venezuela

Count us among the suspicious, the incredulous. In early 2019, even before Juan Guaido declared himself interim president of Venezuela, we met with senior officials of the Trump administration. Very early in our meeting words to the effect of "we like Leopoldo" were uttered. I remember it vividly, having thought "oh man... where do we start?" For Leopoldo, before his puppet Guaido became a thing, was already, arguably, the most toxic politician in Venezuela. Alas that was the hope then.

Juan Guaido isn't very bright, that much is more than evident already. He's come up with a 'new roadmap', which is a consultation plan -with same useless politicos that have allowed Nicolas Maduro to lord over Venezuela, for a new plan, which will rehash / relaunch the old plan of "1) cese de la usurpacion, 2) gobierno de transición, 3) elecciones libres"... well, better to listen from the horse's mouth:

Hemos construido y vamos a exponer una hoja de ruta para enfrentar al fraude y salvar a Venezuela.

UPDATED - This site suffered the most relentless DDoS attack we've had to endure since we started reporting Venezuelan corruption issues in October 2002. Something must be happening somewhere, perhaps our investigations into PDVSA's sanctions-evasion antics and corresponding shipping data, which is quickly acted upon by our esteemed readers from U.S.

In recent days Citizens Lab published a report on Dark Basin, described as a "Massive Hack-For-Hire Operation". It's one of those interesting reads to keep up with techniques employed by criminal elements against journalists posting inconvenient truths.

Check this out: after picking Juan Guaido, the Trump administration placed a bunch of sanctions on Venezuela / PDVSA. Said sanctions regime put the fear of god on a number of international energy players that ended up leaving the scene. The objective was to remove Nicolas Maduro, but the riskier it got for established companies to engage in business with Venezuela / PDVSA, the faster the void was filled by nimble shells run by thugs eager to cash in.

The recent record of U.S. government intervention in Venezuela sucks. Is out with Operation Condor and Washington Consensus, in with putsch by tweet. Regime change nowadays is by betting on the wrong horse, siding with cabals of entirely useless allies, while continously overestimating charlatans and underestimating chavismo, which is the most formidable foe to have ever come out of Latin America. What the world needs, what the region and Venezuela, in particular, need is more Charlie Wilson and less John Bolton.

Trying to stay relevant in politics is quite difficult in the best of times and places. Imagine how it looks for those with such aspirations, when, in the middle of current pandemic, their area of expertise is a banana republic cum failed State submerged in an abyss of corruption, like crisis-ridden Venezuela. Case in point Francisco Rodriguez, who went from an advisory role in Venezuela's Congress, to academia, to earn a living talking up -in stressed bond circles- chavismo's trustworthyness and ability to service its piling debt.

With ~1.35 million lawyers, the United States of America has one of the world's largest percentages of lawyers per capita, and it is widely considered to have one of the most litigious societies in the planet. Imagine then my shock, when learning that Adam Kaufmann, former understudy of legendary New York prosecutor Robert Morgenthau, is representing narcoterrorist Cliver Alcala Cordones.

I've always believed that one has to be as frontal in praise as in criticism. Depending on where one stands, the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) may have many aspects that deserve criticism, I am sure. With respect to Venezuela and the bunch of chavista narcoterrorists in power, nobody has a cumulative catalogue in exposing galloping and gargantuan corruption that compares to the one published by us in nearly two decades, and no law enforcement or justice system has come close to DoJ in prosecuting the thugs that have literally destroyed our nation.

Florida Senator Rick Scott would like to portray himself as some sort of ethical guardian of what's good and proper when it comes to legal representation retained by chavista thugs in America. His protestations in this respect started with a public letter to Foley & Lardner, where he claimed: "It has recently come to my attention that your firm was hired by Inspector General Reinaldo Muñoz, the top lawyer for Nicolas Maduro’s brutal regime in Venezuela.