“Yeah, I lied, but so what? Vote for me anyway, because I have the right politics.”
[Townhall] Abdul El-Sayed,
…the child of Moslem Egyptian immigrants, he is an epidemiologist who apparently has an MD paid for with a Soros scholarship — but no medical license — and a PhD in public health. He started his career in politics as a Bernie Bro, is a member of four completely different national labour unions, considers Israel an evil rogue state, and refused to condemn Iran’s slain supreme leader…
the Michigan Democrat running for Senate, was busted the other day lying about his stance on defunding the police. But there's another, bigger, lie that El-Sayed has been sharing. El-Sayed has been claiming he's a physician, but it turns out he doesn't have a valid medical license in New York or Michigan.
A doctor is anyone with a PhD in anything, including 14th century French literature or basket weaving. A physician is specifically a medical doctor, ie. graduated from medical school with a license to practice medicine.
"You got attacked by your rivals for calling yourself a physician, not just a doctor, even though you don't have a valid medical license in New York or Michigan, which apparently is what you need legally to call yourself a physician," said host Mehdi Hasan. "Do you wish you had just stuck to calling yourself a doctor, which you are, to avoid all of this controversy and attacks on your physician status?"
"You know, at the end of the day, it's not about whether or not I'm a physician or a doctor, the question is, can you see a doctor? It's not about my education, it's about whether or not your kid gets a good education," El-Sayed said.
"People would say it's also about, did you tell the truth," Hasan interjected.
"Well, I would say that I was the health director for the city of Detroit, I've done more to provide more people healthcare or eliminate their medical debt than most doctors have done," El-Sayed replied.
So he lied.
According to recent polling, El-Sayed is statistically tied with Rep. Haley Stevens, a few weeks ahead of the August 4 primary.
[PJMedia] The corpse count from the two major Venezuela
...a country in Central America that sits on an enormous pool of oil. Formerly the most prospereous country in the region, it became infested with Commies sniffing almost unlimited wealth. It turned out the wealth wasn't unlimited, the economy collapsed under the clownish Hugo Chavez, the murder rate exceeded places like Honduras and El Salvador. A significant proportion of the populace refugeed to Colombia and points south... n earthquakes that happened within seconds of each other on June 24 has now reached 3,535. Nearly 17,000 people are injured, and tens of thousands remain missing. Rescue operations continue, and, surprisingly, as recently as today, July 6, workers are still finding people who are buried alive.
International aid continues to pour in, and kudos to our military for everything it's doing. Without the U.S. response, this would be a total disaster. I've seen so many Venezuelan people say they long for the day when they can have a military like ours — one with morals and pride in their country and the work they do, not one corrupted by decades of tyranny. These images of some of our guys spending time with Venezuelan children and families really touched my heart, because as much as the people there need physical support, they need emotional support as well. Many people have lost their homes or even their entire families.
Tens of thousands of buildings have damage or have collapsed completely. The earthquake has exposed just how poorly built and maintained much of the country's infrastructure was, which comes as no surprise to anyone who's been paying attention for the last 30 years. But the bigger picture here is that it exposed how fragile the political situation is and how much worse it could get in the days and weeks to come if it's not handled carefully.
When we first captured Nicolás Maduro, Marco Rubio ...The diminutive 13-year-old Republican U.S. Senator from Florida, Secretary of State in the second Trump administration... made two things clear. The first was that "interim president" Delcy Rodríguez is not the endgame. We all knew she was just as corrupt as Maduro and was merely the Trump administration's pragmatic little puppet, who will do everything they tell her to so she can save her own head.
The second was that there was a very specific three-point plan for the country. First, stabilize. Make sure the country doesn't break out into some kind of civil war. Second, recover. Get the country's oil flowing again so it can have an economy. Third, hold elections and transition to a real democracy.
To be fair, when he was coming up with this plan, I'm guessing the Secretary of State didn't plan for one of the worst natural disasters the country has ever seen, but if things keep going like they are, he's going to have to pivot quickly.
Within the first 24-48 hours, the only person who seemed to be doing anything was Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, who had teams on the ground immediately. The Venezuelan people and independent journalists there were reporting that Team Delcy wasn't really doing anything at all, and, at times, even denying access to media and volunteers, stealing aid, looting, charging families fees for the bodies of their dead loved ones, and refusing to mobilize the few resources she has access to. Last week, during a presser, several international journalists confronted Miss Interim President about this, and she was defiant and untruthful. Regime is gonna regime, but rescuers from the United States and other countries have confirmed that, without a doubt, this cost lives.
