Politics: In Venezuela, desperate socialists reluctantly open talks with opposition

Image Credit: Mashable

Crunch time.

The socialiast government of Venezuela is having no success using violence to put down the demonstrations against it, so President Nicolas Maduro has now concluded he has no choice but to open talks with the opposition. That's going to be a little tricky with opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez still in jail on trumped up charges that he incited the violence, but the process gets underway today regardless at the presidential palace. Indeed, Maduro isn't just inviting the opposition. He insists. Bloomberg reports:

Governor Henrique Capriles, standing alongside the wife of jailed opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez, said at a rally yesterday he would agree to hold talks with Maduro at the presidential palace on Feb. 24. The two-time presidential hopeful two days prior said he wouldn’t be forced into dialog after Maduro warned there would be legal consequences to missing the meeting.

“We don’t want confrontation, we want solutions,” Capriles, who lost to Maduro in April elections by the narrowest margin in 45 years, said at the rally in Caracas. “The government of Nicolas Maduro that we are seeing is a historic error, but we can’t get out of this mistake by making another one.”

Anti-government demonstrations are in their second week after Lopez’s Voluntad Popular party on Feb. 12 organized marches to speak out against rising crime, the world’s fastest inflation and shortages of everything from milk to medicine. The protests have turned violent on a nightly basis as police clash with students, resulting in at least eight deaths.

Hugo Chavez was a socialist thug, but he was also a very convincing populist politician who managed to sell the masses on the idea that he was their champion. His death and Maduro's ascendance have coincided with the inevitable economic breakdowns that result from socialism. With inflation soaring and shortages taking hold, the people want answers. And since Maduro and his regime show no inclination to change course, the people are taking to the streets.

We showed you video on Friday of the violenet manner in which the government is dealing with the protesters. It's certainly possible that this meeting at the presidential palace today is nothing more than Maduro's attempt to intimidate the opposition into backing down. The guess here is that it won't work. The opposition can see that they've got the socialists reeling - quickly losing whatever misled support they ever had from the people. This is not a time to back down. This is a time put your foot on your opponent's throat and finish him off.

This is easier said than done in the sense that Venezuela has an established electoral process - however compromised it may have become under socialist rule - and there is no election set for awhile. Maduro is not just going to volunteer to be the victim of a coup d'etat. But the status quo in Venezuela cannot continue. The people have made that abundantly clear.

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Hey idiots!  Stop thinking for yourselves!

Last night First Lady Michelle Obama was a guest on The Tonight Show, with its new host Jimmy Fallon. Since Fallon's audience skews younger than that of departing host Jay Leno, the interview quickly turned into a propaganda piece designed to get young people to sign up for her the President's signature law.

Michelle reminded everyone that "children" can stay on their parents insurance until the ripe old age of 26 but, after that, they're on their own. If the First Lady is right, the second they hit 27, they'd better sign up for ObamaCare - because they're apparently a bunch of moronic party animals.

"Well, thanks to the Affordable Care Act, young people can stay on their parents' insurance until they are 26," Michelle said. "But once they hit 26 -- they're on their own. And a lot young people think they're invincible. But the truth is, young people are knuckleheads. They're the ones who are cooking for the first time and slice their finger open, they're dancing on the bar stools."

"Young people?" Fallon replied. "Yeah, yeah, yeah."

"Yeah, the young people." Ms. Obama responded.

Basically, she seems to think that these people are representative of all 27 year olds:

First things first. 27 isn't all that "young." By 27, most people have graduated from high school and/or college. They have jobs and, if they're not already married, they're likely thinking about it.  In 2010 the median age of women marrying for the first time was 26. For men it was 28. Despite what the First Lady might like to think, these aren't children who need a lifetime of endless coddling. They're adults, and they can make their own decisions.

In other words: If you've injured yourself because you're still dancing on barstools at 27, your problem isn't our healthcare system.  It's that you need to grow up.

More importantly, this line reeks of something written by the White House specifically for this occasion. The administration would love you to believe that young people are avoiding President Obama's expensive boondoggle because they're all 'knuckleheads.' The argument is that they foolishly view themselves as 'invincible' and that's why they're not enrolling. If the administration had any real respect for the under-thirty crowd, they'd admit that maybe - just maybe - a 27 year old is smart enough to see that ObamaCare has increased premiums, increased deductibles, and limited doctor choice.  They're avoiding it because the cost/benefit ratio simply doesn't add up.

They aren't 'knuckleheads.'  They just realize that, in being forced to subsidize the sick and elderly while receiving little or nothing in return, they're on the wrong end of a very bad deal.

Remember, at 27 Michelle's 'knuckleheads' are a year older than the average age of combat fatalities in Afghanistan since President Obama's surge. If the White House considers them old enough to make that sacrifice, maybe the President should start assuming they're smart enough to know whether or not they want to get involved with the ObamaCare scam.

Below, you can endure the Tonight Show's grotesquely unfunny "comedy" sketch that featured Fallon, Will Farrel, and the First Lady as they  desperately preach about the wonders of kale chips.

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