Re: Venezuela

Is anyone here knowledgeable about Venezuela? Trump threatened military action against them out of the blue the other day, and I'm (obviously lol) curious about Putin's political and economic relationship with the country. Everything I know about Venezuela is limited to massive violent protests against the government. Is Russia somehow involved in this movement? Are they turning authoritarian like so many other countries lately? Does Russia have unusually weird or large financial dealings with V? Does Trump? Any other strange goings on, like the US government releasing inappropriate statements or seeming to hide almost all info (without claiming it's classified or an ongoing investigation) like the State Department just did with Cuba a few days ago?

I'm gonna Google a bit now, but a Venezuela expert on here is infinitely more helpful.

That Trump tweet about the Merck guy blew my mind, I clicked through and stared at the Twitter page for a while, trying to spot the tell that it was a fake tweet. But it isn't.

If he wants to lower drug prices, try to make some goddamn legislation happen! Trump literally knows how to do only two things: con people and attempt to bully them. He's elite at the first one and probably pretty good at the second in a business context, but abysmal at it in a political context.

When thinking about politics, economics and Venezuela never forget that they have the most proven oil reserves of any country in the world.

The bullying is oddly effective. There's plenty of public resistance because people really really hate being bullied, especially with the world watching.

But look back to Trumpcare recently and see several examples of bullying getting its way. John McCain was the perfect opposition vote. Even with brain cancer, he knew Trump couldn't attack a guy with brain cancer.

Despite his big mouth, Mooch would have been an upgrade for the Trump administration.

No wonder they fired him.

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GOAT hack job. Mother's advice column is amazing

I mean, this is the headline on CNN:

Prominent black exec Kenneth Frazier says Trump must clearly reject hatred. President goes after him in tweet

He has insulted the Jews yet?

He is at minimum an enabler and if he isn't technically a white nationalist yet, he's as close as one can be.

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Grunching a bit. But what the hell America?

trump is a nazi

Not an expert but have a few close friends in Colombia and we were just discussing. Venezuela has been pseudo-authoritarian for years, but high oil prices were able to buy a lot of good will with the poor people who brought Chavez to power. Oil prices being in the gutter really does not help with that since its something like 90%+ of their economy. However, on top of that, Maduro sucks in comparison to Chavez, who like him or not was a very charismatic guy who could connect to impoverished Venezuelans who made up most of the population.

The opposition parties gained control of the National Assembly in the 2015/2016 elections for the first time since 1999 when Chavez came to power. Earlier this year, the Supreme Court basically stole away all the powers of the National Assembly which is what has led to the current situation. Tons of protests ensued. Maduro issues a decree for a constituent assembly to draft a new constitution, presumably to give the executive (him) more power. Tons of protests ensued. The assembly met for the first time earlier this month which is what has intensified things. Polls show like ~80% of Venezuelans are opposed to what is going on.

From wiki: Also "On 8 August 2017, the Constituent Assembly declared itself to be the government branch with supreme power in Venezuela, banning the opposition-led National Assembly from performing actions that would interfere with the assembly while continuing to pass measures in "support and solidarity" with President Maduro."

My Colombian buddies say its turning into a major political crisis in their country as well because there are thousands of refugees streaming into Colombia, and there is a Colombian Presidential election next year in which this will surely be a major issue if not THE issue.

Last night John Oliver called it the reverse Godwins Law. If you fail to mention Nazis in this context it is a huge tell.

There's a truck parked across the street with a Tump Pence sticker. I would love to put a "I'm a Nazi supporter" sticker next to it.

Well, except when he gets home, he can just take those stickers off. Have you considered giving him something he can't take off?

I know of big 2 oil-related dealings that involve Trump & Putin, and some less significant ones involving fringe guys like Carter Page and lots of US government changes that favor big oil and Russia's dealings. The big ones...

1) RU company Rosneft was on the verge of closing a tremendous $500 billion oil deal with ExxonMobil's CEO at the time, Rex Tillerson. Sanctions got in the way and the deal has been on hold since I think 2014. I'm also pretty sure these are the same sanctions Mike Flynn was caught on tape discussing with Kislyak in December, and Trump focused intently on removing his entire 1st and 2nd week in office. From what we know, Magnitsky sanction relief wasn't brought up until the June 9th Trump Jr/Jared/Manafort/5 Russian meeting about "adoptions" + 29 more minutes of other ****.

2) Trump's oil discussions with Saudi Arabia and the UAE, followed quickly by Putin's cyberpropaganda attack on Qatar, causing a major rift between Qatar and the other oil countries that Trump immediately stood strongly behind, even after he learned that the US has financial interests and military base(s) in Qatar, and after learning the whole thing was based on Russian fake news. The rift's oil involvement was significant, but not as much as natural gas.

There's also a large amount of benefit to big oil when Trump pulled out of the Paris Accord. We lost bigly, our allies lost bigly, our built-up "green power" industry lost bigly, the planet lost bigly, and Putin, China and India came out ahead.

There was also a claim Trump rattled off at several rallies during the campaign, that we absolutely need to change US oil (and natural gas, and "CLEAN" coal) regulations to support the amazing rust belt discovery of 50 trillion dollars (!) of previously hidden oil reserves. #MARA

This subject reminds me of a July LA Times op-ed I saw like 10 days ago about cabinet member Scott Pruitt and the EPA he's directing: EPA’s Scott Pruitt is Trump’s most adept and dangerous hatchet man

We've seen a lot of Pruitt on all the news shows and doing Q&A at WH press briefings with both Spicey and Huckabeast. Almost all of those events and their details are not in this article. He's quite a work of art.

I get it now. Maybe Trump isn't ruling out military action in Venezuela because he wants to "take the oil".

The "I'm a filthy Nazi" brand has been delayed. Unfortunately.

I haven't ever seen the person that owns the truck, though.

Very true - I think we all know what's needed here.

^ I'm gonna give you a little somethin' you can't take off.

--Lt. Aldo Raine

Interesting about the opposition party taking over so recently using authoritarian strategies and that 90% oil figure. Big incentive for Putin.

Was there any trace of Russian presence in the opposition party's takeover? We didn't understand the Russian playbook in our 2016 election the way we do now. Venezuela probably didn't either. France was able to successfully counter it based on experience from America, Ukraine and at least 10 other countries.

Were there cyberattacks? News propaganda? Social media bots and trolls? Blackmail, bribery, or lobbying of politicians? Large cases of money laundering or other mob-style criminal activity?

If it's only a little presence, we can chalk Venezuela up as an outlier. However, if it's significant involvement, the unbroken pattern continues.

"I'm a filthy Nazi" is a little wordy and aesthetically bothersome. I vote for a simple capital "T" just above the bridge of the nose. Remember - we have to dole out 60 million of these things!

Piitb, aids.

http://business.financialpost.com/co...7-9114672542b0

Putin, Venezuela and oil.

gizmo,

Holy ****. Don't Google "Russia Venezuela" unless you feel like puking a little.

EDIT: I don't see much on political influence, other than Putin using Russia's military to do things here and there. They're mainly "talking about" intervening in the event of a civil war.

The big thing with the oil is how Putin's using it to dodge US sanctions, and of course Donald Trump is helping.