Chavez News and Views

Chavez ghost spoketh? Spooketh?

A little bit away of things I find out that this week end excitement has been a recording from Chavez still alive, or speaking from the nether world, or a fake, or something. To be fair I use an Argentinean link, INFOBAE, to report on the news (?) and the sound track.  Least I am accused to be a supporter @jjrendon who probably saw his Twitter numbers improve this weekend as the regime in full force attacked him on that voice over.

The society Chavez has left us: barbarians inside the gate

Women and men both trying to loot the truck. See all
the open boxes already spread around. They did not
come from a spray through the truck cabin....

For those idiotic enough to think that Chavez opened a new era and ushered in a new man: you are right but you are not going to like it.

This morning a truck broke the security barrier in a Caracas highway exchange and got stuck in the middle of the highway. The truck carried packs of frozen meat. It was 6 AM. Within minutes there were already people trying to loot the truck instead than trying to save the driver, who ended up dead later. The cops came and stopped for a while the actions. But since the Caracas main highway was paralyzed, motorbikes came from all around and started trying to rob all the unhappy drivers stuck in traffic.

At 9 AM about 300 bikers arrived and tried to overpower the police security people who had to call for reinforcement. Of course, the idea was to loot the truck...

The disaster blocked the whole city all the way until downtown (photo included in the link)

From a breeze to a storm for Maduro

UPDATED. The pace of events against Maduro has sped up through the week. From being annoyed by his preparation trip to the UN assembly and China it has become a badly reviewed trip top China, a dismal fiasco at the UN and now the questions about his birth have been whipped into a froth. There is open comment around that Maduro days are numbered as the army may be asking him to resign, not as a coup but because he was illegally elected president of Venezuela. And he has only his own idiocy to blame though the trigger may have been the narco activities of the Venezuelan state.

Let's recap some.

Maduro: you stole my coke? I get a free Airbus from you!

Always in the shop.....

After writing my post this afternoon on chavismo divisions events precipitated a little and I am back at the key board. The question to resolve tonight is why did Maduro not attend the UN general assembly? This is not an idle question because a few days ago the man made a temper tantrum as to the US allegedly not allowing him to fly over Puerto Rico, or denying visas to his entourage, things proven wrong since.

The official version came in tonight in a cadena where Maduro surprised us with two things. First, he did not go to the UN because "they" were preparing offenses against him (that he will reveal when convenient). They being Otto Reich, Roger Noriega and Luis Posada Carriles, two passé out of jobs US operators and a near dead anti Castro warrior, none of them, if you ask me, able to do much against Maduro while in New York. The best way to establish that is that the new Iranian president had no problem going around town to make his speech today and he is a way bigger threat to the Western World than Maduro is. Then again that he is not taken as a threat may be what truly obfuscated Maduro.....

Nowhere to go for chavismo

It is always sobering when you read that even a firebrand like Marianella Salazar writes in a major paper about the possibility of a coup, naturally,  as if she were talking about what to do next Sunday after the family BBQ.  I do not know about her sources to take this eventuality such matter-of-factly, but one thing is certain: major governmental paralysis is only too often the surest sign of a regime/government change. Hit your history books.

The fact of the matter is that since Chavez left for Cuba the country has been basically on standby. For all the electoral pandering the lone economic decision of importance taken was the devaluation in February which has turned out to be a mere robbery as most private debt of 2012 at 4.3 to the dollar has been paid, if paid, at 6.3 to the dollar. A 40%+ robbery. True, there has been an attempt at reducing expenses though with misguided targets, and probably all efforts voided by the latest loan from China which is for electoral purposes, and once again, leaving us into yet more national debt (I have read 60% of PIB which is terrible for a country that produces nothing of value for export).

The Venezuelan narco-state caught pants down in Paris: a price to pay

I need to come back to this 1.3 tons of cocaine seized in Paris airport because I think it is as clear an example for all to see on how deep into narco-statism we have descended, and how the rest of the world knows it and deals accordingly.

The electoral future of chavismo as seen in East Germany

So we had a smashing victory for Merkel yesterday in Germany though it will be rather difficult for her to establish a solid coalition since she blithely disposed of her FDP allies. But that is her problem. What is more interesting for this electoral maps freak are the gorgeous voting maps results published all around.  In Speigel I found this one that made me think a lot: the percentile results for Die Linke.

See, Die Linke is the freak far left party founded by those who never digested the end of commie East Germany. True, they did try to improve their brand with a few SPD dissidents but the result is that contrary to what happens in France with Front de Gauche, no one wants to be caught dead with Linke leadership. Not the SPD, not the Greens and less the CDU of the FDP.

