UPDATE: Jorge Ramos of Univision and his team detained then released in Venezuela

UPDATE: The Univision team along with Jorge Ramos has been released and later released.

Daniel Coronell, president of news for Univision in the U.S., tweeted just prior to 9 p.m. ET on Monday that Ramos and his team were released, but their technical equipment, along with interview material that dictator Maduro disliked, were confiscated.

The State Department confirmed on Twitter that Ramos and his team "are being held against their will at Miraflores Palace by Nicolas Maduro," and urged him to immediately release them.

Ramos, according to Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., was seemingly able to call Univision to explain what was happening "when the phone was taken from him & the call ended."



Univision anchor Jorge Ramos and his media team have been detained in Caracas, Venezuela. According to the network's Monday night tweet, Ramos was interviewing disputed President Nicolas Maduro and the dictator evidently "didn't like the questions" Ramos was asking during the interview."

Ramos and other members of the Univision crew were "arbitrarily detained at the Miraflores Palace," officials wrote online. It was not immediately clear how many others were detained with the Trump foe, Ramos. According to the network, the crew's technical equipment was confiscated.

The State Department confirmed on Twitter that Ramos and his team "are being held against their will at Miraflores Palace by Nicolas Maduro."

Kimberly Breier of the State Department tweeted:

.@StateDept has received word the journalist @jorgeramosnews and his team are being held against their will at Miraflores Palace by Nicolas Maduro. We insist on their immediate release; the world is watching. #Venezuela

Ramos, according to Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) was apparently able to phone Univision to tell them what was going on "when the phone was taken from him and the call ended."

Rubio visited the Colombia border city of Cucuta last week and warned Venezuelan soldiers that they would commit a "crime against humanity" if they blocked the entry of U.S. aid being channeled through rivals of Maduro.

The Trump administration and other nations have demanded Maduro step down and have Juan Guaido, the recognized opposition leader, take over as rightful leader. Maduro had begun his second term as dictator in January, and is not recognized as legitimate.

Hopefully, President Trump and his people will be able to convince Maduro to let our people go--so that Ramos can return home and be Trump's pain in the butt once again.

I hope you'll follow Brain Flushings and have a few laughs while you get a conservative viewpoint. Politics is the new NFL without the mindless kneeling and this blog will both inform you and hopefully entertain you bigly.

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Bernie blows it in Florida over Venezuela

"Heas how oy feel Haw Gay"

It's amazing that voters think that Sen. Bernie Sanders is a decent person because he's honest when he speaks about being a socialist, and acts as if socialism is a moral political philosophy. [Hint: it isn't--socialism and Communism are directly responsible for over 100 million deaths in the world.]

And socialism is being played out in Venezuela under dictator Nicolas Maduro, a former bus driver. In fact, his soldiers killed two and wounded others in a standoff today and he refuses to allow food supplies to enter the country to feed the people. They eat dogs with a side of grass in the meantime and who knows what they're using for toilet paper.

Sanders is running for president in the 2020 primary, but it isn't looking good for the old geezer in Florida. 

Miami Democratic Congresswoman Donna Shalala said Thursday that Sanders "is not going to be the nominee of the Democratic Party." She is echoing what others in her state are saying after Sanders refused to denounce Maduro as a dictator or affirm Juan Guaidó as the legitimate interim leader of Venezuela. 

On Tuesday, Univision's Jorge Ramos asked Sanders if he thinks Maduro is a dictator and if he should "go." Sanders hemmed and hawed and then said, "I think clearly he has been very, very abusive. That is a decision of the Venezuelan people. So I think, Jorge, there's got to be a free a fair election."

Then the old fart crap-weasel did what he loves to do--he bashed the United States of America. "But what must not happen is that the United States must not use military force and intervene again as it has done in the past in Latin America, as you recall, whether it was Chile or Brazil or the Dominican Republic or Guatemala. The United States has a very bad record of intervening in Latin American countries. This must not happen again. The future of Venezuela must be left to the Venezuelan people."

