From official terror to article 350 - 5) taking off Ortega before 350

Writing this series of articles with long delays in between actually helped me a lot, proving that procrastination pays: the events of today establish beyond doubt that civil rebellion is the lone thing left for the Venezuelan population at large. I say "at large" in all confidence as there is no serious pollsters, even among those who predicted Chavez victories years ago, that gives the regime and Maduro much more that 20%.  And this assuming that they can correct for the fear factor in their polling. The evidence is clear: even in a bad day the opposition drags quickly to the streets, in almost any Venezuelan city, more people to protest than the regime as a whole can do just in Caracas for support, after days of preparation.

We are not discussing anymore the regime "rights" to remain in office: that ship has sailed long ago even though it is still trying to find the shipping lane between Saint Vincent and Mustique. But that is another story; today not even Salvador and Ecuador are unconditional allies

Before we get into the application of article 350 let me summarize briefly what has happened in the recent days. The whole show has been around the regime trying to eliminate Luisa Ortega, the nation's general prosecutor, the head of the lone organization allowed to investigate any civilian criminal conduct. Clearly, that she has separated from the regime is unacceptable because, well, the regime has too much to hide, and will have much more to hide as criminal repression progresses.

So, when she became unreliable in April the regime decided, violating once again the 1999 constitution, to send protesting civilians to military courts because they supposedly committed treason. Never mind that even treason has to be tried in civilian courts when civilians commit this, the whole point was to sow terror in protesters, and browbeat Ortega, taking away from her competencies. Let's note that no matter her role as regime enforcer in the past she would still make a more just prosecutor than any military court in Venezuela....  But let's not digress.

Since then the escalation was on, from both sides.

Ortega from mild discreet criticism went to address the opposition controlled National Assembly on Monday July 3. Her prudence was good as the opposition could not digest too fast the woman that had offered the rigged evidence for the rigged trial of Leopoldo Lopez. But the opposition, at least the thinking one, realizes that today we cannot be picky about our allies, be it Trump taking a selfie with Leopoldo's wife, be it Ortega jailing Lilian's husband. We are all growing up.

The regime cannot make a solid case against Luisa Ortega. After all trying to make a rational case against her in seeking her removal from office would be akin to a political hara-kiri from nearly two decades of injustice in Venezuela. So in true form the regime decided that she was a liar and possibly mad. For that the regime got its worst piece of garbage, representative Carroña Carreño to present a petition of destitution against Ortega which details are irrelevant for you to know since the result is already known: within hours she will be removed from office even though the constitution does not allow it the way the regime is operating against her.  But who's counting?

So today we had Ortega refusing to go to her accusation hearing on the grounds that she did not recognize the court as illegitimate and out of constitution, Carroña Carreño outperforming himself and the two sad sacks of the "citizen power" demanding to pass a lie detector. A useless performance since both of them have been liars for so long that I bet their body has ceased to recognize whether they are lying.

I will leave at that. The point is made, the regime will do anything, ANYTHING to retain power.  You have on one side the AC shows in courts like today but you have on the other side the paramilitary colectivos of the regime which have been unleashed finally over the population, even using official transport....

The heat was on today.  There was a programmed "trancazo" from noon to 6 PM.  Since I live in El Cafetal, a nexus of resistance, they did not need me to block the local avenues, nor could I go elsewhere to help. So I made it home back before noon. As I went for a short nap I was frightened by the amount of gun shots coming from the Caracas valley. I heard dozens and dozens, perhaps hundreds, of shots as pellets or tear gas grenades were shot a protesters blocking highways....  I gathered they came mostly from Petare, La Urbina, El Marques and La California.  Repression is not anymore just in Altamira...