Washington's Election Hypocrisy

Yesterday the U.S. sanctioned four people for election interference in Venezuela.

The United States on Friday blacklisted four individuals for what it said was their help for the government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to prevent free and fair parliamentary elections in Venezuela in December, the Treasury said.

Two of the people, Indira Alfonso and Jose Gutierrez, were appointed earlier this year by the pro-government Supreme Court to oversee the national electoral council, which has called elections for this December.

The Venezuelan opposition and the United States say the council is stacked with Maduro loyalists and cannot oversee a fair vote. The main opposition coalition, led by parliament head Juan Guaido, has vowed to boycott the election.

There are several problems with this article. Let's start with the last sentence.

Former Venezuela presidential candidate and high-profile figure Henrique Capriles broke opposition ranks on Thursday and called for a high turnout in December's elections.

President Nicolás Maduro had the nerve of offering to pardon failed coup plotters.

But the initial reaction from many opposition figures was scathing.

Mr. Maduro issued a presidential decree that ends criminal cases against more than 20 jailed and exiled opposition politicians, as well dozens of political activists, the president’s spokesman, Jorge Rodríguez, said in a surprise national address Monday.
...
But many of the politicians pardoned on Monday took quickly to social media to denounce the pardons, saying they had never committed any crime in the first place.

It almost sounds like Maduro is trying to win an election. Which is strange for a dictator.
What sets this apart is a revelation that came out yesterday.

When Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido declared himself the nation’s legitimate president in January 2019, an Instagram account, @FrenteLibreVzla, posted a video declaring him a “new leader” who would bring freedom to the embattled nation, according to a research report published Friday.

Those watching the video had no way of knowing the account was based not in Venezuela’s capital, Caracas, but downtown Washington, managed by a strategic communications firm with clients across Latin America.

The firm, CLS Strategies, this week became the latest communications company to be chastised by Facebook for using fake accounts — including on Instagram, a Facebook subsidiary — to secretly manipulate politics in another country, in violation of Facebook’s prohibition on foreign interference...
Facebook announced Tuesday it had closed 55 accounts, 42 pages and 36 Instagram accounts linked to CLS Strategies that targeted politics in Venezuela, Bolivia and Mexico. The effort spent $3.6 million in advertising across all three countries, a sum that Facebook executives said was notable for its size and reflective of what happens when actors with deep pockets mount a disinformation operation. The pages had amassed more than 500,000 followers, Facebook said.
...The report also noted that CLS Strategies employees had previous professional ties to opposition political leaders in Venezuela.

Gee, that sounds suspiciously like what we accused Russia of doing.

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That's about the situation in Venezuels sonce the self-declared guy DIDN'T STAND FOR ELECTION!

OTOH, I think he did have a position like Senate leader so I should have said,
"Mitch McConnell declares himself President, says 'Trump stole the election from me`"
or
"Nancy Pelosi declares herself President in 2016".
Since there was more than one ballotted candidate and the guy who actually won the election begged the USA and UN to monitor the election, I'm flabbergasted.

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I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.