Hi everyone, Lilo here from smartoptionsella.com. Hope everyone is doing well. Today is Saturday, December 24th, 2022 Christmas Eve. And I wanna wish all of those of you who do celebrate very Merry Christmas. And so what are we doing today? Well, welcome back to our weekly Saturday synopsis videos. What are we doing these videos? Well, just like the title of the video says, we're gonna see what the market's going to do. We're going to figure out where the market's headed, where stocks are headed, what's going on in the market. That's what we do most Saturdays, trying to figure out where stocks are, where stocks are gonna move. And for us as option traders, and maybe you as an option trader as well, that is the most important thing, getting the direction of the stock right. Because you can't trade options and be profitable with options without knowing where the stock may be headed to. That's the only way to do it. You can't just trade options independently, just thinking I'm just gonna trade options. Well, the options value is derived from something else. And most of an options value is derived from where the stock moves, up or down. So you have to be aware of what's happening in the stock market. So that's what we're here. That's what I do most Saturdays, try to help you figure out where the stock market's going, where stocks are going, and try to help you up your options trading game or even your stock trading game. I'm a technical analyst. Been doing this for over 30 years now. I watch the charts. That's what I do to figure out when it's time to get in and out of trade. And the charts tell me when that is. So let's just jump right in as we always do almost every Saturday and look at some charts and figure out what's going on. So we always start with the SPY. And before I do that, let me move myself over here a little bit because not every chart that we look at has the symbol. And people tell me, Lee, can you please move your webcam screen so we can see the symbol? So up here in the top left is always where the symbol of the stock is going to be. So you can just look up there. If I don't have it written on the chart here, it will be up here where you can see. So what do we do here? We always look at the SPY first, which is the exchange traded fund for the S&P 500. We look at the S&P 500 as the best overall gauge of the market. And that helps me and maybe you as well see where, what's the general trend of the market? The market has trends and we always want to find the right trend and then plan our trade. So we look at the market as a whole and then we go from there. So up here on this part of the screen is the actual chart action, the price action for those of you who are new have never watched one of these Saturday synopsis videos. Up here is about two years worth of data on the screen. Each line is one day's worth of trading. So this is a daily bar chart, open, high, low, close bar chart of the SPY. These are not candlestick charts. And I try to keep the chart simple as far as technical indicators. There are hundreds of technical indicators you can look at. I only use four of them on my chart, three of which are moving averages. I have a 20-day moving average, blue line here. I have a 50-day moving average right here and I have the Mac Daddy 200-day moving average. When you're looking at a daily chart they're daily moving averages. If you look at a weekly chart they are weekly moving averages. So they're all simple moving averages, not exponential. So those are the three indicators I use up here and then down here is my fourth indicator which is the RSI indicator right here. RSI 14-day look back period based on closing prices of the day. That's what the C stands for, closing prices. And it's an oscillator and it oscillates between overbought and oversold levels. And here is these horizontal lines. This is at the 80 level and this line's at the 20 level. You can configure those however you want in whatever your trading platform has. And so it oscillates between overbought and oversold. And when it gets overbought it could mean that the stock price action it could be ready to roll over. And when it gets oversold it could mean the price action is ready to turn higher. So I use the RSI along with the three moving averages to try to help me gauge which way the stock may be headed next, okay? Nothing's guaranteed. There's no guarantees in trading. It doesn't work 100% of the time. Your timing might be off but it's just these things these items I've over the years figured out these are the only items I need on my chart to help me to figure out where the market's going next, okay? And in addition to that we draw these, you can see it's a channel. You see the price action within the blue lines, okay? We've got this big channel here and these smaller channels here. These are hand drawn. They don't just appear on the charts like the moving averages do. So there's lots of patterns that will show up time and time again and as we look at more charts I'll show you some of these patterns. But if you've been following me for a while we know last year, the year in 2022 right on January 1st the market went into a bear mode and we've been in this downtrend all year long. You can see the top edge of the channel the bottom of the edge of the channel that is what I've drawn. And the market has been in that downtrending you can see it's going down with fits and starts it goes up, it goes down but overall within this downtrending pattern. So we all know if you've been in the market if you have long-term holds, holdings I should say you know the market's gone down because you see your portfolio values going down if you have bullish positions. I have bullish positions. I have a long-term portfolio. I have retirement accounts. I want the market to go up but the market has been stubborn this year and there's a lot of reasons why. If you've been following the market you know the reasons are we have COVID still out there we had these supply chain issues you had the war in Ukraine that's still going on rising interest rates, rising inflation all these things have just been hanging over the market all of 2022 and just kind of pushing it in the overall downwards.  So the market has not been great for bulls this year and us as we do we run two newsletters as well both bullishly oriented newsletters and we've been a lot lighter this year throughout the whole year and taking new positions. This is we've had the smallest amount of open positions this year due to the market going down because the market is telling us it's not the greatest time to be in bullish trades so we've been playing a lot lighter that's just how it is let the market tell you where it wants to go. We are put option sellers and put option call put option I'm sorry put option credit spreads and those are more bullishly to directional types of trades selling naked puts and selling put option credit spreads. Okay that's what we do and if you want some more information on that you go to our website smartoptionsseller.com you can see right here along the long the heading here put selling basics that is our book that is our free ebook that we wrote that I wrote I should say about selling put options why it's so great why we do it and why I love put selling so much put in your name and email address here we'll send you an email with a link to the free copy it's free it's all about put selling and that's all that we do here if you want more information about our services our two newsletters naked put selling and put selling credit spreads and our one-on-one coaching we have we have students who come along we get them up to speed make them better traders okay so that's what we do here so once again where is the market headed where are stocks going you know there's no way to spin it the market's in a downtrend and right here you can see this past week past two weeks we came along the top edge of the channel market was going up hit the resistance and then it's come back down within the middle of the channel the path of least resistance has been down and unfortunately I thought right here when the market SPY hit 410 got above the channel this day right here I thought we were gonna keep going but it ran into some resistance at the top edge of the channel Jerome Powell who's the chairman of the Federal Reserve here in the U.S. gave his speech about the future interest rate hikes he said they're gonna keep the pedal to the metal a little bit and you know they're gonna stay aggressively wanna get inflation down so the market was looking for a little softer tone in his speech and it wasn't what the market liked so from here the market's just been going down the last two weeks it's unfortunate but we're right back down in this channel now so the path of least resistance is obviously down where and if is the market going to catch a bid or find some support well we have our line drawn here at 360 this is the next line of support just above 360 we had for 390 as the last line in the sand and I'm gonna draw this line a little bit more here bring it out so here's 390 okay and we had that as our line in the sand before because as you look back 390 was an area of a lot of price action in the past here's a lot of price action here's a lot of price action here's some and here as well so 390 was basically a pivot point between being support it was support here and then it became resistance here and then support here again it got through it and resistance here and it got through it and then as it was coming down support but it fell right through it so right now it's trading around 382 and it looks like this 380 level you can see it's kind of bunching up right around 380 that's the next area of congestion where will it go from there like I said the next area is around a little above 360 but we have this one day right here this was 348 is where if the market's going to keep going down it's gonna gun for this level right here 348 I don't wanna see it go that low but a lot of people are talking about hey you know 2023 is gonna be a recession year it's gonna be bad for the market bad for the economy we don't know yet but a lot of people are talking and we're gonna see new lows you know will that happen we don't know but that's the path of least resistance now is lower it's falling below here's the 50 day moving average markets falling below that it's below the 20 day below the 200 day so the market price action is below all three moving averages and just well within this channel again so right smack in the middle of the downtrending channel and until it can until it can break out convincingly out and above this big channel here it's gotta get up here gotta get up