $6 billion investment deals with Venezuela, Maduro says, The Moscow Times, December 7, 2018. Press Release: Rubio, Van Hollen urge administration to investigate ZTE business with Venezuelan government, Marco Rubio Newsroom, November 28, 2018. Article: How ZTE helps Venezuela create China-style social control by Angus Berwick, Reuters, November 14, 2018. Article: Trump administration tightens sanctions gains Cuba, Venezuela by Courtney McBride, The Wall Street Journal, November 1, 2018. Article: Canada's Rusoro Mining reaches $1.3B deal with Venezuela by Cecilia Jamasmie, Mining.com, October 12, 2018. Article: Rusoro Mining has received a settlement proposal from the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Rusoro Mining News, October 11, 2018. Article: Venezuela hands China more oil peresence, but no mention of new funds by Ben Blanchard and Alexandra Ulmer, Reuters, September 14, 2018. Article: Trump administration discussed coup plans with rebel Venezuelan officers by Ernesto Londono and Nicholas Casey, The New York Times, September 8, 2018. Article: A record-breaking market doesn't matter to most Americans by Helaine Olen, The Washington Post, August 22, 2018. Article: The politics of food in Venezuela by Ana Felicien, Christina Schiavoni, and Liccia Romero, Monthly Review, June 1, 2018.html) by William Neuman and Nicholas Casey, The New York Times, May 20, 2018. Article: Regional leaders call on Venezuela to suspend 'illegitimate' election by Eli Meixler, Time, May 15, 2018. Article: [Venezuela election won by Maduro amid widespread disillusionment](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/20/world/americas/venezuela-election. Article: US media ignore - and applaud - economic war on Venezuela by Gregory Shupak, Common Dreams, March 22, 2018. Article: Rusoro mining wins key U.S. court ruling confirming arbitration award, Rusoro Mining News, March 14, 2018. Article: Venezuela's Maduro calls for 'mega-election' that could cement his power by Rachelle Krygier, The Washington Post, February 22, 2018. Article: Venezuela opposition will boycott election, and Maduro tightens his hold by Ana Vanessa Herrero and Kirk Semple, The New York Times, February 21, 2018. Article: Venezuela launches virtual currency, hoping to resuscitate economy by Kirk Semple and Nathaniel Popper, The New York Times, February 20, 2018. Tweet: The world would support the Armed Forces in #Venezuela if they decide to... Marco Rubio, February 9, 2018. Article: Few challengers in sight, Venezuela sets April 22 for presidential vote by Nicholas Casey, The New York Times, February 7, 2018. Briefing: Background briefing on the Secretary's travel to Austin, Texas; Mexico City, Mexico; San Carlos Bariloche, Argentina; Buenos Aires, Argentina; Lima, Peru; Bogota, Colombia; and Kingston, Jamaica, Senior State Department Officials, U.S. Department of State, January 29, 2018. Article: Venezuela calls for early elections, and Maduro aims to retain control by Kirk Semple, The New York Times, January 23, 2018. Article: Tired of regional critics, Venezuela looks to Russia and China by Ernesto Londono, The New York Times, December 27, 2017. Article: Venezuela puts up roadblock for opposition in next presidential vote by Ana Vanessa Herrero, The New York Times, December 20, 2017. Article: As Venezuela opposition shuns vote, leader's party tightens grip on power by Kirk Semple, The New York Times, December 10, 2017. Article: Putin extends lifeline to cash-strapped Venezuela by Patrick Gillespie, CNN Business, November 15, 2017. Article: Venezuela's two legislatures duel, but only one has ammunition by Kirk Semple, The New York Times, November 3, 2017. Advisory: Reports from financial institutions are critical to stopping, deterring, and preventing the proceeds tied to suspected Venezuelan public corruption from moving through the U.S. financial system, Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, September 20, 2017. Article: White House raises pressure on Venezuela with new financial sanctions by Clifford Krauss, The New York Times, August 25, 2017. Article: Venezuela's new, powerful assembly takes over legislature's duties by Nicholas Casey, The New York Times, August 18, 2017. Report: Vladimir's Venezuela - leveraging loans to Caracas, Moscow snaps up oil assets by Marianna Parraga and Alexandra Ulmer, Reuters, August 11, 2017. Article: Trump says military is 'locked and loaded' and North Korea will 'regret' threats by Peter Baker, The New York Times, August 11, 2017. Article: