US backs coup in Venezuela

That is an interesting question.

Let me turn it around. How many of your beliefs do you feel really matter?

Between the conservatives on the court gutting first financial disclosure (Citizens United) and then the Voting Rights Act, yes, yes I am.

Just about everybody has agreed that Maduro rigged his supposed "reelection" (funny as he was never elected in the first place).

I love how you take routine election help and democracy building efforts and try to pretend they are something nefarious. It reminds me of Putin's propaganda about the US supposedly "interfering" in Ukrainian elections citing a fake hacked and edited telephone call from a third tier US civil servant and the supposed millions the US spent in Ukraine. It turned out 90% of the figure the Russian propagandists were throwing around was actually food aid from the 1980s and early 1990s.

Yes he was.
And since "everyone" says it, you can find for us a link to specific allegations of rigging by any relevant body. I'll wait.

The largest opposition parties were barred from participating and Maduro's most popular opponents were either jailed or exiled.

Does that sound like a fair election to you?

Everything is our business, comrade.

You are aware that Orwell was critical of unchallenged left-wing rule of the sort you're defending, right?

From what I hear there isn't an egg to be cracked in Venezuela

Orwell was a democratic socialist as am I. Link to my defense of "unchallenged left wing rule".

Well, clearly not - as I said, there are irregularities that rendered it not free or fair. One can make similar arguments about the conduct of US elections.
But "rigged" is a specific factual claim. We don't get to go making up whatever shit we like.

If we are talking about the top leader of a country then the US is not a democracy. As has happened repeatedly the democratically elected candidate in the US has lost. Trump lost by 5 million votes and our sytem put him into power based on the fact it is not a democracy for the president.

You should really start thinking about leaving here and instead of hiding your disgrace for a while go educate yourself instead of being a graduate of Dayton U.

The fuck we don't! This is America! That's what we do!

only simpletons think that "democracy" is a simple extrapolation of a majority vote.

That is what democracy is. You cannot just say fascism is democracy because you were told democracy is good and you want to be a fascist and make people say you are a democracy.

You know I have found weed makes a lot of things seem amazingly intrinsic and wise, but not you. Even when stoned out of my mind you are still stupid.

That is just one component of democracy.

This might help explain things:

https://crooksandliars.com/2019/01/john-bolton-says-ultimate-goal-venezuela

The U.S. is now a net exporter of oil. Thieving it should no longer be a national priority.

Not to mention there is really no point. Venezuelan crude is ‘sour’ meaning it has a very high sulfur content and requires more extensive refining to get gas out of it.

Guess who has the largest sour refining capacity in the world?

Does it really matter who controls the fields if they have to sell it to us? (At a significant discount, look at the price of their sour crude compared to West Texas Intermediate.)

This is apparently a Democratic presidential hopeful?

^Principles over principles, eh?

She's a 'hopeful' but nobody, even on left, thinks Ms Gabbard will survive the first cut.

She's a hopeful one, all right, but don't mistake her statement as a pledge to keep our hands off Venezuela. She's more than happy to advocate for some form of US intervention, such as drone strikes, what she's opposed to is a full-on military invasion by the US.

It is the supreme irony that the U.S. lacks the ability to refine a fairly sizable portion of its own crude oil production.

I'm pretty sure Tulsi Gabbard picks her policy positions using a dartboard.

The US strategy toward oil is not aimed at satisfying it's own energy requirements but at having leverage over the access of others, principally Russia and China.

Of course, were Trump owned by Putin, this is yet another issue where his stance ought to be opposite from what it is.

I figured you would be one of the "Trump is controlled by Putin" believers?

Assuming, of course, that Putin's goal was simply to cripple the US. If Putin's objective was to sow chaos and cripple as many of the large Western powers as possible, then it kind of makes sense. The Russian economy is fairly fragile, according to some experts, and it wouldn't take make to destabilize it. So even if the US stopped being a major power in the global economy, Russia would still be at risk. There is a disturbing amount of certain types of fetish porn being produced which is overwhelmingly being made in Russia. Were their economy to be as strong as other developed nations, you'd expect to see images that originated in Russia about as much as you would anywhere else in the developed world. You don't. This leaves two possibilities: Either the Russians are way kinkier than anyone else (dubious), or Russians are so desperate for money that they're willing to do the kinds of fetish porn most other folks won't. I know at one point in time (and less than 20 years ago) a majority of Russians saw prostitution as the preferred way to make a living. Does that sound like an economy which is able to go head-to-head against Germany, let alone the US?

Exactly, it's never been about claiming oil reserves because the US is desperate for a scarce resource, it's a form of force projection which has economic ramifications long after the immediate military or diplomatic intervention.

Whoever controls the Spice.....

Rick loves Assange too much to ever believe such a thing.

John Bolton was seen with a notepad saying "5000 troops to Colombia", which naturally has not helped calm tensions.

Have these fuckers even heard of OpSec?