American Elephants

There are bits of good news out today, which is a relief after the doom engendered by last night’s speech from the Oval Office which mostly said that the President has no idea what to do about ISIS nor how to prevent terrorist attacks. He reportedly believed he was reassuring the American people.

According to a new CNN/ORC poll, Americans disapprove of Obama’s foreign policy by 57% to 40%. When asked about his dealing with ISIS, the disagreement soared to 64% to 33%. A huge 61% of Americans think that a terror attack in the next few weeks is likely. But to turn to the good news:

It isn’t every day that a police state takes such a beating at the polls that it has to admit defeat in its own rigged election. So kudos to the Venezuelan opposition, which thrashed the government’s United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) in Sunday’s national assembly election, even taking the two-thirds supermajority needed to pass major economic and judicial reforms.

President Nicholás Maduro, the late Hugo Chávez’s handpicked successor accepted the vote , at least for now. An impressive 75% of the electorate turned out to vote because of things like hyperinflation (200%), food shortages, no toilet paper, crumbling public works, empty market shelves and climbing murder rates (second highest in the world) brought by 16 years of repressive socialist rule. Even the military seems to be fed up with the decline, which probably accounts for Maduro’s accepting the vote. We’ll see.

At least they have a chance, if they can keep it. The Iranians have been actively penetrating the entire continent based on their alliance with Chavez. There’s a long hard road to climb back. Socialism doesn’t work— proved once again in the real world.