here like 420 and then keep going maybe in 2023 we'll see it but for now it's gonna be down in the channel and what we can do is we can even redraw or keep drawing this lower edge here get some lines here so you know we can keep going down a little bit here to see where you know the price action the price action could fall all the way down to the bottom edge here and then bounce it's all up in the air so this again this is another reason why we've been staying more on the sidelines as far as our trades the market's telling us it wants to go down so putting your money on the line for bullish trades isn't the greatest thing right now as far as trading goes now for you long-term traders like myself I will nibble on the way down buy a little bit more for you know my long-term portfolio I like to buy the SPY because I get a good smattering of lots of different stocks so as it's coming down you know if it's gonna either come to a support area or down here to the bottom of the channel those are some areas where I look at to nibble on some shares not going full force just buying a few shares here and there to kind of catch a bottom and if it keeps going down well then I'll look for the next area support beyond that and maybe buy a little bit more and if it blasts out to the upside then we're starting to make some money but for now the market's still telling us you know what we're not ready to be full bulls yet so we're staying in this downtrend hopefully 2023 will be better don't know yet let's look at the NASDAQ we use the triple Q's for that open it up a little bit more here so the NASDAQ 260 is that next line in the sand right here you can see our support line it's got very close to that this week will it drop below it it's potential the path of least resistance is down get to that 260 we'll see beyond that you have to look back in the past to see where the next area of support could be this is a weekly chart now so like I said here's the 260 level going back here and beyond that you know it's got below the 200 week moving average falling below that you know there's really no no new support area you can see this area shot up nicely from the 200 week moving average but areas of support and resistance are where a lot of action price action had been in the past you know if it drops here you know where is the next support the next real support will probably be right here which is roughly $160 a share right here so if the market drops it can drop another $100 on the triple Q's if it gets really bad so this would be the next real major area of support it's tough to see that let's go back to the SPY real quick for the weekly so the next area of real support would be on the 200 week moving average right here and that's roughly around $365 still not here's the low $348 so it would be $365 and then the next line in the sand would be $348 which is roughly where the market started to take off when it was going upwards see this nice uptrending channel and that started right around $348 so let's draw that on the weekly you can see so you can see where that support really was so you use these levels a lot of people look at the same things so these numbers tend to be self-fulfilling prophecies where people will get in and out at certain pivot points or certain areas of support and resistance so this $348 level if you look back was that pivot point where the market really started to drive higher so if we come back down here maybe it'll bounce and start to go back up you can see on the weekly chart the bottom edge of the channel here's the channel is right here's the line the bottom edge connects right here at that $348 level so maybe if the S&P 500 goes down it'll bounce at that $348 level getting back to the triple cues here's the weekly again it's sitting right near that support right around $260 and like I said if it goes down it's got a long way to drop down here but hopefully that's a long way we don't want to see that let's look at the Dow Dow Jones with the DIA the DIA here it is up here is the symbol this is the exchange traded fund for the Dow now the Dow has been the strongest of the three main indexes the Dow, S&P 500 and NASDAQ you can see it's had this nice bounce here had the double bottom and the resistance was up here so this is the weekly let's go to the daily chart okay so here's the daily chart had that nice bounce we drew this double bottom line a while back it bounced perfectly and look the strong move higher found this resistance near the top that last top in mid-August it got knocked back down but it's sitting right on the 50-day moving average right here you can see it's sitting right on it so maybe the Dow will be strong next week maybe it'll help hold up the rest of the market so alright that's a look at the main indexes let's start to look at some individual stocks we tend to look at more popular individual stocks don't go through all of them but we always start with Apple most of the time and Apple's been a real party pooper of late we have a put option credit spread on Apple and it's just it keeps going down last week it fell through the 135 level I had drawn this line last week 135 was a line in the sand and it dropped through it this week now it's trading hovering right around 130 is that next level let's draw another line here right at 130 let's get that in here 130 level next line in the sand for Apple it's really the next line in the sand because here was that last swing low just below 130 there you can see if we go back even further the next line in the sand support area is right at this 122-123 level so if it drops through the 130 level it's gonna gun for 122-123 which was this last swing low area here we need Apple to catch a bid here to start going higher because a lot of these stocks have an outsized effect on the index okay each stock doesn't doesn't have the same proportion certain stocks like Apple has a bigger effect on the overall market so whichever way Apple moves the indexes will move proportionately big as well so we need stocks like Apple and Google and Amazon these Fang stocks to really move higher if we want the market to go up and Apple's just sitting on the support here has fallen, you know, $20 a share in a very short period of time we need a balance here we need some kind of catalyst for the market to go back up Apple has not been has not been good to the market I'd say that in order to our position as well so Apple look for hopefully maybe this 130 level line in the sand maybe hold up next week let's look at Tesla a lot of people email me to keep looking at Tesla to keep showing the charts Tesla is just in this horrible horrible downward movement and a lot of it is because of Elon himself okay, you know, he's taken over Twitter it's not looking good at Twitter he's fired, you know probably more than half the company I don't know how they can survive he's selling his own shares of Tesla to, you know, keep things afloat but I think the other reason why Tesla's been going down so much also I just read this is that they're starting to give some rebates you know, some cash back on Tesla cars people buy cars they're giving you some money off which they typically don't do at Tesla so I think people are thinking well, if Tesla's giving rebates that means things aren't going so well at the company they're not selling as many cars or they have to offer discounts to sell more cars so people are also using that information to sell more shares of Tesla Tesla's closed at 123 I mean, this is a low we haven't seen since let's go to the weekly chart here come on, let's look at the weekly I mean, it just blasted through the 200 week moving average here was that last congestion pattern we talk about the congestion pattern which is a little triangle where the price action gets real tight and then it explodes one way or the other so we can see it's sort of getting back into that this last congestion range, $123 which was right around here right around here, roughly so I mean, if it's gonna fall down through here who knows where the next leg is the bottom, the next swing low might be this thing could keep going it's kind of scary because the breakout was right around $137 or so when it broke out of this congestion pattern and went higher and we're below that we're at $123 now so we're kind of below this price action here I really can't make a prediction or a call on Tesla here I mean, it just looks weak but the only thing I can say is that on the RSI it's getting very, very oversold on the RSI it's below 20 it's at 1981 below my threshold which is the 20 threshold for being oversold so maybe we'll get a bounce maybe Tesla will catch a bounce here but will it be the bounce that takes it all the way back higher hard to say it could just be a short-term bounce because it's oversold and when it bounces then people will start to sell it off again that could happen as well but Tesla, not looking so great right here it fell through this long line in the sand we had which was a little over $200 here and just blasted through that so I think the only thing Tesla has going for it right now is this oversold condition that could give it a bounce but it might not last long it may continue to sell off after that so keep an eye on Tesla if you have shares here let's look at Amazon so like I said the tech stocks, the Fang stocks really been taking it taking a beating this whole year 2022 has been a really bad year for tech stocks Amazon, here's the symbol up here AMZ and Amazon I think we all know the symbol for Amazon it's just sitting on the support at $85 I mean it's just hanging in there okay let's go back let's look at the weekly chart and see where the next support is so we drew the long support right around $85 I mean it's falling well below the 200 day moving average support after that is probably this swing low right here which is the low was maybe $65 a share this bar right here so if it falls through $85 it's got roughly $65 as the next level of support so keep an eye on Amazon I mean these stocks are going down tech stocks going down Google we can look at as well Google falling through the line that we had drawn the support error falling through that where's the next error support gotta go back to the weekly again when you start having to look at the weekly to see where the next support area is you know stocks have been in a downtrend because you gotta go back further in time to see where the next support may be here's the 200 week moving average falling below that where is the next support area for Amazon it's hard to say I mean here's a congestion area right here so it's kind of hovering around that next area probably be in here you know low 70s low 70s and