Down goes Guaido and the Venezuela coup plotters!

The corruption charges against Juan Guaido are undoubtedly true, but that isn't what is significant about these headlines. What is significant is that this is being reported in the western press at all!

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Venezuela’s National Assembly launched an investigation Tuesday into a report of influence-peddling among nine opposition lawmakers, further undermining interim President Juan Guaido’s efforts to oust Nicolas Maduro.

A committee was established to investigate lawmakers accused of lobbying for a Colombian businessman linked to Alex Saab, a Maduro ally sanctioned by the U.S. and indicted on money-laundering charges in July.

The alleged links were exposed days ago in an investigation by the Venezuelan news site Armando.Info. The committee said it will present its results in two weeks.

The affair is a blow to the opposition movement led by Guaido, which has failed to establish a transition government after being recognized by dozens of countries earlier this year.

Forget for a moment the bizarro world that this article is coming from, where up is down and Guaido has some sort of democratic claim to the presidency.
What is actually being said here is that the Venezuela coup plotters have lost patience and given up on Guaido.

“This comes as the opposition is already struggling to define a strategy, having exhausted every option to force regime change,” Eurasia Group analyst Risa Grais-Targow wrote this week.

Guaido, vowing to stamp out corruption even among those around him, said he was suspending the named lawmakers. But several defied him by appearing at the assembly on Tuesday.

“I challenge you Juan Guaido: take us out, you’re going to have to kill us first,” Luis Brito, one of the lawmakers, said at a press conference. He claimed that there’s a rebellion among opposition lawmakers although so far there is scant evidence of it.

Popular Will, Guaido’s political party, said Maduro’s government has sought to bribe opposition parliamentarians ahead of a Jan. 5 vote on whether Guaido remains assembly president. Small opposition parties abandoned Guaido two months ago and began negotiating with representatives of Maduro.

It's done. It's over for Guaido and his group.
They are finished. The hundreds of millions of dollars that Washington showered on Guaido was wasted.
What will the dozens of governments do that the Trump Administration strong-armed into recognizing Guaido? What about the Venezuelan embassy in Washington?

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Maduro’s colleague, Socialist party leader Diosdado Cabello, celebrated Guaido’s woes in a press conference on Monday.

“This comes as no surprise, that they’re accusing each other of corruption,” he said. “Never before has the political opposition been in a worse state than today.”

The coup plotting allies in Colombia are also having unexpected troubles.
Much like the right-wing neoliberal government in Chile, the cacerolazo protest movement has caught the establishment by surprise and they've been forced to back down.

Colombia’s government agreed to negotiate an end to ongoing anti-government protests with the leaders of a national strike on the condition strikes end ahead of talks...
The strike leaders accepted to meet on Tuesday, but announced a 5th strike day for Wednesday in an attempt to keep the pressure on the government, which has isolated itself.
Until Monday, the government refused to acknowledge the National Strike Committee that is largely made up of labor unions and strike leaders and has organized the strike.

Instead, Duque insisted on having a “National Conversation” that excluded the strike leaders’ demands.

Under pressure from Congress and on the 12th day of protests, Duque ceded and agreed to negotiate the demands that effectively seek a major turn-around in his economic and peace policies.

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I have to admit that I'm a bit anxious, and also more than a bit hopeful, about what is happening. For what its worth, and not to go too Buffalo Springfieldy on you, I think there really is "something happening here".
From Venezuela, to Columbia, to Brazil, to Bolivia, the middle east, and Europe, change is coming. The dread comes from my perception that one side will win out and the future of us humans is in the balance. One future has humans still, the other not. All the best to you all.

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Alligator Ed's picture

Never. Not ever. It is a certainty that mucho dineros (pesos, dollars, Bolivars, etc) found their way into the pockets and accounts of many deserving army officers, government executives and members of the National Assembly.

This is an example of Neoliberalism at its Best! We should be praising the existence of these opportunities to enrich those who perform such valuable services to us serfs.

By the way, my swamp has been invaded by crocodiles. If you have any pull with the LIMA group, could you fund us in our fight against usurping crocodiles. As any good citizen, I will do my part to ensure that Crocodilians are defeated!

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snoopydawg's picture

@Alligator Ed

the foreign aid into perpetuity. $3.8 billion sure could house a lot of homeless people. Or feed lots of people if it was added to the SNAP. Or, or....
How many billions in foreign aid do we give away every year? I'll stop here cuz I feel a rant coming on.

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Lookout's picture

USAID is diverting $41.9 million from aid for Central America to pay the salaries of Juan Guaidó’s team as they work to influence policy inside the US.

https://thegrayzone.com/2019/10/24/usaid-funds-salaries-of-venezuelan-co...

I also found this grayzone piece interesting ...
Pushing for regime change with popular media

Analysis by researcher Tom Secker reveals how Amazon’s regime change fantasy “Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan” was shaped by CIA and US military consultants – and how the TV show’s producers hid their role from viewers.

https://thegrayzone.com/2019/11/22/tom-clancy-jack-ryan-cia-propaganda-j...

Well, thanks for the good news gjohn!

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

wendy davis's picture

call bullshit on the AFP coverage on 'pompeo' military restraint' for VZ.

Pompeo nonetheless voiced confidence that Maduro would fall and suggested he may share the inglorious fate of Romania's communist dictator.

"In July of 1989, Nicolae Ceausescu said capitalism would come to Romania when apples grew on poplar trees -- and by December he was hanging from a rope," Pompeo said.

"The end will come for Maduro as well. We just don't know what day."

#Asshole. but the duque's (colombian) armies have been massing on the border, at least according to telesur english, and yes, as ggersh said: nicaragua's net on the putch list.

in a different venue, but still alive as hell's fires:

will they brew up a little war with bibi under indictment? bibi seems to think so. or is just more war on the palestinians in gaza and the west bank? or annexing the jordan valley?

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