Sanders was then asked if he would recognize Guaidó as the interim leader of the country. He answered, "No." 

He then pussy-footed over the "serious questions" about the legitimacy of the election that resulted in dictator Maduro maintaining power. "There are many people who feel it was a fraudulent election," said the Brooklyn-born senator, refusing to say if he is among those "many people." [Having an opinion as a Democrat is very dangerous, except when it comes to deciding who the racists are in the country. Guess.]

For many Democrats in Miami, Sanders just bought the farm--of course, being Sanders, he bought it with taxpayer money. The Hispanic community in Florida will not vote for a weasel whisperer who refuses to call out Latin American dictators--they've had their fill with the Castro brothers. 

Rep. Shalala has recently filed legislation to assist Venezuelans fleeing Maduro's socialist regime and economic crisis that his socialist policies have made even worse since coming into power.

Speaking to Politico, Shalala said of Sanders: "He is not going to be the nominee of the Democratic Party. He has demonstrated again that he does not understand this situation. I absolutely disagree with his imprecision in not saying Maduro must go."

"Helena Poleo, a former journalist and Democrat from Venezuela is also a Spanish-language commentator. She called Sanders comments 'disgusting. The Florida Democratic Party needs to denounce this now,'" Politico reports.

Democratic State Sen. Annette Taddeo (Miami) said she was "dumbfounded" by Sanders' response, Politico reports. "He’s obviously clueless," she said, questioning if he's been fully briefed on the situation. [The problem isn't that Sanders wasn't briefed, the problem is that he is a socialist and has the moral equivalency of the scavenger pilot fish feeding off a shark.]

The Democratic Party of Florida issued an "unequivocal" statement. Although it doesn't name Sanders, it directly counters his comments: "Florida Democrats have been unequivocal: We recognize Juan Guaidó as the President of Venezuela, denounce the legitimacy of the Maduro regime and his efforts to remain illegally in power," the party said in a statement. (Read Politico's full report here.)

I hope you'll follow Brain Flushings and have a few laughs while you get a conservative viewpoint. Politics is the new NFL without the mindless kneeling and this blog will both inform you and hopefully entertain you bigly.

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Counterfeit News Network's April Ryan tweets article about Trump running child-trafficking ring

April Ryan, a Counterfeit News Network (CNN) contributor and White House correspondent for American Urban Radio Network, is being slammed for telling her 336,000 Twitter followers about a story in The Root that asks if Trump's administration is dealing in child trafficking.

Seriously. 

Melania Trump rightly criticized Ryan for the tweet and others went on Twitter to do the same.

Stephanie Grisham is the Press Secretary and Communications Director for the First Lady, Melania Trump.

"If you're a journalist w many followers & a @CNNPolitics contributor...is it ok to retweet any headline you want, regardless of if it's true?" Grisham tweeted, adding that "The core purpose of a journalist is to research, document, write, & present the news in an honest, ethical, & unbiased way."

The headline in The Root article was titled: "Is the Trump administration running a child-trafficking ring or nah? Follow me down the rabbit hole."

Ryan tweeted the article without comment. The Root is an online magazine dealing with the African-American culture.

The Root's political editor Jason Johnson asks why should "alt-righters" have all the fun peddling disproven and unfounded conspiracy theories. He then suggests one of his own.

"Now it turns out that the Trump administration may have an equally implausible conspiracy on its hands: Is the administration involved in child sex trafficking or just white nationalism? Follow me down the rabbit hold and see for yourself," Johnson writes.

Many questioned on Twitter how Ryan, a supposedly "professional" journalist could associate herself with such a story. Well, she was already slammed for saying that Melania Trump was not culturally American.

But I have a theory.

When Ryan was a child growing up in Baltimore, her parents were involved in child sex trafficking and this left an indelible scar on a child who only sought love from her distant parents, both of whom voted Republican.