then the ultimate would be right around $50 which was this last swing low here that had bounced off the 200 week moving average so it's hovering just below 90 next area support 70 probably and then down to 50 I'm hoping that we're not gonna see these levels in 2023 but you know you need to be aware of them you need to know where these where these support areas lie okay let's look at some other charts here we can go through the list Microsoft in this downtrending channel this is the week let's look at the daily here's the daily still encapsulated in a downtrending channel had this little up channel here you know the last couple months or so last month or so and then it dropped back down again outside of it so the last two weeks since Jerome Powell had that that speech I think was on December 13th yeah things started to come off again so that's Microsoft Intel you know the chip stocks going down again Intel AMD we always look at AMD still going down you know had the little up move here we had a put sell on AMD and naked put sell that we were able to get out of we made a profit on it even though the stocks going down that's one of the great things about selling put options or being an option seller is that you don't always have to be right about the direction of the stock and you can still win that's why we love selling put so much you know do yourself a favor go to our website and sign up for the free put selling basics ebook it'll give you insight into a great trading strategy if you don't do it already so AMD going down micron still now back in another downtrend Nvidia you know up here you can see that you can see the symbol Nvidia just just like the general market in the downtrend had this nice uptrend right here had this nice up channel look like it was getting ready to go and then Jerome Powell just crushed it you know got has fallen back down through the uptrend trending channel here so the chip stocks having it rough as well let's up here move the menu bar up here all right what else we got Nike had a good week actually Nike had earnings came out just blew things away and it rallied you know almost $20 a share so Nike was down in this little channel trading right around 102 and then boom got up to about almost 120 this past week so if you have shares of Nike things were looking good we've been talking about Nike it's in this nice little up channel here we can draw that just you know you connect some bottoms you connect some tops just you know just to give you a visual of where the price action is oops we don't want to do that so Nike buck the trend had a good week what else what else we have Netflix we talk about Netflix we had a position on Netflix to we we sold a put spread on that we took profits on Netflix as it was going up so as it was going up put option prices come down that works out for us because as an option seller you sell it at a high price and then you try to buy it back at a cheaper price that's what we were able to do with Netflix was in this channel starting to fall out of it but Netflix is still looking pretty strong here you know it has a lot of price action to make up had these gaps here gap here but it has almost it just about fill this so it did fill the gap here you know Netflix was open here had earnings and opened here the next day so have this big gap to fill as the subsequent price action comes up and fills the gap meaning this new price action touches the last high here before the drop so we fill the gap so Netflix the next plan is to fill this gap all the way up here which is close to $500 a share so it's got a long way to go to fill this next gap but it's certainly moving in the right direction for Netflix Cisco, trying to find some stocks that are worth really looking at Procter and Gamble, PG look at this nice move higher it has sort of bucked the trend as well you know Procter and Gamble is a company where they sell things that we use in our everyday lives so people keep buying these things so Procter and Gamble going up Walmart is another stock we look at it's a great place to get your household items cheaper and even your food cheaper a big part of Walmart's profits are made up of the food that they sell and so you can see they've been going up you know we got ups and downs but in overall you can see Walmart's been in this uptrend which is good Target, not as strong as Walmart had this huge huge gap down back in May and then it's just been kind of hovering in this sideways action but getting down to the 140s so that's hanging around the lows there so Target not as strong as Walmart Disney, we talk about Disney too getting down to the COVID lows let's go back to the weekly chart for Disney here was the COVID lows right in early part of 2020 we could you know if you're waiting to get long shares of Disney as I've been talking in the past 80 might be an area to nibble on let's look at the monthly let's go to the monthly for a second here move myself just for a second, monthly okay so you can see the support right around the 80 level going back to 2014 early 2014 80 has held up and it's got the 200 month moving average as a you know a confluence here supported 80 200 month moving average right at $80 so if Disney comes down to 80 that could be you know if you're gonna nibble on buying some shares of Disney $80 could be your point it's right around 88 now so it's another $8 lower it has to drop in order to you know catch it on 80 will it hold at $80 we don't know but there's a good chance it will based on past support levels so Disney may be gunning for that 80 level what else look to Tesla so our healthcare stocks Eli Lilly just going up Bristol Myers kind of hanging around but you know had that nice uptrend sideways action for now Pfizer has a nice little uptrend here Merck Merck doing well making all time new highs Johnson and Johnson in an uptrend so we like the pharma stocks because people are going to need healthcare and they're gonna need the medicine and the drugs that these companies offer I always talk about the XLV if you want to get all these pharma and healthcare stocks in one shot the XLV is a is the healthcare ETF you can see right up here healthcare select spider ETF okay strong we've sold put spreads on the XLF as well the XLV as well okay PayPal still hanging around the lows square hanging around the lows you know what's the point of doing all this look looking at these charts why are we doing this people ask me why are you looking at the charts so much because the charts tell you where the where the next move may be and in order to trade options I need to know where the stock is and I need to know what the stock chart looks like and whether it's worth taking a trade okay otherwise I'm not there's nothing for me to do so I look at the charts and then I to figure out whether it's time to get into an options trade Costco we had drawn this congestion pattern on Costco and you can see it's starting to break down to the downside as the price action gets tighter and tighter within the triangle it's going to break out one side of the other it looks like it figured out where I wanted to go to the downside so broke out to the downside of the channel McDonald's still hanging in there you know McDonald's is not is not doing bad at all keep an eye on McDonald's Pepsi we look at these we look at these great dividend paying companies look at the nice trajectory of Pepsi just bottom left to top right that's what you want to see out of a chart just go higher over the long run sure it's got some pullbacks but within those pullbacks it's still moving higher love Pepsi as a great dividend paying company 3M not much there okay so Home Depot and Lowe's we have a position on Lowe's we're going to look at Lowe's L-O-W here's December L symbol L-O-W we saw the put spread on Lowe's because we thought with the price action here was telling us it looks like it was going to go higher and actuality it's gone lower but that's because of Jerome Powell but the great thing about our spread is that we have a lot of downside cushion to help us out meaning we had the stock has to really fall far really, really fall far for us to get in trouble with our trade now we're under a little water on the trade but not nearly as much underwater as people who have bought the stock and bought call options and taken outright bullish trades those are all not doing great but when you sell puts when you sell naked puts and sell put spreads you can get a lot of downside cushion which is what we've done so our trades hanging in there even though the stock's going down that's Lowe's here's Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway fund you know he's kind of hanging around had a little pullback here but this fund is made up of Warren Buffett's stock picks and companies that he owns you know if you want to follow Warren Buffett you know you can buy all the shares of stocks that he's that he owns or you can just buy the his fund at three hundred and six dollars a share or if you go to our website and you get the services tab here you go to shop here's a different options trading strategy that I wrote about how to follow along with Warren Buffett's trades and this options strategy will allow you to get into all of his trades for just pennies on the dollar so if you're interested in taking a look at this you click on here and here's the the report that I wrote it's an e-book that I wrote about following Warren Buffett piggybacking Warren Buffett you know he's got to deal with the downturns as well but over the long run let's look at the monthly chart for Warren Buffett's fund look how beautiful that is up up up up up okay what else what other stocks do we have before we call call it a day here Facebook Metta hanging around loads IBM doing okay had a little pullback here but you can see it bounce right at the fifty day moving average here IBM what else we have uh... chewy I haven't talked about chewy that much uh... not really doing much sideways action Clorox wanted to mention Clorox had the flat top going as the uptrend and then it had the flat top which is the resistance try to get through one fifty couldn't Warren Buffett I mean uh... drone Powell spoiled that party but you can see that it's hanging around the fifty day moving average and you got the two hundred day kind of giving it support as well so maybe Clorox will find a bid here and go back up one fifty is the level for for Clorox needs to convincingly get above that to see it continue to move higher we'll look at Colgate Colgate still in this nice uptrend you can draw these channels tell you which way the price action is going and you can see you know when it pulls back when it pulls back to the