Fausta's Blog

American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture

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Venezuela: Did the Minister of Defense back out at the last minute?

I have documented every post on Latin America strenuously, but this post is an exception. I do not have contacts in the country or in any of the other places involved, so please read with caution.

In his Thursday, May 2, 2019 show, Jaime Bayly described that the Minister of Defense for the National Armed Forces of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, General Vladimir Padrino, had agreed to aid Juan Guaidó remove Nicolas Maduro from office.

Who is General Padrino?
In a post three years ago, I mentioned that Padrino, upon taking the job of commanding the country’s entire supply chain possibly “was given the job by Cuban intelligence to keep an eye on Maduro.” Additionally, Nicolás Maduro had declared “All the ministries, all the ministers, all the state institutions are at the service and in absolute subordination” to the head of the armed forces, Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino – including,

a new military-industrial mining, oil and gas company that will rival the state-owned oil company PdVSA.

In other words, Padrino lives up to his name, which means Godfather. His agreement would be crucial for any change to take place.

I must point out that Wikipedia correctly states,

On 22 September 2017, Canada sanctioned Padrino due to rupture of Venezuela’s constitutional order following the 2017 Venezuelan Constituent Assembly election.[6][7] The United States government has also sanctioned Padrino on 25 September 2018 for his role in solidifying President Maduro’s power in Venezuela.[8] Vladimir Padrino López is also banned from entering Colombia.[9]

The Bayly YouTube, in Spanish

Bayly said that Padrino had agreed to having Maduro leave for Cuba and install Guaidó as interim president in exchange for being allowed to keep the fortune he’s amassed over the years and avoiding prosecution by the U.S. The U.S. would also give the new interim administration $20billion to pay Russia for its oil interests in the country.

This was scheduled to take place on May 1st.

But Padrino changed his mind,

ABC Spain reports that General Padrino backed out at the last moment, even when the negotiation had lasted for several months. Bayly claims that Padrino demanded at the last moment to be permanent president.

The right price?

On Sunday May 5th, the Moscow Times published an opinion piece, Putin Is Ready to Give Up Venezuela for the Right Price.
Sergei Lavrov and Mike Pompeo will soon meet in Helsinki to discuss Venezuela’s future.

On May 3, U.S. President Donald Trump called Russia’s President Vladimir Putin to flag American concerns over Russia’s “disruptive role” in Venezuela and stress his country’sdetermination to ensure Venezuela’s return to democratic rule.

The price may involve Ukraine,

For Moscow, a deal of equals on Venezuela where Russia helps the U.S. diffuse the crisis by engineering a constitutional transition, should involve an equally significant concession by the U.S. (on a par with JFK-Khrushchev deal to remove nuclear missiles from Cuba and Turkey) to pressure Kiev into fully implementing the Minsk-2 agreements that would truncate Ukraine’s sovereignty and allow Moscow to retain some degree of control over Kiev’s security policies.
…
Moscow is ready to sell its stake in Maduro, but it is still unclear whether Washington is ready to offer the right price.

Interesting times

If Russia is out of the picture, there’s still the question of China and Iran remaining in the country.

If Maduro leaves, how about Tarek El Aissami, Vice President indicted by the U.S. for drug charges?

Additionally, I doubt very much that Cuba would give up its control of Venezuela’s security services.

This coming week promises to be very interesting indeed.

UPDATE:
Linked by Ed Driscoll at Instapundit. Thank you!
Linked by Da Tech Guy. Thank you!

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You need to unfriend me

I unfriended nearly three dozen people on Facebook over the weekend.

Just to be clear, you need to unfriend me if:
1. You believe minors should be doxxed, punched, issued death threats and have their lives ruined because they support President Trump.

2. You believe that the March for Life stands for extending the patriarchy.

3. You believe that MAGA hats are the pointy hood Robert Byrd wore.

4. You believe that women have the right to murder their children up to the very moment of delivery.

5. You believe that anyone who disagrees with you is evil and should be destroyed.

6. You are so addicted to the adrenalin rush that you will not stop being in a state of outrage.

7. You believe that having drug cartels control all South-to-North border traffic is a good state of things.

8. You believe I’m a racist, xenophobic bigot for bringing up point #7.

If any of the above points describes you, you need to unfriend me.

Right now.

I don’t care if you blame me, yourself (which you won’t), or the hole in the wall.

Stop wasting my time.

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Go ahead and Kiss the Girl, if you dare

It angers me that a natural impulse to kiss an attractive member of the opposite sex is condemned as “toxic masculinity,” a sophomoric opinion coming from an actual sophomore  who, by doing so, is engaging in toxic feminism … with the support of Princeton University.

Read my post, Go ahead, Kiss the Girl, if you dare

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Ashamed

This article was first published on Friday at Da Tech Guy Blog

I’ve been away from politics for several months while recovering from appendicitis, peritonitis and ileus, a horrible experience. I have grown bored of Latin America’s permanent, ongoing dumpster fires (Mexico, Venezuela, etc.) and loathe the current political atmosphere here in the USA. While I was recovering I simply could not be bothered to pay attention, much less write.Recently, however, I started paying attention to the Kavanaugh hearings, which had promptly become a clown show. During my recovery I had been reading the Ancient Greeks. The Greeks believed

that a wandering and discontented Uterus was blamed for that dreaded female ailment of excessive emotion, hysteria

The Greeks would have looked at the screaming demonstrators as proof of that theory, vagina suits or not.

