If, like me, you haven’t been keeping up with the escalating crisis in Venezuela, you might be surprised at the scope of the protests in the past few days.
With massive food shortages still ongoing as a result of the economic crisis created by Nicholas Maduro policy, millions of people are now taking to the streets of the capital city of Caracus; and even chasing Maduro out of small towns and villages.

(Via ABC) Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro reportedly was greeted by angry pot-banging protesters during a visit to Margarita Island.

Grainy cellphone videos said to be from the Friday night encounter were picked up by Venezuelan news sites and were trending on social media. The socialist leader is seen jogging through a crowd as residents loudly bang on pots and hurl obscenities.

His visit to Margarita Island earlier Friday evening was broadcast nationwide. Images of the protest were later posted by residents of the town where it reportedly occurred. (link)

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Sean Penn unavailable for comment on the socialist utopia he promoted to bring forth into the U.S.

CUMANÁ, Venezuela — With delivery trucks under constant attack, the nation’s food is now transported under armed guard. Soldiers stand watch over bakeries. The police fire rubber bullets at desperate mobs storming grocery stores, pharmacies and butcher shops. A 4-year-old girl was shot to death as street gangs fought over food.  Venezuela is convulsing from hunger.

Hundreds of people here in the city of Cumaná, home to one of the region’s independence heroes, marched on a supermarket in recent days, screaming for food. They forced open a large metal gate and poured inside. They snatched water, flour, cornmeal, salt, sugar, potatoes, anything they could find, leaving behind only broken freezers and overturned shelves. (more…)

Last month they lost their beer and toilet paper; this month they lose their soda… Meanwhile, back in the U.S.A, Sanders and Clinton campaign for same economic policies.
CARACAS, Venezuela – Coca-Cola is halting production in Venezuela of its namesake beverage due to a sugar shortage brought on by the country’s grinding economic crisis.
The Atlanta-based company said in an emailed statement Friday said that its production of sugar-sweetened beverages will be suspended in the coming days after local suppliers reported they had run out of the raw material. Sugar-free beverages are not affected and the company said its offices and distribution centers remain open in Venezuela.
The move comes as Venezuela’s economy is teetering on the edge of collapse with widespread food shortages and inflation forecast to surpass 700 percent. Last month, Empresas Polar, Venezuela’s largest food and beverage company, stopped production of beer because of a lack of imported barley. (read more)

Western liberal media is stuck between a rock and a hard place when discussing Venezuela.  A decade long economic devolution as a direct result of yet another attempt at socialism is ending the same way the socialist experiment has always ended, total misery.

Venezuela is struggling both economically and politically, facing massive food shortages, regular blackouts, skyrocketing inflation and an increasingly dire public health situation. Hospitals lack beds, antibiotics, medical equipment, doctors, even running water.

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• Presidents Barack Obama and Raul Castro announced the restoration of full relations between the United States and Cuba, along with a raft of reconciliatory actions. Obama said the US and Cuba have chosen “to cut loose the shackles of the past”, and Castro called for the embargo to end.
• Cuba released American Alan Gross from prison after nearly five years of captivity. Cuba also freed a spy held for more than 20 years, an act the US intelligence chief called “a fitting closure to a Cold World chapter”.

• The US announced overhauls to commerce, travel and internet restrictions, and the restoration of an American embassy in Havana. Cuba said it will release 53 political prisoners, allow greater internet services, and work with international groups like the UN. The White House refused to rule out a visit by President Obama to Havana.

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For some reason this continuing saga of socialist oppression seems to have escaped the mainstream media…. Sean Penn unavailable for comment (?) 

(From PanAm Post Via WeaselZippers) Peaceful protests in Venezuela will from now on require express authorization from the mayor or the governor of the jurisdiction where they are carried out. The Supreme Court (TSJ) made this decision yesterday, declaring that the right to protest “is not an absolute right.”
https://twitter.com/DefendWallSt/statuses/460131943276085248
Police forces will now be legally allowed to disperse people who shut down a street to voice their complaints. Also, the attorney General will be allowed to prosecute unauthorized protestors for disobedience.
The TSJ considered it is imperative to “guarantee the right to free movement,” which would justify dispersing any unauthorized congregation. According to the ruling, written by Judge Arcadio Delgado, local police forces have “an obligation to cooperate with the rest of the security forces in maintaining public order during the illegal exercise of the right to protest.” (more…)

CNN was previously outed by their own producers for accepting payments from foreign governments to shape their television coverage.   In this report CNN is caught again manipulating news coverage to assist a government – this time Venezuela. 

It should be noted that in all of the examples of CNN accepting payments – they only actually manipulate/delete coverage, or prop up regimes who support leftist ideologies.  

(Via Newsbusters) […] it was a drone camera whose video corrected the false impression left by a CNN en Español report that there was somehow an equivalency in the size of competing demonstrations on Saturday in Caracas, Venezuela. As Daniel Duquenal of Venezuela News and Views complained, the CNN en Español report by Guillermo Arduino gave only closeup shots of competing Chavista and opposition demonstrations.
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However, the drone eye in the sky revealed the vast panoply of the opposition demonstration that seemed to number in the hundreds of thousands. Here is the post by Duequenal explaining why he was so irked by the CNN en Español report: (more…)