This year, as anti-regime protests have spread, the FAES death squads have turned nakedly political, with the same units that cut their teeth killing suspected criminals with impunity turning on people suspected of holding political protests against the regime. The spread of death-squad tactics has been one of the most stomach-churning aspects of this year’s political crisis — with mass fear spreading through poorer areas and just a handful of victims daring to come forward and tell their stories on the record…

In a grotesque display of contempt for the Venezuelan mothers grieving for their children the Maduro regime has murdered in recent weeks, Omar chose to use her stage to attack the U.S. envoy, Elliott Abrams, for decades-old abuses in Central America. Showcasing astonishing insensitivity to the victims of a human rights catastrophe that is still ongoing today, she disgraced her perch in Congress and scored an invaluable propaganda victory to the regime sponsoring the exact type of human rights abuses she imagines herself to be opposing.