Little did I know that Diane Feinstein would pull out, at the last minute, allegations of sexual assault against Judge Kavanaugh, and that not only would there be excessive emotion, there would also be talk of fake penises.

And now I am ashamed of the entire political spectacle.

Mind you, I lived in New Jersey for nearly forty years. New Jersey, home of Senator Bob Menendez and the eye doctor, of Cory Booker and T-bone. New Jersey, birthplace of the Torricelli Maneuver. After forty years of such, it takes a special kind of aroma for any long-term NJ resident to feel shame when looking at a political process.

And the process is not the only punishment.

I am ashamed that the accusations are doing a disservice to real #MeToo victims. First there is Ford, who could not recall the year or the location even under cross-examination while all the people she mentioned as witnesses swear under penalty of felony they were never at the scene. In the case of Ramirez, we learn that

Richard Oh, an emergency-room doctor in California, recalled overhearing, soon after the party, a female student tearfully recounting to another student an incident at a party involving a gag with a fake penis,

Yet (emphasis added)

The New York Times had interviewed several dozen people over the past week in an attempt to corroborate Ms. Ramirez’s story, and could find no one with firsthand knowledge. Ms. Ramirez herself contacted former Yale classmates asking if they recalled the episode and told some of them that she could not be certain Mr. Kavanaugh was the one who exposed himself.

Not to be outdone, Creepy Porn Lawyer

Avenatti said he is “aware of significant evidence of multiple house parties in the Washington, D.C. area during the early 1980s, during which Brett Kavanaugh, Mark Judge and others would participate in the targeting of women with alcohol/drugs to allow a ‘train’ of men to subsequently gang rape them.”

The same people asking for an FBI investigation of the first two allegations readily believe that SIX – not one, not four, but six – FBI security clearances of Judge Kavanaugh over three decades did not come across any information at all involving Avenatti’s invented rape gang.

Then there’s the shameful spectacle of Senator Hirono telling men to shut up, as if it were up to her.

I am ashamed to hear the Senator imply that the presumption of innocence, that quaint idea of an accused being innocent until proven guilty on which our judicial system is based, flies out the window when it comes to not only one man, but to all men. Hirono is not alone; Senators Coons and Schumer sustain that there’s no presumption of innocence for Judge Kavanaugh. These so-called honorable members of the Senate would have felt right at home in the Venetian Doge’s palace with its mailboxfor

Secret denunciations against anyone who will conceal favors and services or will collude to hide the true revenue from them

In yesterday’s hearing

The Democrats had nothing on him; their harping on his high school yearbook was pathetic, and Amy Klobuchar’s attempt to insinuate that Kavanaugh has a drinking problem was reprehensible.

I am ashamed that in yesterday’s hearing

A real rape had taken place but it wasn’t the one everyone was talking about. It was simultaneously a rape of Judge Kavanaugh, his family, and the American people themselves. The collateral damage was Dr. Ford, her friends, and her family. And the perpetrator was the Democratic Party, principally their Judiciary Committee members, their ranking member, and the minority leader.

The Democrats know that Denunciation is the deadliest activism

Denunciation is what happens when an accusation is saved or fabricated and timedin order to damage an individual and/or process and achieve a personal or political goal regardless of the truth or validity of the facts. Denunciations have been associated with the most infamous and cruel movements and regimes in human history.
. . . But the timing, negotiation tactics and invincible callousness of the Democrat Senators have not just attempted to destroy a fine man and his family. It has also projected two women, who, by their own admissions, are confused and unsure of what they are alleging, into a moral and legal crucible they did not understand at the outset.

I am ashamed.

I am ashamed that Judge Kavanaugh cannot go to church on Sundays because protesters block the entry. I am ashamed that his daughters need bodyguards to go to school, that his wife receives death threats, that his mother and father have to endure idiot comedians calling for their son’s castration.

I am ashamed that, as Judge Kavanaugh himself said yesterday, “This conformation process has become a national disgrace.”

I am ashamed to know that the left is not going to give up on Kavanaugh. Not now, not ever.

I am ashamed that this circus revolves around the fear that Justice Kavanaugh would overturn Roe v. Wade.

There have been sixty million abortions since Roe v. Wade.

People who celebrate the killing of sixty million lives will stop at nothing.

And that is the greatest shame of all.

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Good news of the day: Texas to pass Iraq and Iran as world’s No. 3 oil powerhouse

Via Kermit’s FB feed,
Texas to pass Iraq and Iran as world’s No. 3 oil powerhouse

The combined output of the Permian and Eagle Ford is expected to rise from just 2.5 million barrels per day in 2014 to 5.6 million barrels per day in 2019, according to HSBC. That means Texas will account for more than half of America’s total oil production.

