While President Obama has showed continued foreign policy weakness by staying silent on the violence the Maduro regime has inflicted upon the citizens of Venezuela, the House of Representatives has just passed H.R. 4587, the Venezuelan Human Rights and Democracy Protection Act.

Florida Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart (R) released this statement about the passage of the bill.

“For the past 15 years, the people of Venezuela have experienced the corruption and brutality of the Chavez-Maduro dictatorship, and within the last 3 months, that has culminated in serious acts of violence and aggression towards students and others. These students and their supporters were peacefully protesting the corruption, food shortages, soaring crime rates, and alarming repression that have worsened during Maduro’s rule. In return, they have seen more than 3,000 people arrested, hundreds injured, and more than 40 people killed. It is time to put an end to the oppression, violence, and political intimidation and hold these human rights abusers accountable. Those complicit with egregious acts of human rights violations must be named and shamed, and should face the consequences of their actions.

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“With the passage of this bill, the United States House of Representatives is standing in solidarity with the Venezuelan people as they struggle to regain democracy and freedom from the Maduro regime. I urge the Senate to move this bill quickly to the President’s desk.”-Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R)

Just as Diaz-Balart called on the Senate to take up the bill and send it over to the President, his neighbor (their Miami offices in the same building and floor) and colleague, Senator Marco Rubio, also released a statement regarding the bill’s passage, calling on the Senate to push forward his Venezuela Defense of Human Rights and Civil Society Act of 2014.

Here is Rubio’s statement:

“The House has taken an important step to call attention to the gross human rights violations being committed in Venezuela by Maduro regime officials and sanctioning those responsible. The full Senate should also move on Venezuela sanctions legislation when it returns next week.

“We are now approaching the four month mark since Venezuelan students took to the streets to demand a better future and their fundamental rights, only to be met with violent and even deadly force by the Maduro regime. Sanctions on the individuals responsible are long overdue.”-Sen. Marco Rubio (R)

Rubio has taken the lead on the Venezuela issue, and has even garnered the attention of Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro, who recently called the Florida Senator, “the crazy of the crazies.”

This coming from a man who swears that the late Hugo Chavez appeared to him in the form of a small bird. Maduro never divulged the typed of bird Chavez appeared to him as, but many are speculating that it was a Coo Coo bird.