Airplanes ferrying drugs and pseudo presidents out of Venezuela

Valls, French Interior Minister, receiving
Venezuelan exports to Paris

This week the post Chavez regime has made it into aeronautical news big time. On one hand it tried to make up an international scandal upon a presumed US denial of air space overflight, and on the other an Air France flight coming from Caracas was carrying over 1 ton of high grade cocaine estimated at 200 million euros street value. In both cases the heirs of Chavez look their worst.

Let's start with the aerial flyby that was not.

Apparently Maduro would have us believe that the nasty US did not want him to fly over Puerto Rico. But now that some of the dust settled it looks that the maneuver was a clumsy one to try to paint the US as evil, a maneuver that has all the looks of conspiracy judging how fast the friends of Maduro supported him: Evo and Correa. Neuman at the New York Times gives the full details, including the unnecessary detour over Puerto Rico when seasoned travelers to Paris from Caracas know they fly over either Guadeloupe or Martinique, according to the winds. The AP also echoes the doubt about how much of the "incident" was messy Venezuelan organization or deliberate entrapment to score an easy point. Interestingly the scene also revealed once again that Venezuelan presidents travel though Cuban planes, perpetuating the mystery as to whatever happened to the two presidential airplanes of the country, the inherited one from pre Chavez and the custom made airbus that costed gazillions and yet flew only a very few years with Chavez on board.

The louder the Maduro's regime shouts, the weaker it reveals itself

The offensive these past few days by Maduro is a sight to behold.  He is all out to destroy the opposition, either through his own threats or other means announced by his associates. But all of this ruckus cannot hide the crude reality: the legitimacy of the regime is falling, fast.

A post not about Venezuela

I really, really do not want to write about our mess. Fortunately putting up this great cartoon from the Economist will allow us to see the importance of next week end German elections. Even for Venezuela which could use well a dose of Merkelmedicine.  And will require one anyway, anytime soon.

Maduro's main problem, is not necessarily Cabello

The guessing game these days, featured today even on Zeta front page, is whether "president" Maduro will finish off his real rival, Diosdado Cabello. I am of the school of those that think that Maduro has somewhat comforted his hold inside chavismo but that this is mostly circumstantial, in view of the December vote. The reckoning starts the day after.  But the main problem in Maduro complex situation is probably a very simple one: "it's the economy, stupid!"; except that it has a very, very different meaning in Venezuela than what Clinton implied 20 years ago.

¿Puede durar Maduro?

Publicado en Codigo Venezuela pero como no salieron los enlaces lo vuelvo a poner aquí abajo.

Can Maduro last long?

For the last few days I was mulling a post on how long the chavista regime could survive. (Note: that it survives a week or ten years is not the real point, what we are discussing here are the means it uses for its survival).  But Miguel sort of hopped ahead even though his post is lacking addressing the motivation of these people "[they have] no scruples". Really.....  Still, Miguel covers quite well how the regime can muddle his way through financially for quite a few more months or years, and thus there is really nothing I can add on this respect. However, on other aspects there is a whole lot more that can be added as to reasons why the regime may survive longer than logic would dictate.

Fascist "journalists" inside the Nazional Assembly of Venezuela

Sometimes there are little items that truly freeze you blood. A certain Dayra Manuela Rivas is a "journalist" at the National Assembly and its TV network, ANTV which is supposed to be our local version of C-span but that is nothing less than a propaganda outlet where opposition representatives not only cannot participate but are now excoriated. You just need to look at the front page to see that ANTV is nothing else but crap, and at tax payer expense.

Just to make sure that you can
see by yourselves that it comes
from the web page of the
Nazional Assembly of VNZL

Today La Patilla revealed an OpEd (yeah, right...) dedicated to trash in the vilest terms Maria Corina Machado. Of course, MCM has been trashed for years along anyone that criticizes the regime. What is novel here is that she is blasted, without evidence, without proof, already sentenced in the web site of the Nazional Assembly of Venezuela by that little shit of Dayra Rivas. The article is not even original, it has all the cliches in use by the regime, all the "reminders" of past crimes that are STILL without trial, without evidence, charges repeated endlessly in the hope that it will make them true.

Apocalypto Caracazu Titanicos

It is difficult to truly understand what a major power outage is unless you have experienced it in Caracas, at 2 PM, in a working day.

Suriname's Bouterse to preside over UNASUR, yet another fail for Brazil

I had just finished a post on Syria and checked twitter quickly. Alas, I need to write a second post....

Syrians travelling to Munich

We cannot call it quite a disaster yet, but it is getting dangerously close.