By comparison, Iraq’s daily production is seen at about 4.8 million barrels, while Iran is projected to pump 3 million. Oil supplies from Iran are likely to plunge due to tough sanctions from the United States.

And we’re not energy dependent on dictatorships.

That’s something to celebrate.

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Why I read 12 Rules for Life

THIS IS NOT A BOOK REVIEW

I have been a ravenous reader all of my life (an average of two books per week for at least the last 40 years), and, while I do not feel the need to justify why I read any thing, there’s a story behind this selection.


Perhaps a better title would be How I got around to reading Jordan Peterson’s book.

As you know, I have been recovering from peritonitis and ileus following an appendectomy.

What you don’t know is that I lost 20+ pounds during the 10-day hospital stay that nearly did me in. I was not allowed to sleep, since the nurses came to draw blood every two hours (day and night), and every day was served foods I do not tolerate – mostly anything with soy or sugar – no matter how much I protested. Add to that dozens of pills – mostly antibiotics – on a nearly-empty stomach. By the time I left the hospital (which took some assertiveness skills, both from me and from my sister, who had stayed with me all 10 days), I could not sit up or walk unassisted and was almost totally worn down in every sense.

What I learned from that experience is
1. Hospital and medical staff are not going to hear what you say. Period.
2. Make sure to get a witness after you have your first bowel movement following surgery, or the nurses won’t believe it happened. My sister ended up having to swear it had.
3. Having loud tripe noises is a good thing.

I had stopped coloring my hair earlier this year, and when I got home and took a good look, I could not decide whether I looked more like Carol Kane in The Princess Bride, or like Marley’s ghost, because I was too thin to look like either.

The first thing I had to focus on was a return to my low-carb, high-protein “diet.” I have controlled non-diabetic hypoglycemia for the last two decades through diet alone: Nothing with added sugar, lots if green vegetables, lots of protein from meats, poultry and fish, a few berries and very very few bites of no sugar added ice cream. No juices, no pastas, no pastries. The only way to start was by having three small meals and three snacks a day. Instead of whole milk, I drank 6 ounces of whipping cream (2 ounces 3 x day) since I needed the calories. As I improved, my appetite returned.

Still, I needed a walker to walk across a room and could not sit up or get out of bed unaided for several weeks. The least effort tired me and I was lying down on a rented recliner for most of the day, since I did not want to stay in bed during daytime.

In the middle of this ordeal I had no energy to focus on anything for more than a few minutes. Trying to read a long article was exhausting. Listening to a whole concert on YouTube was impossible. Watching a movie or an opera was out of the question. Forget about researching and blogging, translating, or writing for pay.

As it happened regarding blogging, Twitter and Facebook appeared to have been hiding my blog posts for several months earlier this year. I didn’t have a chance to look into it seriously prior to my appendectomy. My blog readership was down by 80%.

On top of it, I have grown bored of Latin America’s permanent, ongoing dumpster fires ((Mexico, Venezuela, etc.) and loathe the current political atmosphere here in the USA. Excuse the language, but this image summarizes perfectly my current frame of mind when it comes to politics:

bayeux

It didn’t matter, since I was too tired to be able to get worked up enough to write about anything anyway.

My attention span improved as my sleep cycles normalized. I was mildly bored.

The downside to improving enough to feel bored was that I felt sorry for myself. In addition to the support of my family, Facebook came to the rescue, since I had received hundreds of positive messages wishing me well. Dozens of friends called, brought flowers, emailed and wrote. One morning i thanked God i was not in Puerto Rico without electricity. No more self-pity.

Back in the early 1990s when I developed hypoglycemia I had read Toughness Training for Life, which was most helpful in focusing on my goals and returning to daily good habits.

Two months into my recovery, I was well enough that I became interested in reading books again. I had been watching classical music YouTubes, and Jordan Peterson’s lectures started to show up among the “recommended” (how the algorithm works to connect the two, who knows?). I watched a few excerpts of Peterson’s lectures, which were interesting.

“First, that’s Dr. Peterson to you all, bucko.”

I looked up the book.

On the cover it said,

12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos

Yeah, you could say I was in the middle of chaos. Let’s see if 12 Rules delivered.

I bought the Kindle edition 12 Rules for Life. That way I would not need to rest the paper book on my sore lap.

What’s the book like? There are nearly 3,000 reader reviews at Amazon. I read a few after I finished the book, and particularly enjoyed Charles Stampel’s The Last Professor.

Toughness Training For Life and 12 Rules for Life share the same basic premise: Life is tough. Loehr approaches the daily schedule. Dr. Peterson looks at what’s inside it. Both will help get you through chaos.

Don;t pay attention to the left’s comments on Dr. Peterson. I recommended the book a few days after finishing it on a real-life friend’s Facebook thread, and in turn my friend’s former college roommate replied to me with a photo of Hitler’s Mein Kampf, followed by a derisive comment that I am “a rich white lady.”

Mein kampf aside, I have been called worse.

So do read 12 Rules For Life, especially at a time of chaos.

And make sure to have Kleenex handy for Chapter 12, where Dr. Peterson writes about his brave daughter Mikhaila.

Indeed, it’s a great book.

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