bottom edge of the channel that could be your area to get long if you're looking to get long all right uh... we're getting to the end here oh coca-cola as well still doing nicely has a nice uptrend great dividend paying company uh... conhead and southern company two utility companies that I talk about doing well also we had a naked put that we sold on southern took profits this past week as the market goes up works out for us that's called that's called their will summarize with the s p y again pathways resistance is just lower unfortunately for the index itself hovering around the three eighty level you know next week is a short week uh... markets close on monday december twenty six not gonna have a lot of action next week it'll probably hang around three eighty level you know we're taking we're taking some time off next week uh... hopefully i'll make a video next saturday for new year's eve don't expect too much to happen in the market this week probably trade around three eighty level on the s p y all right let's call it there uh... hope this video has been helpful i hope this is this is good for you to to learn how to look at stocks because if you want to trade options or you want to trade stocks you gotta know which way the stocks are moving and you and you got to draw some lines and figure out you know where the support resistance lies to give you a better chance to be profitable with these trades all right so if you like the video please give me a thumbs up leave me a comment below tell your friends send me an email i'll always answer and uh... i'm wishing all those who of you who celebrate christmas have a great christmas merry christmas and i'll try to be back here next saturday for new year's eve alright everyone have a great weekend got some nfl games on today uh... and i'll see y'all next week this is lee lowell signing off


What's up everybody, we're here inside WJCT Public Media on the soundstage for another installment of JME Soundstage Sessions. I'm WJCT Arts and Culture Editor Matt Shaw, and of course we're here recording in Jacksonville, but today we may well want to call it Calford because we have some authentic country music from a very talented group of musicians from right here in our own backyard, Dean Winter and The Heat. They've released two singles already in 2022. They just played the Winterland Music Festival yesterday. We're gonna talk to the band about the momentum that they've been building over the last year or so, but first they're gonna treat us to some of their delightful twang, Dean Winter and The Heat.  Yeah, thanks Matt. Take it away fellas. You know I can't escape the rain That was Jacksonville's own Dean Winter and The Heat playing Can't Escape the Rain, a new single from a forthcoming full-length due out in the summer of 2022. We're here at the WJCT soundstage for JME's soundstage sessions and I want to ask you guys about the new music, but first Dean you want to introduce the band to us and tell us who's playing with you. Yeah, absolutely. We got Jack Mock over here on the pedal steel guitar. On the left we have Mr. Jeremy Blanton playing bass guitar and back there on the drums that's Mr. Ty Sullivan. All right well you guys sounded good. You look great. So Dean you put out an EP called Paydirt in 2020 with The Heat behind you, but tell us a bit about your path as a songwriter and how you put this project together. Yeah, for sure. Moved down to Jacksonville in 2008 and just spent some time kind of getting acquainted with the music scene here and made a lot of great friends along the way and was able to write with a lot of people over the years and a few different bands and things like that. Jack and I have been friends for a really long time and we had discussed maybe trying to go a little country, maybe a little alt country, maybe a little Americana and so I started writing some tunes and we got the rest of the guys together, Jeremy and Ty and Jack and myself and we just started kind of jamming on them and writing on them and we're like hey this this feels really good. So after kind of years of writing some music for some other people and collabs with other people and things like that we kind of found at least I feel like I found a sweet spot writing and a sweet spot of guys to hang out with me and do it for sure. Yeah it's really interesting. I'm always interested to hear like how bands sort of arrive at their sound and with country music you know there's certainly divisions between you know different camps of people who will delineate between what's like authentic country or pop country or what have you. There's passionate debates to be had about that but what I really enjoy about your music is you guys the attention to detail on the songs from the lyric writing to the mix of the music, the instrumentation, the guitar tone everything is seemingly on point. Can you tell us about some of the artists country or otherwise you know when you were putting the project together that kind of served as inspiration to help you land at that sound. Yeah for sure and I appreciate that too so thank you. Yeah we there is there's definitely like a like a niche group of country music happening right now that people are kind of latching on to and there's some guys out there like Jesse Daniel and Mike and the Moonpies somebody like Paul Cawthon or something like that that are really driving this neo-traditional country music genre that's happening kind of across the South and across America as a whole but you know even back before that people have been writing and recording this kind of music for a long time so when we started when we started doing what we're doing we kind of set out to try to make it as authentic as possible so kind of what you said and we're mixing all analog and you know we think it sounds really warm and we really like how the songs are coming out so we're really excited about what's coming up but yeah some of those guys and just I mean forever I grew up on 90s country music so that's probably an inspiration in my songwriting and then a lot of the kind of the the new Alton Americana genres that have come up over the years people like Hayes Carl or you know his golden messenger something like that really kind of plays an influence into how these songs come together yeah very cool and you brought authentic microphone stands as well today so yeah so two new songs in 2022 already and we're only about to hit march here but what are the plans for the rest of the year you got more singles coming out a full length yeah we got a couple more singles coming out about a year ago we went up into a mountain and started working on some songs and came out with a full length that we thought was ready you know a group of tunes that we thought could live on a record together and so we've been slowly but surely getting them finished and putting them out so we're hoping to have two more singles out in the next couple months and then to put a full length out this summer we can't wait to hear it Dean winter in the heat thank you so much for being here it's been a pleasure listening to you guys and Dean winter in the heats new singles right on track and can't escape the rain are available on all streaming platforms currently look for a new record later this year uh this has been jamie soundstage sessions part of the jacksonville music experience from wjct public media thanks guys thanks matt


Thank you so much for joining us this afternoon and welcome to Venezuela's elections and beyond. Our webinar today is a discussion about what we saw and included on December 6 while in Venezuela as international election observers. The four of us speaking today were invited by the Consejo Nacional Electoral, I'll refer to that as the CNE as we speak today. So the four of us were invited by the CNE to serve as international observers for Venezuela's national assembly elections which are held every five years. This is similar, so legislative elections similar to what in the States is referred to as the congressional midterm elections. Rick Sterling and I were in Venezuela December 2015 for the same elections and me again in May of 2018 for the presidential elections. For me personally this recent trip represents the 12 maybe 13th time I've been here in Venezuela. I am speaking with you today from Caracas and Alicja, David and Rick will be speaking with you from the San Francisco Bay Area this afternoon. The four of us participating today represent several different organizations but we're all part of the entire international CNE delegation. Three of us specifically part of the Code Pink delegation and David Paul with the Embassy Protection Collective. So I am with Code Pink, Alicja as an independent observer, David Paul was invited by the CNE as one of the Embassy Protection Collective and Rick Sterling is president of Task Force on the Americas. I should also just disclose to all of you watching this afternoon that David, Rick and myself also serve as Task Force on the Americas board members. Alicja, Rick and I traveled to Venezuela with the CNE with the delegation put together by Code Pink. It was Code Pink that actually received the invitation and David Paul received an invitation as an embassy protector. Let me just give you a little background. The former delegation dates were December 3 through 8. In addition to our observer training, our Code Pink delegation arranged two auxiliary meetings. One meeting was with those sectors of the opposition that did not boycott the elections but rather they participated in the electoral process on December 6. And our second auxiliary meeting was with dissidents Chabistas that ran their own candidates independent of the government coalition. Today I will be speaking with you about life under sanctions and that the elections occurred here in Venezuela despite this enormous hurdle and also that people voted despite the many, many inconveniences that life under sanctions creates for them day to day. Alicja will describe to you the electoral process in Venezuela how elections were and how elections were carried out on December 6. David will share with you what the participatory opposition is saying. So this will be relative to that one of the auxiliary meetings that we had. And I really encourage you to listen very carefully to some of the statements out there with us. These people shared a number of comments and a political position that we simply do not hear in the United States. And then Rick is going to discuss the importance of Venezuela in the hemisphere and beyond as well as what U.S. foreign policy may look like under a Biden administration. And so for all of you viewing this afternoon I just want to tell you we