Venezuela's new assembly members share a goal: Stifle dissent by Nicholas Casey and Ana Vanessa Herrero, The New York Times, August 3, 2017. Article: Venezuela vote marred by violence, including candidate's death by Nicholas Casey, Patricia Torres, and Ana Vanessa Herrero, The New York Times, July 30, 2017. Article: Goldman buys $2.8 billion worth of Venezuelan bonds, and an uproar begins by Landon Thomas Jr., The New York Times, May 30, 2017. Article: Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela President, calls for a rewrite of the constitution by Nicholas Casey, The New York Times, May 1, 2017. Article: Venezuela says it will leave pro-democracy organization by Nicholas Casey, The New York Times, April 26, 2017. Article: Crisis-ridden Venezuela gave $500k to Trump inauguration by Patrick Gillespie and Flora Charner, CNN Money, April 20, 2017. Article: Venezuelan court revises ruling that nullified legislature by Nicholas Casey and Patricia Torres, The New York Times, April 1, 2017. Article: As criticism mounts, Venezuela asks high court revisit power grab by Nicholas Casey, The New York Times, March 31, 2017. Article: Venezuela muzzles legislature, moving closer to one-man rule by Nicholas Casey and Patricia Torres, The New York Times, March 30, 2017. Article: An actual American war criminal may become our second-ranking diplomat by Eric Alterman, The Nation, February 2, 2017. Article: What happened when Venezuela outlawed its own currency by Jeremy Ashkenas and Quoctrung Bui, The New York Times, December 30, 2016. Article: Venezuela: three opposition lawmakers resign in concession to Maduro, Reuters, November 15, 2016. Article: Venezuelan lawmakers vote to put President Nicolas Maduro on trial by Ana Vanessa Herrero and Elisabeth Malkin, The New York Times, October 25, 2016. Article: Venezuelan electoral panel halts effort to recall President Nicolas Maduro by Patricia Torres and Elisabeth Malkin, The New York Times, October 21 2016. Article: Venezuela's supreme court consolidates Nicolas Maduro's power by Elisabeth Malkin and Nicholas Casey, The New York Times, October 12, 2016. Article: O.A.S. issues rebuke to Venezuela citing threats to democracy by Nicholas Casey, The New York Times, May 31, 2016. Article: Venezuela panel clears the way for a process to oust Nicolas Maduro by Patricia Torres and Nicholas Casey, The New York Times, April 26, 2016. Article: Venezuela's court deals another blow to opposition lawmakers by Nicholas Casey, The New York Times, April 12, 2016. Article: In power struggle, Venezuela's high court declares parliament in contempt by Mery Mogollon and Chris Kraul, Los Angeles Times, January 11, 2016. Article: Venezuela: Court held lawmakers in contempt by Nicholas Casey, The New York Times, January 11, 2016. Article: Venezuela opposition takes reins of assembly as tensions rise by William Neuman and Nicholas Casey, The New York Times, January 5, 2016. Article: 9 opposition candidates barred from Venezuela's December ballot by William Neuman, The New York Times, August 23, 2015. Article: Venezuelan court rejects challenge to Presidential election results by William Neuman, The New York Times, August 7, 2013. Article: Kerry encourages Venezuela recount by William Neuman, The New York Times, April 17, 2013. Report: Study mission of the Carter Center in 2013 Presidential elections in Venezuela, The Carter Center, April 14, 2013. Article: Venezuela coup linked to Bush team by Ed Vulliamy, The Guardian, April 21, 2002. Article: Uprising in Venezuela: The government; Venezuela's chief forced to resign; civilian installed by Juan Forero, The New York Times, April 13, 2002. Article: 12 years of tortured truth on El Salvador by Guy Gugliotta and Douglas Farrah, The Washington Post, March 21, 1993. Article: Bush pardons Weinberger, 5 others in Iran-Contra;Act called cover-up by Robert Jackson and Ronald J. Ostrow, The Los Angeles Times, December 25, 1992. Article: Elliot Abrams admits his guild on 2 counts in Contra cover-up by David Johnston, The New York Times, October 8, 1991. Article: Aide says U.S. planes carried contra arms, Archives, The New York Times, August 15, 1987. Resources Bio: Elliot Abrams, Council on Foreign Affairs National Endowment for Democracy: Elliott Abrams, Council on Foreign Relations Community Suggestions See more Community Suggestions HERE. Cover Art Design by Only Child Imaginations Music Presented in This Episode Intro & Exit: Tired of Being Lied To by David Ippolito (found on Music Alley by mevio)