I am moving this week, so blogging will be light.
Wish me good luck.
Heartfelt thanks for your support.
American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture
By Fausta
By Fausta
A second post today on Venezuela:
I have been writing about Venezuela‘s man-made crisis for years.
Here’s a question: Qui bono?
Who stands to benefit from it?
chaos, desperation and violence give it an excuse to crack down harder. A refugee crisis, sparked by hardship, makes it easier for regime agents to infiltrate neighboring countries, expanding the government’s clandestine networks.
Keep that in mind as the regime enters phase two of its plan for a Pan-American revolution.
Cross-posted at WoW! Magazine.
By Fausta
AP reports,
US aides: Venezuela opens backchannel over jailed American
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro welcomed a visit by a top-ranking Republican congressional staffer last month to discuss the possible release of a Utah man jailed for more than 20 months in this volatile South American nation, six U.S. congressional and administration aides told The Associated Press.
. . .
Holt, 25, traveled to Caracas in June 2016 to marry a fellow Mormon he met online practicing his Spanish. The couple was waiting for her U.S. visa when they were arrested during a police raid on the government-built housing complex where they were living in her apartment. Venezuelan authorities alleged Holt was stockpiling “weapons of war.”
Holt states that the weapons were planted.
He has been in jail since 2016 as a political prisoner: video from John Sexton’s article,
In addition to the weapons charges, Holt is also being held on suspicion of being an American spy.
H/t Panampost.
By Fausta
By Fausta
Venezuela is holding a general election this year.
Yes, the most miserable country on Earth is again going to pretend it is a democracy.
And now it’s been rescheduled.
Read my post, Venezuela’s upcoming travesty has been rescheduled.
By Fausta
It’s Oscar season and a Chilean film is nominated for Best Foreign Language film:
A FANTASTIC WOMAN
Country: Chile
Language: Spanish
Chile’s track record in this category: The country’s second nomination
Director: Sebastian Lelio
Story: Orlando (Francisco Reyes) is a middle-aged businessman in the Chilean capital Santiago who’s in a relationship with the much younger Marina (Daniela Vega). After an evening out together, Orlando suffers an aneurysm and is taken to hospital. His relatives, including his former wife, cannot cope with the fact that Marina is a transgender woman: only Orlando’s brother accepts her for who she is. The police and hospital authorities are mistrustful and seem to suspect Marina of involvement in Orlando’s death.
Official website here.
By Fausta
Lauren Markham reports at The New Republic on the tidal wave of migrants, mostly young men in their twenties and thirties, from India, Pakistan, and other countries from Africa and the Middle East heading for the United States via the Mexican border:
How efforts to block refugees and asylum-seekers from Europe have only made the global migration crisis more complex and harrowing (emphasis added)
By 7 p.m., the sun had set and groups of young men had begun to gather inside a small, nameless restaurant on a narrow street in Tapachula, Mexico. Anywhere else in the city, a hub of transit and commerce about ten miles north of the Guatemalan border, there would be no mistaking that you were in Latin America: The open colonial plaza, with its splaying palms and marimba players, men with megaphones announcing Jesus, and women hawking woven trinkets and small bags of cut fruit suggested as much. But inside the restaurant, the atmosphere was markedly different. The patrons hailed not from Mexico or points due south but from other far-flung and unexpected corners of the globe—India, Pakistan, Eritrea, Cameroon, Sierra Leone, Congo. Men, and all of the diners were men, gathered around tables, eating not Mexican or Central American fare but steaming plates of beef curry, yellow lentils, and blistered rounds of chapati. The restaurant’s proprietor, a stern, stocky Bangladeshi man in his thirties named Sadek, circulated among the diners. He stopped at one table of South Asian men and spoke to them in Hindi about how much they owed him for the items he’d collected on their tab. The waitress, patiently taking orders and maneuvering among the crowds of men, was the only Spanish speaker in the room.
Outside, dozens of other such men, travelers from around the world, mingled on the avenue. They reclined against the walls of restaurants and smoked cigarettes on the street-side balconies of cheap hotels. They’d all recently crossed into the country from Guatemala, and most had, until recently, been held in Tapachula’s migrant detention center, Siglo XXI. Just released, they had congregated in this packed migrants’ quarter as they prepared to continue their journeys out of Mexico and into the United States. They had traveled a great distance already: a transatlantic journey by airplane or ship to Brazil; by car, bus, or on foot to Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia; through Panama, Costa Rica, and Nicaragua; on to Honduras, Guatemala, and into Mexico. Again and again, I heard their itinerary repeated in an almost metronomic cadence, each country a link in a daunting, dangerous chain. They’d crossed oceans and continents; slogged through jungles and city slums; braved detention centers and robberies; and they were now, after many months, or even longer, tantalizingly close to their final goal of the United States and refugee status.
“The largest groups tend to be from India, Pakistan, China, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Congo,” but also Iraq, Afghanistan, Eritrea, and Syria.
They usually arrive in Brazil, through Peru, up the Darién gap connecting Colombia and Panama, north through Central America – and Mexico has increasingly become a destination.
Read the full article.
Note: extracontinentales means “from outside the continent”
By Fausta
A history professor wrongly claims the Founding Fathers loved gun control
How To Stop Mass Shootings In America
FBI Focuses on Millions of “Mishandled” $$$ Funneled from Australian Gov to Clinton Foundation
The peculiar case of David Hogg exposes media incompetence *UPDATED*
Democrats and Illegal Aliens versus the NRA and the Second Amendment
China Kills US Intel Assets In 2010; NYT Ignores The Obvious Question About Hillary
A Must Read – The Untold Eyewitness Story Of The Paris Bataclan Killings
Bookworm Beat 2/22/18 — our Second Amendment illustrated edition
A Twitter Honey Pot of ‘Russian Bots to Trap Conservatives? #TwitterLockout
Reagan CPAC Speech [1988]; Trump CPAC Speech [2018] (videos)
It’s time to check out What Business Thinks once again *UPDATED*
Does Anyone Actually Teach Conservatism Anymore?
Happy Birthday, George Washington, America’s indispensable man!
Ingraham: Guns, God and the Grace to Listen (Opening Monologue)
Forum:When Does The Mueller Investigation End? With What Result?