will be open for a Q&A session at the end of our presentations. And we ask you to submit your questions in the Q&A option. We will not be using the chat feature for this webinar. So please put your questions in Q&A. The chat is between us panelists only and is not open to the public. So okay so welcome everybody. And that's just a brief background of what brought all of us to Venezuela earlier this month. I want to just share with you my segment which is really pretty much more of a personal antidote. I've been here since December 3 and will be returning to the States early January. And so let me just share with you a few things that happened on election day. And then I also want to share with you a very personal dinner experience I had on the 24th that I think will help all of you understand the political context here in a different manner than what the U.S. mainstream media narrative is. So the biggest thing here is that I say cut off this because I'm to you live from there. The biggest thing here is that the sanctions make life very chaotic for people personally for businesses for government officials for everybody. And things are also very inefficient because of the sanctions. So it's very very difficult to plan anything when services are intermittent due to the inability to import parts and materials things necessary for maintenance of all sorts of things. Everything from your car to the plumbing in your shower. So we're looking at not being able to maintain water pumps, elevators, the metro system, the cars, buses, taxis, personal automobiles and on and on and on. And of course those are all things that in more detail should and can be handled under a webinar specific to sanctions. So let me just tell you some of the things that happened on election day. I was the morning of December 6. I was in the state of Miranda. And the first thing we saw driving to the polling center were these enormously long gas lines. The gas was supposed to arrive Saturday. It arrived early Sunday morning, I believe 2am and people started getting in line. The lines were hours long and perhaps even days long. So then you also had people having difficulty keeping their cars running. Tires are hard to get when you can't find them. They're expensive. It's same with batteries and belts and everything else that it takes to maintain your personal automobile. And those same things are true with public and private transportation systems including buses and taxis. So under those conditions, how do you get to the polls? Well, people did. And what I saw in Miranda State, despite the long gas lines, people did get to the polls. And one of the things people figured out was somebody sat in the car in the gas line while somebody else went to vote. And then they rotated positions and were able to vote that way. Other people walked. Other people took bicycles. And for people who fully intended to vote and chose not to because they stayed in the gas line. So that is just one aspect of how sanctions affected voter participation. Just whether you wanted to vote or not, those were the things you were, things like that, or what you were up against. People here are up against that every single day. And I have to say, I think all of us on this webinar this afternoon would tell you we were profoundly affected by the number of people who wanted to vote and did vote despite all the international obstacles placed against these elections and the domestic obstacles that the universal coercive measures put on people's daily lives here. It was really very compelling to see the voter participation. And we were very pleased to witness that. So I want to tell you just, I'm going to give you a few personal anecdotes just so you can understand exactly what people live with here. And I think it'll give greater credence to the voter turnout as well, how compelling it was that people did vote. So a couple weeks ago, I was headed to the airport to check on flights, departing flights. And I left with a friend of mine from downtown Caracas. There is a carterra highway that goes between the city and the airport. We were in a car that had bad tires, a bad battery, difficult to find replacement parts. And if you do find them, they're very, very expensive. So instead of driving directly to the airport, we took frontage roads when they were available or even went through a couple neighborhoods and used the side roads in case we broke down, we would have a better chance of finding help. So that's just, you know, logistic wise, that's just an extra hurdle or two you have to go through just to drive what's, I don't know what it is now, it's about a 30, 40 minute drive to the airport. So also, the house that I use here in Venezuela, I'm very fortunate to have a longtime friend and co-got delegation co-guide who allows me to use the family home. That house has a modern bathroom. We take bucket baths in that house because the shower plumbing needs fixed. It's impossible to find parts and the few parts that are available are well beyond the household income. So we are using a modern bathroom and taking bucket baths.  Regarding gas, last night I was supposed to join a Zoom meeting to prepare for tonight, today's webinar. And I was sitting in a friend's car holding that person's space in a gas line last night. And then when that person returned the car, I got on my cell phone. I called another friend of ours to get a motorcycle ride from the gas station over to the hotel I'm staying at that has good Wi-Fi in order for me to participate in our pre-webinar meeting. So these are very simple things for me to say. So that just gives you an idea. The last thing I want to share with you is Christmas dinner. And this is really, really important for you to understand that I'm living in a community called La Pastora. It's a very modest community, principally working class people principally Chavistas with opposition households as well. One of those opposition households lives next door to where I'm living. And I have visited with those people for many years in and out of Venezuela. They invited me and my host to Christmas dinner. So you have this opposition family that did participate in the elections on December 6. And two very strong Chavista household next door I'm staying at. We were openly invited to attend dinner. We had wonderful food, wonderful conversation. And we had some pretty strong arguments as well, but healthy, hearty political discourse. And we had they served us the traditional Venezuela holiday meal, which is ayaca, pan de jamón, and salada de gallina, y pernil, which is pork leg. This is not an inexpensive plate to prepare. And I will tell you, you see all over the country, because this is the national holiday dinner, people did went through astronomical hurdles to make this meal available. And so here are opposition neighbors preparing an expensive meal for their own family. And on top of that, inviting two more people into their house for a holiday dinner. And those two people are Chavista. So I cannot stress to you how important that meal was and that it is more common than not for people of opposing politics to be neighbors, to be friends, to look after one another, to share meals together. That we don't hear. So I want to leave you with those personal impressions as to how people voted on December 6. And I'll pass the baton to Alicja, who's going to talk to you about the physical aspect of elections, the actual process that people use on election day. So thank you, everyone, and welcome Alicja. Thank you, Teri. I am Alicja, and I am not a very able person doing these things, but I want to try my best to be very candid on what I saw and that I want to share with people. Arriving at Caracas was a bit lengthy, and we went through many of the biosafety measures just at the airport. And that took quite a bit of time for us and for all the other delegates that were coming, plus many checks on our passports. There's lots of safety things at the Caracas airport before we arrived to our hotel. Our delegation was housed in a very nice hotel called EuroBuilding, and it had a lot of areas where we were able to mingle with other delegates from other parts of Latin America and some Europeans. For the first day, we went to visit the Comité Nacional Electoral offices, and you can see these delegates from Arabic countries from their clothings and their nice group of people behind them. But many of us, I don't know how many were at this building, and we were actually, we went through the whole process of the election step by step, practicing with the machines just to understand how simple and how friendly and easy it was to do it without any concern making the election, really an available process for people that even were not very diverse and electronics, like myself. So there were about 14,200 boarding sites all over Caracas, and all were equipped, completely equipped by well-trained, see any workers and computers. The next thing that we did was we went to visit, oh I stepped something. So we saw that during this process that we learned that we saw that the universal was made completely universal for anybody that could go and visit the site and go through the simple process for a steps process. It was completely safe. There was a lot of biosafety. They talk a lot about biosafety protocols, which means distancing, mask wearing, hand sanitizing, and so in every site we saw that kind of safety. Also, they were completely, they had to stop all political propaganda. No party could do any political advertising around the whole city of Caracas for I think three or four days before the elections. They also stopped any alcohol from being consumed, and so for that reason the people were very safe. There was not rousing or activities that were not really very civil. The machines, the boarding machines, also once they were used by the person that was going to be boarding, stored secretly the choices of the person that was boarding, and it was completely inaccessible for anybody in that room, but the person, the only spit a little bit, I will talk about it later on, spit a little bit proof of that. As I said before, everybody that could participate could do it and make it a free process. We also visited a site where all the computers were stored, and that site was heavily fortified by military. The military played a very important role supporting not only the infrastructure, but also the places where the machines are stored, and these machines have been outdated completely before and after the elections, so they could not be tampered, damaged, or hacked, but in any way. In fact, these machines are so completely guarded that it would be impossible to do anything against them, except burning the building and that happened just in this year earlier, and so all these machines are completely new. We also walk around the city and we visited different sites and talked to people, and there was a community, not a community, but just a bunch of people that were very enthusiastic about the foreign observers, and that's what they were doing. They were taking pictures, and you can see that these people looked very healthy physically. They were enthusiastic. There's something about the Venezuelan people, about their happiness, their joy, and their pride about the process.  