Her father who refused to pay attention to her but instead took kindly to several young Caucasian girls, created an intense jealousy in her which was expressed as fierce animosity toward father figures [think a US president, for example] and white people.

That's my conspiracy theory and I'm sticking to it.

"This is a horrid excuse for journalism," Tweeted Carmine Sabia, a Christian journalist in New Jersey. "To quasi accuse the president of the United States of running a child trafficking ring is low even for her."

The Root is owned by Univision and CEO Randy Falco was highly critical of Trump during the presidential campaign. 

I know my conspiracy theory is a load of crap, but it's clear that Ryan either did not check out the article in The Root, or checked it out, tweeted it to her followers who she hoped would believe it, and said nothing to implicate her endorsement of the trash.

Ryan is a trash reporter for a pair of trash media outlets that never err on the side of Trump, but always errs against him. 

Not every "fake news" claim made by Trump is valid, but there are plenty enough of them to discredit the mainstream media, and they are losing their audience. 



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The softer side of Sean Spicer

The new White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer started off with a little teeny weeny bit of anger in his first encounter with fellow journalists over the weekend, but today was a new day and the first day of the "real" work week.

On his first daily presser he actually picked a reporter from Univision--the Spanish language media outlet that had, in the past, been hostile to President Donald Trump as he campaigned, particularly over his stance on immigration. 

The reporter, Janet Rodriguez, was Spicer's third pick, in fact, after having called upon the New York Post and the Christian Broadcasting Network.

FoxNews.com reported that Spicer's decision to not pick the AP and other front-row outlets for the first questions might have been his way of signaling the press that he might be showing less deference to mainstream news outlets in the briefing.

Rodriguez asked Spicer about former President Obama's actions on children of illegal immigrants (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals aka DACA) and what would be done for recipients. She also asked about the current status of the White House's Spanish website--which was taken down on Inauguration Day as part of the transition to a new website. 

The new White House Press Secretary said that the website may take a bit more time. "Trust me," he said, "it's just going to take a little bit more time, but we're working piece by piece to get that done."

He should have added that the Spanish website will be running without a problem a lot faster than the Obamacare website did.

Insofar as DACA is concerned, Spicer made it clear that President Trump's priority for immigration was to deport criminal illegal aliens first.

"First and foremost, the president's been very, very clear that we need to direct agencies to focus on those who are in this country illegally and have a record--a criminal record or pose a threat to the American people," he said. "That's where the priorities are going to be and then we're going to continue to work through the entire number of folks that are here illegally. But right now the clear focus is on that."

Gee, that sounds like a good idea.

This presser by Spicer was a far less angry one than the very first meeting he had with the press. It seemed like he was going for a "do-over."


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Bernie refuses to answer important question on socialism

Bernie Sanders doesn't answer hard questions, not even "hod" questions does Bernie Sanders answer.

When Leon Krauze of Univision asked the socialist candidate a few difficult questions, he refused to answer because it might have incriminated him. The interviewer on the Spanish-language American network obviously has an audience with access to Spanish-language media from Venezuela, the place that Sanders was asked about, but he skirted the issue with a Clinton-esque brush-off.

Specifically, Sanders was asked to explain socialism's failure in Venezuela and other South American socialist countries.

Krauze: I am sure that you know about this topic: various leftist governments, especially the populists, are in serious trouble in Latin America. The socialist model in Venezuela has the country near collapse. Argentina, also Brazil, how do you explain that failure?

Sanders: You are asking me questions . . . 

Krauze: I am sure you're interested in that.

Sanders: I am very interested, but right now I'm running for President of the United States.

Krauze: So you don't have an opinion about the crisis in Venezuela?

Sanders: Of course I have an opinion, but as I said, I'm focused on my campaign.

Me: So why don't you see this as a campaign issue for America? If you're hawking socialism and it isn't working in Venezuela, don't you think it's important for the American public to know why you believe it isn't and what can and should be done to make it work?

Sanders: Wall Shhtreet. Wall Shhtreet. That's the real problem.




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