Hoy es El Dia de San Valentin, pero Nicolas Maduro no ama Elliott Abrams, El Enviado Especial de Trump para Venezuela (today is Saint Valentine’s Day, but Nicolas Maduro, the illegally “re-elected” dictator of Venezuela, has no love for Elliott Abrams, Donald Trump’s point man on the crisis in Venezuela, but in yesterday’s House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing, Congressman Joaquin Castro (D-Texas), twin brother of presidential candidate Julian Castro, and Congressman Adriano Espaillat (D-NY), both lambasted Abrams for his past misdeeds (https://www.npr.org/2019/02/14/694635064/controversial-past-comes-back-to-haunt-abrams-at-house-hearing).
Abrams, a notorious and highly untrustworthy neoconservative, was convicted in 1991 on two counts of unlawfully withholding information from Congress while “RR” Ronald Reagan and Oliver North were supporting the Contras in Nicaragua. He was later pardoned by Bush Two. Abrams has a long history of meddling in Central and South America, supposedly on behalf of the United States, and he was a principal architect of W’s failed military adventure in Iraq. And now that Trump is supporting Venezuelan Interim President Juan Guiado, associate solitary reporter Sylvania Juguete tells us that Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan will be sending his Marines to Caracas any moment now, fully encouraged by Trump’s National Security Advisor, John Bolton.
Elsewhere, it is also pertinent to point out on Saint Valentine’s Day that Paul Manafort, Trump’s Campaign Chairman and convicted money launderer, has no love at all for Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who has rejected the plea agreement between him and Special Counsel Robert Mueller, because Manafort, desperately trying to take a bullet for Trump and more than desperately hoping for a pardon — after he worked free for nothing as Trump's Campaign Chairman — did not truthfully cooperate with Mueller’s tiny band of highly skilled and pertinacious investigators. By disapproving Manafort’s plea deal with Mueller, Judge Jackson could sentence him to life in prison.
Associate solitary reporter Susanna Sherman spoke to Judge Jackson moments ago and asked her when Trump will show up in her courtroom for his arraignment. The Judge’s bailiff, associate solitary reporter Keith Coleman, said that Her Honor is ready for that as soon as Mueller sets the date. This, after portentous Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced earlier today that the only way that Trump is willing to sign the compromise spending bill on Trump’s Wall, is to declare a national emergency. ASR Coleman said that at 5 am tomorrow, Judge Jackson will issue an injunction forbidding Trump from declaring a national emergency, and requiring him to appear in front of her and show cause why he should not be removed from office. Billionaire Tom Steyer, who ferociously, and not necessarily wisely, insists that House Democrats impeach Trump, will be there as well.