Foreign Meddling

More European nations have recognized the Guaidó government as the legitimate government of Venezuela following the passing of those nations’ Sunday deadline for Maduro to schedule free elections with no action by Maduro (though left unaddressed is the conundrum of how Maduro could schedule anything if he’s not the legitimate head of government).

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin demurs.

…domestic issues should be solved by Venezuela and its people. “Attempts to legitimize usurped power” constitute[] “interference in Venezuela’s internal affairs….”

Two things make Putin’s position risibly hypocritical.  One is the idea that calling the Guaidó administration a usurped power is itself a blatant interference in Venezuela’s internal affairs.  The Venezuelan legislature—the legitimately elected one, not Maduro’s puppet show—constitutionally asserted its authority and with that authority swore in Juan Guaidó as interim President, pending free elections of a new President and legislature.

Take careful note of that: the legislature swore in a temporary President, not a President-for-life as Maduro’s henchmen have done.

The other thing is the right and duty of a people—acknowledged in so many words in our Declaration of Independence, but entirely applicable to all peoples—when faced with a Government embarked on a long train of abuses and usurpation [that] evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism…to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Again, contra Putin, the Venezuelan people are exercising their right and duty to solve Venezuela’s problem.

It is the right and duty of all other free nations to support the Venezuelan people’s effort.  It is the right and duty of all other free nations to block despotic nations from interfering with these people’s quest for freedom.

Full stop.

Now He Has To Run

Howard Schultz, who has been thinking of running for President as an Independent, is rethinking that.

The billionaire and former Starbucks CEO has told advisors that he was shocked by the stridency of the attacks made by Democrats following the announcement he was seriously considering running for president as an independent in the 2020 election, and is now said to be looking more closely at whether he wants to go through with the effort[.]

And

The intense nature of the criticism stunned Schultz, people close to him tell FOX Business. While he expected some carping, he did not foresee the ferocity of some of the vitriol, particularly from the party’s top officials and operatives. In addition to the barrage of criticism from leading Democrats, Schultz was also blindsided by the grass roots blowback….

The desperation of the Progressive-Democrats’ vitriol demonstrates the need for a Left-leaning Independent to run, if only to temper the Party’s excesses.  The bullying itself demands he run, lest he validate bullying as a political tactic.

If Schultz backs out now, he’ll show himself for a coward, and more dangerously for the nation, he’ll vindicate the Progressive-Democrats’ tactics of smear and personal ruin.

The Party’s Core Philosophy

And it even attacks its own.  In a Wall Street Journal article centered on Beto O’Rourke’s potential for a Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential campaign, there appeared this giveaway.

[S]ome Democrats have privately groused that he should have shared some of the $80 million he raised in 2018 with fellow candidates in the party.

There is the Progressive-Democratic Party’s core ideology: their demand to redistribute OPM, ideally to their own special interests.

“That’s not the O’Rourke campaign’s money.  He didn’t earn that.  He had help.”

Gimme, gimme, gimme.

In the Liberal Stock

Neomi Rao is in one, now that she’s a nominee for the DC Circuit Court.  She’s currently serving as the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs Administer, which means she’s already been vetted by the Senate—bipartisanly.  The Senate already knows who she is and what her abilities and qualifications are.

Well, never mind.  It seems, according to BuzzFeed—you remember the purveyors of a Cohen false news story so dishonest that even Mueller had to go public with the BS flag—Rao “wrote inflammatory op-eds in college.”  The horror.

Here’s an example of that inflammatory writing:

It has always seemed self-evident to me that even if I drank a lot, I would still be responsible for my actions.  A man who rapes a drunk girl should be prosecuted. At the same time, a good way to avoid a potential date rape is to stay reasonably sober.

Victim blaming?  Rational people wouldn’t think so, but….

The Progressive-Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee actually are taking Buzzfeed seriously.  The idiocy.

As The Wall Street Journal put it in their editorial at the first link above, none of that

is relevant to how she might rule as a 45-year-old judge with adult life experience.

The WSJ misunderstands, though.  Rao’s not the life experience of a wise Latina, so it’s irrelevant.  The intervening years don’t exist.

And that’s a tool wielded by those Progressive-Democrats and their NLMSM arm in their efforts to smear another conservative jurist.

The Arrest of Roger Stone

Roger Stone, pursuant to a Mueller “investigation” grand jury indictment (formally handed down by Mueller’s colleagues in the Southern District of New York), was raided and arrested by the FBI around 0600 Friday. The FBI was so fearful, too, of the highly dangerous criminal that is Stone, that they used 29 agents, including a swat team, in that dawn assault.

Mueller also arranged for CNN to be present to film, live, the raid and arrest.

Nobody but Mueller or the FBI knew the timing of the raid. The live film of the perp walk shows just how dishonest Mueller’s “investigation” or the FBI, or both, are.