The Heritage Foundation had a piece titled, “Nicolas The Woke”. We’ve talked in the past about how Nicolas Maduro pays lip service to…well…just about everything. The indigenous peoples, he says he cares…while he kills them. The environment, he says he cares while he destroys it. The poor, he says he cares while he impoverishes them…and so on. But what about woke causes like the LGBTQ+ community?

 Maduro has been trying to appeal to them, and other woke issues, despite his past unconcealed homophobic attitudes, which are conveniently overlooked by the “woke” crowd in the US like the DSA, Democratic Socialists of America, who also conveniently overlook his blatant Human Rights violations and possible crimes against humanity.

 Over the past year there has been a Facebook ad featuring feminists and transvestites calling Maduro, and his predecessor, Hugo Chavez, “our feminist presidents”. Now we have the DSA and Code Pink (remember them, when they occupied the Venezuela Embassy?) hosting a tour of 8 American cities with Venezuelan feminists sent by the Maduro regime to allege US sanctions hurt Venezuelan women. Venezuelans who have escaped 21st Century Bolivarian Socialism have been protesting this tour although it has received little media coverage in the US. So, other than the usual Hollywood suspects, who here in the US has been supporting both Marxism’s failed ideology in Venezuela (and everywhere else) and here?

 We have former President Obama’s old friend Bill Ayers (you know, the Weather Underground guy that also supported bombing of public buildings), recently recalled San Francisco DA, Chesa Boudin, recalled because his “woke” soft on crime policies were getting people killed, and at the top of the list we have BLM, Black Lives Matter.

 We here at TFT have told you before that BLM is bad news. They are self-described Marxists and call for the dissolution of the “western prescribed nuclear family”, among other things (like their fraudulent use of all the billions of dollars donated to them…you know…buying themselves mansions and paying themselves and family members million dollar salaries). One of it’s co-founders, Opal Tometi, was a self-styled “election observer” in 2015 and BLM invited Maduro to Harlem to speak to a group of leftist activists.

 Tometi also penned a pro-Maduro manifesto in which she casts the Venezuela situation in racial terms (BLM sees everything through a racial lens, just like CRT proponents), excoriates the opposition as “white settlers”, praises the Maduro regime’s “participatory democracy” ( the introduction of central political control over democratic checks and balances), and praises it’s “transparent electoral system, recognized as among the best in the world” (recognized as such by Marxists but slammed by observers from the UN, ‘United Nations’, the EU, ‘European Union’, and the normally left-leaning Carter Center as recently as last November).

 Marxists here in the US and their Marxist allies do not support the Maduro regime despite it’s repression of Human Rights and civil liberties, but because of it! If you think big government, central planning is the way to go, you must be among the 33% of Americans that think Joe Biden and his administration are doing a good job. (That last sentence is courtesy of TFT, who reminds you that last year the DSA went to Caracas for a soiree at a five star hotel and expressed their admiration for Nicolas Maduro while a few miles from there his citizens were digging through the back of garbage trucks for food) “Nicolas The Woke”? Are you kidding me?

 Then we have ABNA with this…In an interview that was all over the place, Maduro was as well. Maduro emphasized Venezuela’s stance against imperialism, Zionism, colonialism, hegemonic powers, global oppression and arrogance, neoliberalism, racism, and cultural as well as cyber- colonization (whatever that is?).

 He expressed his admiration for Iranian Quds Force General Soleimani (killed by the US) who suggested that Iranian experts could help Venezuela restore power after the catastrophic blackouts (week-long and continuing) of 2019. Maduro still sticks to the story that the massive power failure was caused by a cyber attack on Venezuela’s power plants…unbelievable. We covered this extensively in Venezuela : Down The Rabbit Hole. The Guri Dam complex, which supplies 80% of Venezuela’s electric power, has and old analog system hence it can’t be hacked. The power failure was caused by a simple lack of maintenance.

 He praised the “Bolivarian Revolution” as “an alternative of truth and justice, an alternative of freedom, an alternative of democracy, and an alternative for realizing projects that are fully humane..” We would contend that Maduro lives in an “alternative reality” as none of the things he’s talking about exist in Venezuela today.

 Then we have Caracas Chronicles telling us that leftist, Gustavo Petro’s victory in Colombia’s presedential election has many speculating that Colombia may follow the path of Venezuela and Chavismo, a disaster that has caused well over 6 million Venezuelans to flee 21st Century Bolivarian Socialism. That may be a bit premature if Petro’s response to the many congratulatory messages he received from Chavistas means anything.He has responded to everyone’s messages except the Chavistas and it’s worth remembering that he has previously called Maduro a dictator.

 And we have Cendas coming out with the monthly basic food basket. In May the cost was $478 a month. With the minimum wage at $28 a month it would take 17 monthly minimum wages to feed your family. (I know it sounds high but it wasn’t long ago that it took well over a hundred monthly minimum wages. FYI, remember the UN metric for extreme poverty is earning a dollar a day.)

 And we have the Brazilian Justice Minister telling us that 8 of 10 asylum applications are from Venezuelans…no surprise there.

 Then we have a story that makes you wonder about things like double jeopardy and statute of limitations issues. A Caracas court subpoenaed former San Cristobal mayor, Daniel Ceballos, to reopen the trial against him for the 2014 protests. The TSJ, Venezuela Supreme Court, sentenced Ceballos to a year in prison for allowing the protests. (I guess he was supposed to follow Maduro’s lead on dealing with the “Guarimba” of 2014,a food and medicine shortage protest. Maduro simply had the protesters shot.) Ceballos actually spent 4 years in detention despite the 1 year sentence.

 They say they’re “reopening the trial”. I would say “How is that possible?” He was already tried, convicted, served his time (plus an extra 3 years), and released wasn’t he? He wasn’t tried for murder so there isn’t (or shouldn’t be) a statute of limitations is there? (The “Guarimba was 8 years ago) The questions regarding serving 4 years for a 1 year sentence, double jeopardy, statute of limitations, or any other legal matter all have the same answer. Under Chavismo, “The law is what we say it is!” And of course, the TSJ will ratify as “constitutional” anything Maduro tells them to.

 More tomorrow….