Maduro the burro as they say. Maduro was handed the leadership by Chavez, according to ex minister and boss of PDVSA, Rafael Ramirez, because the Cubans put enourmous pressure on Chavez, him being ill in their hospitals and all that!!!!!!! Personally I would say that Chavez did have a good heart and he tried to head in the right direction but he was heavily handicapped, as are all independently minded South American leaders, whether left or right, by reliance on outside help... Chavez got pulled in by the Cuban Marxists and Cuba has been all along a TROYAN HORSE... Castro et al were funded at the start by the USA, they were given good publicity in the NYT... and when they got in they had all the help necessary from expert Communist Ideologs.... then when other countries got on the leftist bandwagon, such as Chile which had a strong flavour of autonomous folk culture and doing things their way, the Cubans came to visit, Fidel stayed for months like one of those uninvited guests that came to deliberately spoil the party. When he was finally about to leave Allende did not attend his goodbye bash, Allende never liked the communists and said they never did anything but sabotage.... Allende was also a Mason but gave up his masonic membership because he realised were it was at... Pinocho was helped by Kissenger, the CIA etc to make the coup but even he had to realise after that the North Americans had their own agenda and he was snubbed on various key issues.... Maduro is a not of the calibre or intelligence of an Allende or Chavez but even they failed to get the full extent of the danger of Marxism..... The key would have been to adopt a more national socialist idea, more fully independent of outside influences from either left or right. Maduro in this case is an out and out tool of the Rich bankers... HE ALREADY SOLD 69% of PDVSA shares at rock bottom price to GOLDMAN SACHS in order to get leverage for a loan that has to be paid back by 2022 at 300%... MABURRO and then some, the guy is a total crook and has sold out his country to the rich bankers, he is being propped up. Personally I think that Pompeo and Trump are just playing about making threats, Maduro is actually backed by some pretty powerful international criminal organisations that in the end also feed back to the White House, or give orders to the White House more like.... GOLDMAN SACHS... yeah...... so this is all a stitch up and it is a shame that Chavez got so taken in by Fidel... a wolf in sheeps clothing if ever there was one.