That's how proud they are of their elections. The day of the elections, we were taken into a small, it's not a small, it's another state called Aragua, and in Aragua we were welcomed by the director of the state, the direction of the electoral offices there, and she, of course, again, she showed us every process, every little detail that they were taking care of in Aragua, and again they were supported. You can see a friendly army guy, and there were more army people, and this is the director, and we were sitting in front of her asking questions and being taught about all the things that were going to happen. Their job was to make sure the elections were running well, and if any problem were to happen, they were there to support technology-wise, safety-wise, or in any other way. The voting in itself, it takes about two minutes or a bit more, and there are four clear steps that people go through, and they have a lot of experience because this is not the first election, they have done it many, many times, and so the first one, the first step that they need to go is they show their identification that is checked against an electronic machine, plus they use their finger, you can see this machine is a scanner, and they put their finger in that little hole there, and that opens the machine, the electoral machine, that sends an information to the electoral machine where the computer is open with the information from this particular person based on the fingerprint. In that space, the person can select their candidate, do the vote. No, that's the last stage, Rick. Go back. Can you go back? Okay. So here is the person in the hole with the voting machine selecting their candidate, and that it takes a very, very little time for them, and then this person is going to receive a little proof of the voting, and that little proof is taken to another box, and deposited in that box, and that little tab that proves the voting is going to be used when they edit, when they audit the elections. Yeah, I'm almost finished, yeah. So the final step is people signing up in a roll, in a ballot in roll, where they have actually their signature and fingerprint, and that's checked again during the auditing. Well, there was one thing that was interesting for me, and that was the testigo. This person that you see is a testigo, and to me it was completely interesting to see two people like this person, and there were two of them sitting in the side of the room, and they were not workers, they were not going to vote or any of that, but they were sitting. So I was wondering, what is this person doing here? And I went and I approached one of them, and I asked, what are you doing here? And he said that he was a testigo, a witness, and I said, what are you being a witness for? And he said, from my political party, and the other person was from another political party also being a witness. And I asked him, well, what political party are you a witness? And he said, well, Partido Comunista de Venezuela, and he was very proud when he said that. And for me, that's the first experience, completely out of the world, I had the body in many elections in Walnut Creek. And I never saw a political party witness in my present. And I'm thinking about the Communist Party witness that will have been almost impossible. So I will tell you that I was super impressed with the training of all the committee national electoral workers, they did the outstanding job, the process of the voting was completely easy, safe, secure, free for anybody that could participate in the elections, regardless of their education, their political affiliation, or their wealth, or any of that. This is an experience that makes me very proud of having been international observer. Thank you for your patience. And David is coming after me with a little bit more interesting explanation of the environment of before the elections and after. Do you hear me? Yes. Okay, hi. Yeah, I just wanted to say a little, it may be basic for some, but maybe not for others, just say a little bit about a history of political parties in a little historical context. For many decades, the political landscape was dominated in Venezuela by two parties that took turns, basically Democratic Action Party and the Social Christian Party. They're basically neoliberal policies and there was quite a uprising against those right before, which led to Hugo Chavez being elected in 1999. He used the wealth of the oil revenues to help the poor establish regional alliances independent from the US domination. And this led to a 20-year economic war and effort to destabilize the Venezuelan government and interference in their elections, threats against candidates who did not boycott elections, funding right-wing opposition and basically backing the coup in 2002 where they kidnapped Hugo Chavez. In 2015, the opposition won the National Assembly elections and this emboldened their efforts for regime change. In 2018, Maduro was re-elected as president in a very open election, similar to one we just observed. In 2019, Guaido, who was a very unknown deputy in the National Assembly, and sort of, as I understand it, by just a routine rotation, was assigned the president of the National Assembly. He, after consultation with Pence and Trump, declared himself president of the country. It was illegal, it was no constitutional basis for it, but he and his far-right colleagues have continued this opposition agenda, which is calling for foreign intervention, sabotage of infrastructure, taking over embassies in other countries, mercenary attacks, assassination attempts, threats for military invasion, and increased sanctions, which is what Terry referred to some of the effects of that. And all of this has prevented any kind of recovery from the economic crisis which Maduro faced, given the drop in oil prices when he first came into office and the economic sanctions, which began with Obama, well, not just with Obama, but made worse when he declared Venezuela as an economic security threat to the United States. But despite all this economic crisis, the sabotage and threats, Maduro was always committed to having some dialogue with the opposition. And he met a number of them this last summer, including the Catholic Church, and they made an agreement to be against, to end the need for the end of sanctions. They negotiated an increase in the number of delegate seats in the National Assembly and also some new members for the Electoral Council. But the far-right was still characterized by Juan Guaido of the Popular Will Party and Leopoldo López of the First Justice Party. Both of them were implicated in the violent and deadly protests in 2014 and 2017. And Guaido was also implicated in the corruption and theft of many of the funds that were seized when the U.S. absconded the Sitco oil refineries owned by Venezuela and the United States. The disincreasing suffering of the people, the shortages of medicine, shortages of food, and other vital spare parts of the sanctions, and this treasonous activity by Juan Guaido and the far-right was something the moderate opposition groups wanted to distance themselves from and they decided to participate in this National Assembly election. The Democratic Action and the Social Christian, the two main previous parties participated and many others. Falcón, who belonged to the Progressive Advance Party, who actually ran against Maduro in 2018, he participated and he said the far-right policies were basically a fantasy and that only the electoral path was the way to go. Capriles, a far-right leader who ran for president in the past, he said that there is no leadership in the opposition currently. And he had mentioned to the United States that they should ignore Guaido, that he's not the leader that they should be paying attention to. We had this meeting, which Terry referred to, with the five of the main opposition moderate groups. They had an alliance, they called the Democratic Alliance, and some of the things they expressed were very frustrated that there was no progress from the policies of the far-right, and they seemed to be more in line with the interests of the United States instead of Venezuela. They felt there was a great need to restore the Democratic political process through elections. They all denounced the sanctions, the violent and undemocratic actions of the far-right. And although they thought there were some irregularities in this election process of the National Assembly, sometimes not enough access on state media, although there was many other media, they said that it was not fraud. It was not a fraudulent election. And they also said that they would tell the United States, the new administration, that. Some other quotes from some of the representatives there, the movement for change rep said, reconciliation is vital, and we must end the dual government with two presidents and two national assemblies. The Progressive Advance Party rep, Falcone's party, said the sanctions are only hurting the Venezuelan people, and there needs to be negotiations, not confrontation. The hope for change rep said, we need to end the polarization. And they felt that their Democratic alliance was caught between the challenge of working with a corrupt, inefficient government, as they saw it, and a radical opposition using violence and undemocratic means. Also, there was a left-wing opposition of various groups, and they formed an alliance called the Popular Revolutionary Alternative. They were independent of the ruling party, which was a little unusual for these elections. They are quite critical of some of the concessions they feel the government is making to the right, and concerned with labor rights, wages, and privatization. But despite all the hardships that this government and the people have been facing, the shortages, the fuel, the pandemic, I agree with what's been said already. It was very impressive that nearly six million people still came out and voted, and two-thirds of them voted for the government party, the United Socialist Party. The fact that this election even occurred