Venezuela’s leftist dictator Nicolas Maduro plans to proceed with a vote to create a new constituent assembly to replace the country’s opposition-controlled Congress with a friendly constituent assembly, potentially enabling the embattled despot to redraft the country’s constitution and officially marginalize his political opponents, despite the US’s repeated threats of “strong and swift economic action."
Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,
You may recall this bizarre incident that occurred last month in Venezuela. A rogue police officer by the name of Oscar Perez, who is also well known in Venezuela for starring in several B-rated action movies, commandeered a helicopter, before dropping grenades on the nation’s Supreme Court building and strafing the Interior Ministry with gunfire. It was without a doubt, the strangest moment to come out of that nation’s ongoing civil unrest.
Venezuela’s anti-government protests are growing increasingly violent, with the death toll from clashes between protesters and government forces that began in May topping 100. Despite the country’s increasing political instability, and US President Donald Trump’s half-serious threats of an invasion, President Nicolas Maduro has decided to press ahead with his vote to create a rubberstamp constituent assembly that will allow him to amend the country’s constitution.
As Warren Buffet says, “Only when the tide goes out do you discover who’s been swimming naked.”
And, as Visual Capitalist's Jeff Desjardin details, in 2014, when oil prices crashed and burned, the tide was gone – and it was shown that too many countries were relying on frothy oil revenues to balance out their trade deficits.
A LINGERING CRISIS
Authored by Irina Slav via OilPrice.com,
The Trump administration is mulling over sanctions against senior Venezuelan government officials, and additional measures could include sanctions against the country’s oil industry, such as halting imports into the U.S., according to senior Washington officials who spoke to media.