US-Venezuela Tensions Escalate Over Human Rights, VP Biden

[Bacchus4.0]

Source: AP

Relations between the United States and Venezuela grew increasingly hostile on Monday as the U.S. slapped new visa restrictions on Venezuelan officials and their families and Venezuela's president accused Vice President Joe Biden of plotting to overthrow him.

The State Department said current and former Venezuelan officials believed to be associated with human rights abuses or corruption would be subject to the restrictions, which bars those individuals from entering the United States. In a first, the U.S. said its ban would also apply to the individuals' immediate family members, too.

"We are sending a clear message that human rights abusers, those who profit from public corruption, and their families are not welcome in the United States," said State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki. She said the U.S. wouldn't name the abusers publicly because of visa confidentiality laws.

At the same time, the U.S. dismissed as "ludicrous" a claim by Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro that Biden had conspired against him. In a televised address over the weekend, Maduro claimed that Biden sought to foment the overthrow of his socialist government during a Caribbean energy summit Biden hosted last month in Washington. According to Maduro, Biden told Caribbean heads of state that the Venezuelan government's days were numbered and it was time they abandon their support.



Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/us-patently-false-biden-conspired-venezuela-28669389

[SamKnause]

1. VP Biden needs to address the

prison population in his country.

He needs to address the police brutality and innocent people being murdered by the police.

He needs to address torture.

He needs to address the illegal invasions and occupations.

He needs to address all the innocent people being killed by drones.

He needs to address our barbaric death penalty.

He needs to address executing the disabled.

He needs to get his own house in order lectures others.

[Bacchus4.0]

2. Biden didn't say anything about Maduro. Maduro needs to address rising poverty, police brutality

food shortates, lack of a justice system, the prison systeminflation, the 2nd highest murder rate in the world, corruption, falling domestic production, the exchange rate. Pretty much the entire country is fucked up thanks to chavista policies.

[7962]

3. I guess next he'll blame Limbaugh and Palin. What a sad joke this guy is. nt

[Bacchus4.0]

4. Chavistas here think Venezuela is a model for the planet n/t

[7962]

5. Funny how they also back russia and their actions. I dont get it.

What in the world are they thinking? Or are they just rabid about anything that puts a bad light on the US?

[iandhr]

8. The latter

[sulphurdunn]

11. No,

They're just trying to get the US boot off their necks.

[Bacchus4.0]

14. the US is their largest trading partner. If the US really wanted to hurt Venezuela then

the US could limit exports of food and other basic products to Venezuela.

[sulphurdunn]

18. The US wants a more compliant

regime. It is not rushing to assist with food aid and basic commodities assistance in the face of oil price declines. Nothing brings about regime change like economic chaos.

[Bacchus4.0]

20. Venezuela hasn't asked for food aid or assistance. The economic chaos is a result of their own

failed policies and dependency on oil.

[Adrahil]

21. Perhaps their good friends the Cubans and Iranians can help them out.

I mean, they are all in against the great evil that is America, amiright?

[uhnope]

13. some reading material on the We Love Dictators Who Are Anti-West contingent

http://www.salon.com/2014/07/26/strange_bedfellows_putin_the_chomskyite_left_and_the_ghosts_of_the_cold_war/

and

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nikolas-kozloff/crimea-and-the-left-its-a_b_4943494.html

[sulphurdunn]

6. The Venezulean economy

is dependent on oil exports. When prices are up, the economy is good. When they are down, it's bad. The only difference between the socialist government established by Chavez and the oligarchs who ruled before him is that when times are good the poor got a much better deal, and now that they're bad the misery is more equitably distributed, neither is the government crawling on its hands and knees to sellout to the IMF like it planned to do before the election of Chavez.

[Bacchus4.0]

7. You mean the misery is more widespread. and Maduro is crawling on his hands and needs to China

and the OPEC nations begging them to cut production so prices go up. He is also criticizing the US for producing too much oil which is ironic at best. Chavistas are morons.

[Bacchus4.0]

9. The misery is NOT more equitably distrubuted, waiting in line for food is now a profession

However, it is more widespread as the poverty rate is about a third and is higher than in Colombia and Peru now.


http://www.ndtv.com/offbeat/in-venezuela-you-can-pay-someone-to-wait-in-line-for-you-727487

Shortages of basic goods and long lines of consumers hoping to buy them have spawned a new profession in crisis-hit Venezuela: waiting in line to buy things for other people.

Krisbell Villarroel, a 22-year-old single mother of two small children in Caracas, makes a living by queuing up to buy things she then sells to clients who pay her for the time she spends standing in line.

"Every day, I have to get up at two in the morning and call my friends to find out where things are for sale or what is for sale," Villarroel told AFP.

"That is how I spend my day. I get out of the first line at 10:00 am and then perhaps go to another to see what they are selling," she explained.

[sulphurdunn]

10. Nothing like a testimonial

in place or an argument. The US has done everything in its power to topple the Venezuelan government since the day Chavez demanded a more equitable cut of oil revenues. It looks like OPEC may succeed where the State Department and CIA failed.

[Bacchus4.0]

12. No it hasn't but that is the chavista excuse. However, the oil drop is indeed partly a result of US

production to the detriment of Venezuela who have failed to diversify their economy under the chavistas or any other president for that matter since the 1950s or so.

And the Ven government gets the revenue from oil. What they do with it is suspect. First, there is less production since the state oil company has taken over, they have to use oil to pay back loans to China, they give it away to Cuba (and other Caribbean nations) at very favorable rates who turn around and sell it for a high profit, and they subsidize gasoline at home even though poor people typically don't own cars yet they are afraid to raise gas prices because an increase in gas prices was the onset of chavismo in the first place.

[EX500rider]

15. "The US has done everything in its power to topple the Venezuelan government.."

You mean the country that buys most of their oil and is their largest export costumer?

Exports - partners:
US 39.1%, China 14.3%, India 12%, Netherlands Antilles 7.8%, Cuba 4.6% (2012)

Doesn't sound like much of a "attack" on their economy.

[Bacchus4.0]

16. and if the US really wanted to harm Venezuela, they could restrict food exports to Venezuela

that would really be disastrous for Venezuela.

[sulphurdunn]

19. I mean the country

that has plotted for regime change since the Chavez government came to power, and the country that is in no hurry to abate that change by helping its trading partner stave off economic chaos in the face of declining oil prices. That country.

[Adrahil]

22. So basically: America BAD, right?

I won;t make excuses for that moron Bush, but the fact is that the disaster that is the Venezuelan economy is almost entirely on them. Lots of other oil dependent nations are not the absolute cluster fuck that our Chavista friends have turned Venezuela in to.

[sulphurdunn]

23. What does any of that have to do

with the US offering humanitarian aid with no strings attached? What could it possibly hurt?

[Comrade Grumpy]

17. The US is a huge hypocrite when it comes to human rights.

Human rights concerns only seem to apply to countries we don't like.

DU's resident red baiters notwithstanding. These same folks were awful quiet when Colombia was murdering people by the thousands.