"We own this country now."

The Opinion Journal has a deeply disturbing piece on the Venezuela situation.

The country is being run by thugs who intimidate and murder with impunity. Over one hundred thugs marched towards the center of a town to break up a peaceful demonstration against the vote. From the piece:

"Hilda Mendoza Denham, a British subject visiting Caracas for her mother's 80th birthday, was shot at close range with hollow-point bullets from a high-caliber pistol. She now lies sedated in a hospital bed after a long and complicated operation. She is my mother.

"I spoke with her minutes before the doctors cut open her wounds. She looked at me, frightened and traumatized, and sobbed: 'I was sure they were going to kill me, they just kept shooting at me.'

"In a jarringly similar attack that took place three years ago, the killers were caught on tape and identified as government officials and employees. They were briefly detained--only to be released and later praised by Col. Chávez in his weekly radio show. Their identities are no secret and they walk the streets as free men, despite having shot unarmed civilian demonstrators in cold blood."

A country supported by Iran, Cuba, and Jimmy Carter. Voting machines producing results virtually beyond statisitical probability. Thugs and murderers. One-sixth of the U.S. oil buy flow and all the cash that comes with it. This is not good.