in many opposition parties now are participating is an example of the Venezuelan people asserting their sovereignty and resisting U.S. interference in their elections and their internal affairs. Yes, the right is very divided, and the left has a lot of serious critiques of the government. But the main opposition party here is the U.S. government itself. It still remains a great threat to the peace and stability of Venezuela, and Venezuela faces many challenges as we go ahead. And I think Rick is going to talk about some of those in his talk, and I'll hand it over to him. Okay. Thanks very much, David, and it's great to be with you all today. It was an exciting time going to Venezuela. It was difficult traveling on the plane with a mask the entire way, and they were very cautious. They had a lot of biosecurity measures in Venezuela, as Elisha was mentioning. The December 6 national assembly election in Venezuela was an important milestone, and it's not just the socialist government that's saying that leaders of the opposition also said the same thing. They said the election of the new national assembly should put an end to the pretense that there are two national assemblies and two presidents. The election should confirm that there's only one legitimate national assembly and one legitimate president. That is President Maduro. The oppositional leaders thanked us for coming to Venezuela to be an election observers, and they expressed the hope that we would convey the reality that U.S. sanctions are profoundly hurting the Venezuelan people and should be stopped. They also conveyed the hope that we can normalize relations between our two countries. These opposition leaders said that Venezuela is a sovereign country and should be allowed to chart its own course without foreign pressure and influence. So one might ask why has the U.S. been so hostile? Probably it's because Venezuela has been independent ever since Hugo Chávez was elected president of Venezuela. In 2004 Venezuela and Cuba initiated the Bolivarian Alliance known as ELBA, along with seven other Latin American Caribbean countries. They promoted mutually beneficial trade outside the domination of the United States. For many years when oil prices were extremely high, Venezuela was a lifesaver to those countries providing cheap oil to all of them. In 2005, Venezuela launched the satellite-based TV and media network known as TELASUR. This allowed for education and news programming from an independent and progressive perspective, breaking the domination of U.S. and oligarch controlled networks. In 2006, President Hugo Chávez addressed the United Nations General Assembly with courage and accuracy, but also much humor he referred to U.S. President Bush, the previous speaker, as the devil. He noted that the scent of sulfur was still in the air at the podium. This brought a lot of laughs from the audience, but Hugo Chávez went on to make a very important point that the U.S., that the United Nations needs to be reformed so that it can do its job more effectively. Unfortunately, this has not been successful. The United Nations is still weak and violations of international law continue with impunity. Just four months ago, on August 14th, the U.S. illegally seized oil tankers, four oil tankers headed for Venezuela with precious oil. The U.S. hijacked the tankers, took them to Houston, and offloaded 1.1 million barrels of fuel. As a result of sanctions on refineries, airports, and chemicals, plus the seizure of refined petroleum such as this, Venezuela is facing a severe energy crisis directly imposed by the United States. If the United States doesn't wish to trade with Venezuela, that's their right. That's the right of the government, but it is entirely different matter when the United States seeks to prevent any country from trading with Venezuela. That harkens back to the infamous Monroe Doctrine and is a clear violation of the United Nations Charter. We had a private meeting with Venezuela's Deputy Foreign Minister for North America, Carlos Roan. We asked him about his thoughts about the incoming Biden administration. We were quite curious about that. Carlos said he's not optimistic. He thinks that the Biden and the Democrats may even be worse. The Democrats put on an air of showing about human rights, but they continued to interfere with other countries. Carlos Roan also had interesting observations about the impact of Exile Venezuelans in Florida who he said were playing a similar role to that of the Cuban Americans in Florida. They demonize their homeland and support US aggression. They don't feel the pain caused by the sanctions. Florida is an influential state in the United States system, as we know, so the lobbying and the pressure of Venezuelan Exiles, if it's unchecked, can be especially dangerous. A few days before the election on December 2, Carlos Roan wrote an op-ed published at the Veldai Discussion Club. He makes the point that Venezuela wins just by carrying out its election. He notes that in recent months progressive forces have voted in several countries. In Bolivia, the candidate for the movement towards socialism, Luis Arce, won the presidential race. This reverses the bloody coup against Evo Morales from one year ago. In Chile, the birthplace of Latin American neoliberalism, Chileans voted overwhelmingly yes in historic referendum to rewrite their constitution that was put in place by the dictator Augusto Pinochet. Venezuelans voted for their national assembly on December 6 despite constant pressure and efforts to undermine and sabotage the election. In March of this year, almost all the existing election machines were destroyed in a very suspicious fire. Almost 40,000 new voting machines had to be built, tested, and certified to carry out the election and they did it. The U.S. even imposed sanctions against individual members of the opposition who agreed to run in the election. That's how bad it is. As Carlos Roan wrote, quote, the new U.S. administration will have to decide if it will continue to recognize a non-existent government with no clear or constitutional path through legitimacy. The new national assembly will no longer be a platform for politicians to plead for U.S. intervention. Instead, the new national assembly can push legislation to overcome the blockade and it can turn into a new space for real political dialogue between the government and opposition. Challenges will continue but the U.S. will need to reassess its Monroe doctrine. For Venezuela and the Latin American progressive movement, these elections will be another victory of resistance and resilience. So that was Venezuela's deputy foreign minister Carlos Roan talking about us just a couple of days after the election. Finally, I want to recommend a book for those who are on the call today interested to learn more about Venezuela. I read it very recently myself. It's Dan Kovalik's book, The Plot to Overthrow Venezuela, How the U.S. is Orchestrating a Coup for Oil. It was published in 2019. It's very readable, concise, and accurate. It gives a good overview of how Venezuela was dominated by the U.S., how it broke free with Hugo Chavez, how it has struggled valiantly to preserve its independence for the last two decades. Dan's book gives details of Venezuela in the overall context of U.S. foreign policy based on empire. Now it's up to us to put maximum pressure on the Biden administration to stop interfering in Venezuela. We hope we will be able to work together with all the people on the call and invite you to contact us. For all our sakes, the U.S. needs a new foreign policy of respect and noninterference in the affairs of other countries. It is vital that Venezuela be able to govern itself and develop however it chooses. Thank you very much. And thanks for coming today to today's presentation. And I think we've got 10 minutes or so for questions. Thank you, everyone. Thank you to Alicia, to David, and Rick. And there's two things I'd like to share with all of you watching this afternoon before. I think we have three or four questions. But there's a couple, two things I would like to just be clear about. Our delegation meeting with Carlos Ron occurred on the evening of December 7. We were, we met with him and of course he is, you know, a member of the diplomatic corps of the Venezuelan government. We met with him after the elections and also after we had delivered our delegation report to the C&E president. And then just to clarify the situation with Juan Guaido and the National Assembly, the session of the National Assembly in which he stood up and declared himself president, we should all be clear that that session of the legislature has expired. Just like in the U.S. Congress, you know, when a session is over, it's over and you open up a new session. That new session of the National Assembly will open on January 5, and the new assembly members will be sworn in. And so this is when, I think, when David mentioned the meeting with the opposition leaders that this whole magical, wishful thinking of two parallel governments will go away January 5. And so it's going to be very curious as to how the U.S. chooses to handle that because that session with Juan Guaido is over. So let me just take a quick look at some of the questions that have come in. I know I saw something, I think I saw it in the chat, so excuse me. But Alan Fisher, I think if you're still there, you were asking if about the transition in party leadership and presidential leadership and perhaps a woman, I will encourage the other three panelists to answer this as well. But please keep in mind that the current vice president is a woman. Delcey Rodriguez is the vice president. And so I think we can all presume that she's in that position because of her past experience, her talent, and is perhaps even being groomed for a higher office. So does anybody else want to add to that? So, okay. Laura, hi, Laura Wells. Laura is asking what Latin American countries are still part of the Pink Tide. Are any other countries positioned to join the Pink Tide? Maybe Rick, that's a good one for you. Actually, I was looking at some other questions. I think the question was about the Pink Tide. Basically, it looks like in Argentina, you had the election of Cristina Fernandez and the other, the Fernandez team that overturned the ultra-right government in the past. That was a very progressive step. Of course, in Bolivia, as we were talking about in October, they had the very important election which reversed the coup, the election in Chile. Bolsonaro is on shaky grounds in Brazil. In Nicaragua, Nicaragua is also very important because along with Venezuela and Cuba and Bolivia and formerly