Political Quotes

“a few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to visit a mounting crisis in our immediate neighborhood, specifically in Venezuela. What I saw were in fact three overlapping crises: economic, humanitarian, and political. Hyperinflation, malnutrition, confounding refugee flows into neighboring countries, political repression, and staggering mismanagement and corruption are all endemic. Some of you may have seen the front page of Tuesday's New York Times with the heartbreaking photo of Venezuela's indigenous Warao people who are suffering an AIDS epidemic because of the collapse of the country's healthcare system, just one of many such tragedies unfolding in a country without basic vaccinations or adequate food. The situation and suffering are only getting worse as the government continues to deny the obvious problems or simply blames them all on other countries. We have heard this canard before, most notably in Cuba where the regime blames the mismanagement and repression under its corrupt leadership on everyone but itself. Also as in Cuba, the regime is cruelly detaining an innocent American--in this case Josh Holt--who by all accounts is a political hostage. It didn't have to be this way. Venezuela used to be a wealthy country with an imperfect but functioning democracy.…”