Don Surber
Trump's support costs Machado liberal support
Siding with narco terrorists comes natural to Democrats and their media.
María Corina Machado left her hiding place in Venezuela to visit Oslo, where her daughter accepted the Nobel Peace Prize for Machado on Wednesday—just as President Trump seized an oil tanker that was trying to smuggle contraband oil for the Venezuelan regime. The seizure was not a covert operation to overthrow the government because Trump is quite transparent about his activity.
In Norway, Machado faced the press.
Reporter: Yesterday, the U.S. seized a ship off the coast of Venezuela. Would you welcome a U.S. military intervention in Venezuela?
María Corina Machado: Look, some people talk about an invasion in Venezuela, the threat of an invasion, and I answer: Venezuela has already been invaded. We have Russian agents. We have Iranian agents. We have terrorist groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas operating freely with the regime’s approval.
We have the Colombian guerrilla and drug cartels controlling 60% of our territory, involved not only in drug trafficking but also in human trafficking and networks of prostitution. This has turned Venezuela into the criminal hub of the Americas.
What sustains the regime is a very powerful, well-funded system of repression. Where does that funding come from? From drug trafficking, the black market in oil, arms trafficking, and human trafficking.
We need to cut those flows. Once that happens and the repression is weakened, it’s over, because violence and terror are all the regime has left. We ask the international community to cut those sources, because the regimes supporting Maduro and the criminal networks have turned Venezuela into a safe haven for their operations across Latin America.
A reporter asked her how she got to Norway. She replied, “One day I will be able to tell you, because certainly I don’t want to put [those who helped her] at risk right now. It was quite an experience, but I think it’s worthwhile being here with you, telling the world what’s happening in Venezuela, what it means to you as Norwegians and as Europeans or from all the places where you come from, why Venezuela matters for the world.”
CBS tweeted, “An American private rescue team took 15 to 16 hours to get Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado out of her country and safely on her way to Norway to collect her Nobel Peace Prize, and to be reunited with her family on Wednesday. The secret mission was a land, maritime and aviation operation by the Grey Bull Rescue Foundation, according to a U.S. special forces veteran Bryan Stern, who heads it.”
Regime change carries risks. We removed Hitler and installed Charles de Gaulle as president of France, who showed all the gratitude of a snake by kicking NATO out of France while demanding NATO continue its protection of his country.
America’s return to the Monroe Doctrine is good news for Latin America because it means the United States will be the leader our hemisphere needs.
America has dropped its dream of being accepted by Europeans as an equal. Why did we seek to lower ourselves to their standard?
While we rightly defended Europe through NATO throughout the Cold War, the Soviet Union extended its brand of communism to Cuba and other parts of the Western hemisphere. We had success in saving Grenada and removing Noriega from Panama.
Upgrade to paid
After the USSR collapsed under the weight of its corruption and incompetence, Bush 41 should have turned the nation’s attention to Latin America. He chose to keep NATO and provide Europe with a military so the EU nations could spend their money on socialism. Even after Europe adopted the euro to compete with the dollar, we provided their military.
It’s crazy.
Because of Machado’s association with Trump, liberals who once loved her now hate her.
On July 24, 2024, the New York Times published a profile: “The ‘Iron Lady’ of Venezuela Threatens to Unseat Its Autocrat
“Spurned by the country’s authoritarian president and even her own colleagues in the opposition, María Corina Machado has built the most significant voter mobilization since Hugo Chávez.”
Now? Its story on Machado coming out of hiding ended:
Ms. Machado has already come under scrutiny for exaggerating Mr. Maduro’s ties to drug trafficking as the Trump administration tries to make the case that Venezuela, a relatively minor player in the drug trade, is flooding the United States with deadly drugs.
Ms. Machado has also waded into highly contentious political disputes in the United States related to Mr. Trump’s false claims that he won the 2020 presidential election. In recent weeks, she has amplified debunked claims that Venezuela’s government rigged elections in the United States.
She should prepare to be called Hitler if she succeeds.
Allow me to debunk NYT’s claims of “debunked claims that Venezuela’s government rigged elections.”
On July 28, 2024, NYT reported:
Venezuela’s authoritarian leader, Nicolás Maduro, was declared the winner of the country’s tumultuous presidential election early Monday, despite enormous momentum from an opposition movement that had been convinced this was the year it would oust Mr. Maduro’s socialist-inspired party.
The vote was riddled with irregularities, and citizens were angrily protesting the government’s actions at voting centers even as the results were announced.
With 80 percent of voting stations counted, the country’s election authority claimed that Mr. Maduro had received 51.2 percent of the vote, while the main opposition candidate, Edmundo González, had received 44.2 percent.
Mr. Maduro’s government has invented election results before, and this tally was immediately called into question by the opposition and by several officials in the region.
By debunked, NYT means Trump agreed.
Without or with offense to liberals, the effort to force Maduro out continues, along with media attempts to discredit it.
Reporter: “If you can seize a tanker without killing anyone, shouldn’t that be how we handle these fishing boats?”
Senator Eric Schmidt: “FISHING BOATS?! The drug runners?! Those aren’t FISHING BOATS.”
Reporter: “Yeah, but...”
Schmitt: “Those aren’t fishing boats. They are turbo-charged...the Commander-in-Chief has identified terrorist cartels who run drugs that kill a hundred THOUSAND Americans every year. He has the legal authority to blow those boats out of the water! And they will CONTINUE.”
Yeah, but—the motto of liberal reporters. The media is as confused about drug runners as Congressman Tim “Sarah” McBride is about his sex.
Trump marches forward. Venezuela is a threat, but so is the European Union.
The Daily Mail reported, “Leaked document shows US wants to pull four countries ‘away from the EU’ as part of Make Europe Great Again strategy.”
Austria, Italy, Hungary and Poland. I would add Switzerland but the Swiss were never dumb enough to join the P-U. Hungary may be the first to ditch Brussels.
Orbán Viktor tweeted:
The new American national security strategy: the most important and most interesting document of recent years. It speaks about Brussels in the same tone that the Biden administration and Brussels used when speaking about us. What goes around comes around.
The Americans also see that Europe has hit the wall of a long economic dead end. A weak ally cannot defend itself and cannot be relied upon in international affairs either.
They see Europe’s civilizational crisis as well. They see that Europe’s civilizational values, democracy, and the free market are all in danger.
They also see that European liberals have burned the network of relations that once existed with Russia, which was a mistake. According to American decision makers, Europe’s relationship with Russia needs to be rebuilt at a strategic level.
In summary: America has a precise understanding of Europe’s decline. They see the civilizational-scale decline that we in Hungary have been fighting against for fifteen years. At last, we are not fighting against it alone.
Trump knows that saving the American civilization requires taking care of our neighborhood beginning with Venezuela. We must end the invasion of drugs and terrorists. Dumping Maduro is a major step forward.
Axios reported, “The Trump administration Thursday imposed new sanctions on three nephews of Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro, a businessman close to his regime and six companies shipping its oil, Axios has learned.”
We shall see if Machado gets to march into the presidential palace. Either way, the American left has abandoned her.
That’s a good thing because it gives her credibility. |