under Ecuador, under President Correa, that was a block of countries that strengthened each other. So I think what's critical, what's really critical now is that Venezuela be able to survive through this very difficult period and strengthen. And it's, the tide was going against what they call the Pink Tide, but now it looks like it's going the other direction and things are moving in a more hopeful trend. So thank you, Rick. Does anybody else want to add to that? Okay, so we have a series of questions here from Susan Scott. Hi, Susan. Thank you for joining us tonight. So Susan asks, what do you think should be at the top of our list for advocacy regarding Venezuela? End of sanctions, end of recognition of Guaido, and how should we best do that advocacy? Letter to the Biden team, assist in Venezuelan, oh, the international, oh, the ICC complaint, sorry, ICC complaint, work with right opposition, Falcón, Capriles, or the left opposition, or both, and please give us websites for ongoing information on Venezuelan English and Spanish. Okay, who wants to tackle all or part of that, or should we each kind of chime in? I'll type in a couple of very good websites, and maybe David can take a crack at the other question. Yeah, I was going to suggest Orinoco Tribune and Venezuela Analysis for two things. Also, Alliance for Global Justice has a lot of good information on Latin America as well as, in terms of advocacy, I think ending this, I don't think the United States cares too much either administration about international law and the international court. But, I mean, any avenue through the UN, the International Court of Justice, criminal court is all important. I think we have to make more visibility in the media, using social media, media in general, letters to the editor about the effects of sanctions, the cruelty and illegality of sanctions. And of course, pressure our representatives. There is hardly any voice at all in Congress speaking out against the sanctions, specifically on Venezuela. And there should be a voice there, and people should be pressuring their local representatives. Of course, you can write letters and send petitions to Biden, but I think it's going to come through other channels. But yeah, there's all kind of avenues. I don't think there's one thing that people should be doing, but I think speaking against the sanctions and highlighting the effects of the sanctions is really important to keep highlighting. Does anybody else have anything else they want to add? I mean, I guess, Susan, and for the audience in general, Susan knows this personally, that so much of my Latin America work for the last five, 10 years has been focused on Venezuela and specifically the last five years work on lifting the sanctions. And I personally feel the work regarding sanctions really has to go to the community level in the United States in order for us to better influence congressional members on the Hill. There is a sense in the United States that sanctions are not a form of warfare. And I think that's the biggest work we all have to do is educating the American population of all demographics that sanctions are hybrid warfare. And there's this tendency to say, well, we're not dropping bombs on Venezuela or Iran or North Korea or Syria or any of the other 35 countries under sanctions right now, 33% of the world's population. To really get people to understand that, no, there's no bombs being dropped. There's no troops on the ground. But sanctions are a form of warfare. And I think we could argue are even a more egregious form as they're a slow form of genocide. And for me, that's really where the crux of my anti sanctions work is this broader educational effort for the American for the US population as a whole. And with a better informed public, we have a better chance of influencing Congress from DC pushing down and from local communities pushing, pushing up. So I just want to add, I agree with that. The media war is something that's confusing. And the propaganda that comes through the media. So we do have to, we have to educate the public to put that pressure, I totally agree. And people can do that however they can. But we need to educate people. Okay. What's the status? Susan Scott is asking the status of the Venezuelan embassy in Washington. Do you know David? Well, it is empty after they kicked the activists who were trying to defend the embassy out and arrested us. They let the Guaidos, Vecchio, fake ambassador go in for some photo ops and then left and then they boarded it up. So it's not being used as an embassy. There is no personnel who can do any diplomatic or embassy functions because the Guaidó and his people have no power to do that. So it is empty. And also the US embassy in Caracas as well. So it is basically not functioning as an embassy. There's a question about the conversation with the left opposition. Can you comment on that? Maybe Terry or David briefly? It should be Terry. I wasn't in that meeting. Oh yeah. Yeah. So this was a meeting that our second auxiliary meeting that we organized with Paul Dobson of Venezuelan analysis. And he shared with us the, you know, there is, there are dissident Chavistas and that they, instead of joining the government coalition for this year's National Assembly elections, they formed their own coalition. It had very, very small turnout. But I think the takeaway from that conversation, first of all, dissident leftists are allowed a voice and a political space in the country. And so are the opposition as long as they're not violent and or trying to overthrow the government, which those people wouldn't be allowed to behave that way in pretty much any other country on the planet as well. So it was what was interesting for me personally and the rest of you please feel free to join in was that some of the some of the dissatisfaction expressed by the dissident left was not different from a couple of the things expressed by the participatory opposition. One, they didn't feel there was equal media access and part of that was their own financial weaknesses as political parties, not not solely the government. And they felt the electoral process was free and fair and absent of fraud, which is why they chose to form their own political coalition and participate in the elections. So they're dissatisfied with some I think David mentioned a good part of this that the some of the neoliberal sprinklings of neoliberalism that they see entering the economic system here in Venezuela. But and that there's and lifting the sanctions and and keeping the US out. So it was a really it was a very interesting conversation. And again, I want to emphasize the fact that they are dissidents, dissident leftist, but they were allowed political space to form their own parties and to participate in the elections. So is there anything else you want to add? All right. It's, I guess we should wrap up. Do we have time for one more? Why don't we take one more and then and then we'll just let all of you know that this has been recorded this evening. And so we have the ability to watch again. And share it with you. So I don't know, there's a number of questions here. What do you, what do you guys? So Mark Stansbury is asking speak more to this impact on low intensity conflicts such as embargoes, sanctions, blockades, drones, unilateralism, coups, etc. Oh my gosh, Mark, that's like a webinar in another cell. I mean, a really, really good one.  And I guess I will just say, as far as sanctions, you know, was really, really, you know, clear being here, all of us, to see the many, many obstacles that the people and the government the people of all political persuasions were up against on election day that, you know, there was, there's so many international hindrances and domestic handicaps to participate in yet people did. But I think everything that you have mentioned embargoes, sanctions, blockade, those are forms of hybrid war, as we spoke about earlier, and their forms and drones. Since they don't involve, you know, human beings flying them in the air, just from, you know, a ground base. U.S. citizens have really become, in my opinion, and the rest of you please join in in this, really anesthetized to the horrors of war. And that's why I mentioned earlier, the work regarding lifting sanctions embargoes blockades really has, for me personally, has to begin with educating the U.S. population, you know, in neighborhoods in communities so that people understand it is heinous form of warfare, a form of slow genocide, and it is equally if not more gruesome than forms of warfare that U.S. citizens are used to seeing. I want to just add, Rick, to that point, another resource is sanctionskill.org has a lot of resources, a toolkit for people to, for public education around the sanctions, and there's a national coalition of many activist groups working on specifically on sanctions, so sanctionskill.org. I would encourage people to check that out, as well as those other resources we mentioned before. Thanks, Nick. Before we wrap up, maybe, Terry, you could comment. We've got a question from Anne Wright. Are there many U.S. citizens living in Venezuela and any U.S. NGOs with programs in Venezuela? Well, hi, Anne. I'm so happy you're with us this evening.  You know, the diplomatic corps left February, I believe they had a two-day march to the airport evacuating the embassy. But those are really good questions, Anne, and I will, while I'm still here for another week or two, I will look into that because they're both really good questions and really be fascinating to know how many U.S. citizens are actually living here at this point and also which NGOs are still on the ground and active. So that's some good research for me to do while I'm still here. And thank you for the question. Yeah. So, so shall we wrap up now? Yeah, let me just say before it, before we let all of you go, David had mentioned sanctionskill.org, and I want to just take this moment to promote a sanctions kill Friends of the ATC delegation to Nicaragua, February 13 through 23rd. It is yes to sovereignty, no to sanctions. It is a delegation itinerary focused on studying the early phase of a U.S. sanctions regime. So many of us participating this evening, we have followed Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea, and a number of other countries that have been under sanctions for many, many years and we're familiar with how that regime works and what the long-term effects are. But this trip in February will allow you to see the early stages of a sanctions regime. And so that will be an educational delegation to study that. And you can find more information at sanctionskill.org and Friends of the ATC.