The Wall Street Journal actually has a great article suggesting that the reason why they're turning help away, particularly in the hardest hit area of La Guaira, is that it's "ground zero" for drug trafficking, money laundering, and other regime-linked smuggling. Remember, Maduro's "government" was basically a cartel. About a month or so before we captured him, Rubio designated Cartel de los Soles as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. The WSJ article also alleges what those of us who have been following closely know to be true: that the earthquake is exposing Delcy's and Diosdado Cabello's core rottenness.
The other big problem was that opposition leader, and the woman who should be president, María Corina Machado was denied entry back into the country. Just to recap, after living in hiding for 18 months plus, she escaped Venezuela in December to go to Norway to accept her Nobel Peace Prize. She's been outside of the country since, vowing to return when the time was right. In the wake of the disaster, she decided it was time — time to risk her life and return and mobilize a civilian response, something she's very, very good at doing. Something her constituents want desperately...
But, after attempting to fly both privately and commercially, the regime supposedly refused to allow her into the country, so right now, she remains stuck in Panama. There were some rumors that the Trump administration didn't want her to return because they wanted the focus to be on rescue efforts and felt she would be a distraction. That's understandable, but there are also rumors that something more diabolical is at play (I don't necessarily buy into these after speaking to sources whom I trust). Whatever the reason, Machado is stuck in Panama, and it's making the Venezuelan people quite unhappy.
They have tried to remain patient while the Trump administration works with Delcy, trying to understand this pragmatic solution, even if they all know she's just as bad as Maduro. But the way she has responded to this situation has left their patience wearing thin. I don't even know how to put into words just how popular Machado is in that country. She won the opposition primary with something like 90% of the vote, and when she wasn't allowed to run for president after that, her hand-chosen surrogate had at least 70% of the vote, despite intimidation and other efforts to keep people from going to the polls. This woman is the one brave soul who has looked Chavismo in the face and didn't back down, and if not for her efforts, I have no doubt that Maduro would probably still be in power. She is their hero, their savior, a woman second only to God in their eyes, and they do not like the idea that she's being kept away from her country when they feel it needs her most.
Over the weekend, a third problem popped up. Delcy's tenure as "interim president" officially became unconstitutional. According to the Venezuelan Constitution, the country can only go 180 days without an elected president. Their legislative branch (which is currently led by Delcy's brother) must now call elections within 30 days. The folks on the ground there are angry that no one seems to be honoring that.
All of this is enough to make the Venezuelan people uneasy and potential investors hoping to help rebuild the country unsure. And rightfully so.
The Venezuelan people largely love the United States. The country is not as divided as some left-wing outlets like to make it out to be. They are grateful for Donald Trump ...Oh, noze! Not him!... and Rubio and what they did on January 3, and the administration has made great progress there.
But if the Maduro-turned-Delcy regime is allowed to continue operating like they are — not releasing all political prisoners, denying relief to those impacted by the earthquake, etc. — these people will lose their patience, and the unrest that Rubio says they managed to avoid in phase one of his three-point plan could very well still happen. I know it's on the radar, and I have heard that from someone directly involved with the rescue mission.
But there is something else going on that is incredibly suspicious, and I hate even giving this situation any oxygen, but I also fear people will buy into it if someone doesn't speak out. I am not sure what to call it aside from some sort of obviously coordinated campaign against Machado by people, many of whom would be considered MAGA influencers or Trump-aligned independent voices.
It seemed to start with Javier Negre. He's a so-called conservative journalist from Spain who has built his own digital platforms and currently operates as a correspondent out of the White House. He's well-connected, but he also has a controversial background that haunts his reputation. He sat down for an interview with Delcy just before the earthquakes, and afterward, he — seemingly out of the blue — started accusing Machado and many of her supporters of starting up some sort of anti-Trump/anti-U.S. campaign, and he essentially began whitewashing Delcy and the regime. He's gone after some highly respected people in these pro-Machado/pro-democracy for Venezuela circles — people from whom I have learned so much myself.
Before I knew it, other random supposedly conservative "MAGA" people — people who had never so much as uttered a word about Venezuela and I'm willing to bet still couldn't find it on a map — were coming out swinging too, parroting the same talking points. They accused Machado of being a socialist (far from it — she's been fighting it most of her life), of being a big Biden supporter (she's been trying to work with any U.S. president who would help get rid of Maduro, and for what it's worth, Biden played a big role in the actions that led to her not being able to run for president in Venezuela in 2024), and all sorts of other ridiculous things that simply made no sense.
I mean, if they were going to pretend it was organic, they could have at least spaced it out instead of all saying the same things at once, or pretended they cared about Venezuela at all before they started putting out blatantly inaccurate "facts." This little campaign has been so poorly executed that there is no doubt in my mind that there's an ulterior motive. Many have asked if the Maduro-turned-Delcy regime is paying them to do this. Who knows for sure, but it wouldn't be the first time it has tried to influence opinion in the United States.
To add to all of that, Axios' Marc Caputo came out today with a hit piece called "How a top State Dept. official 'went rogue' over Machado's Venezuela plans." The "article" goes on to describe how Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau, Marco Rubio's number two, is possibly "going rogue" over the Machado situation. It asserts that the U.S. policy is to keep Machado from returning to Venezuela, that officials have called it "political opportunism," and that the Trump administration does not want her involved at all going forward. However, Landau allegedly went against this and "Marco isn't happy" because his deputy secretary miscommunicated this policy to at least two other countries and blah blah blah.
It also accuses Landau, who is a remarkable public servant, of refusing to say anything nice about Delcy and the regime. If that's the case, I don't see the problem. He knows what they are. No one on this planet should have a nice thing to say about them.
Most of the article is attributed to anonymous sources. As a matter of fact, most of the so-called U.S. policy on Machado has come from anonymous sources. Trump has never said anything negative about her publicly, and Rubio certainly hasn't. He's been one of her biggest champions for many, many years, and I don't think that has suddenly changed. In 2025, when she was voted as one of Time magazine's "100 Most Influential People," it was Rubio who wrote the blurb about her, calling her Venezuela's "Iron Lady" and even mentioning her children. He met with her privately pretty recently. As far as I know, he remains close and in contact with her, as does Landau.
There is also no on-the-record response to any of this from the State Department or anyone else in the administration, except for spokesperson Tommy Pigott stating today (in response to Axios) that "The State Department is in lockstep behind President Trump and Secretary Rubio in advancing the president's foreign policy agenda. Deputy Secretary Landau is a trusted member of the department's leadership team. Any claims to the contrary are simply false."
#2
They had a decent military and country in 1992. It doesn’t take long to have things get crappy. That said, the building construction violations are not on Maduro.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
07/10/2026 10:17 Comments ||
Top||
[THEGUARDIAN] Graham Platner, the Democratic nominee for US Senate in Maine, is suspending his campaign following sexual assault allegations.
Platner announced his decision in an 11-minute video posted to social media on Wednesday evening, in which he angrily accused the Democratic establishment and corporate media of ''using these allegations to take away all of the things we need to run a campaign'' and acting ''as judge, jury and executioner''.
''For the movement to continue, it can't be me,'' he said. ''For that reason, we are suspending campaign operations.''
In the video, Platner vehemently stood by his assertion that the accusations were ''not remotely true'', claiming they were driven by ''large forces... working against [him] personally''.
''This is all false,'' Platner said of the allegations. ''The things that have been claimed did not happen. It's not real.''
The oyster farmer and marine veteran — whose populist platform packed town halls, raised millions early in the race, earned support from progressive stars like Bernie Sanders
...The only first openly Socialist member of the U.S. Senate. Sanders was Representative-for-Life from Vermont until moving to the Senate for the rest of his life in 2006, assuming the seat vacated by Jim Jeffords. He ran for the 2016 nomination for president, to be cheated out of it by Hillary Clinton, then went back to being an Independent socialist, waiting for 2020 to roll around... and built enough momentum to force his primary challenger, Governor Janet Mills, to suspend her bid — has been dogged by controversy since entering the Senate contest last year, including over his conduct in past romantic relationships, his social media history and a since-removed tattoo of a Nazi symbol.
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/10/2026 7:24 Comments ||
Top||
#2
He wasn’t all bad. Graham did a lot to expose hypocrisy, mostly his own, but there are a lot of liberals who will shut up for a while. Later they will point out that they’re better because Trump never stepped down.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
07/10/2026 10:11 Comments ||
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#3
Platner hasn't filed the withdrawal paperwork as of early today.
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
07/10/2026 10:14 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[THEGUARDIAN] 
