Rex Tillerson all but declares war on Maduro narco dictatorship

This video is self explanatory.

EN VIDEO | Rex Tillerson: "El régimen corrupto y hostil de Maduro en Venezuela se aferra a un sueño falso y visión anticuados de la región que ya ha sido un fracaso para sus ciudadanos. No representa la visión de millones de venezolanos." pic.twitter.com/Fh3NpqiZ4n

— Alberto Rodríguez (@AlbertoRodNews) February 1, 2018

You have been put on notice.

The regime tries to play hard ball

I suspect that the live coverage yesterday of the new National Assembly chair election by Globovision must have irked a lot the regime. That must account for today's news, at least in part.

Masochist Felipe Gonzalez goes to Venezuela (and he has followers)

And he certainly found all the sadist he can wish for inside chavismo. Since Gonzalez announced he will volunteer to be in the defense team of Leopoldo Lopez and Antonio Ledezma the improprieties thrown at him, live on television preferably, can only be matched by the constant character assassination on these two prisoners.

With Europe behind?

It is indeed rather horrendous to watch on Venezuelan state TV how these people are excoriated, without any right to reply, not even with the courtesy of having a journalist exposing distortedly their point of view. In fact it is going to the point that RT (Russia Today) and TeleSur make joint "documentaries" on the world aggression against Venezuela and Russia. Forget Glasnost, welcome back Der schwarze Kanal.

The source of all that anger is that ex premier Gonzalez of Spain, the one that did the most to bring Spain tot he XXI century standards has decided to join the defense team of Leopoldo Lopez and Antonio Ledezma (and by implication of all political prisoners). And he has been joined by other heavy weights already: former Brazil president Cardoso, former Peru president Garcia, former Mandela's lawyer and Canadian justice minister Colter. I suspect the list will grow.

Evidence of a wrecked economy: Daniel shops

There are of course those that still think the regime has a plan. A plan it does: to hold on to power forever. But a plan to improve Venezuela economy, social situation, health care, etc.?  Dream on...

Between yesterday and today I visited two stores that speak volumes on how degraded the economic situation since Maduro destroyed any confidence that the business may have harbored. Not much to begin with... In short, since the "dakazo" of last November when Maduro organized official looting to empty all the stores from electronic goods to win the municipal election, these stores have simply not renewed their stock. And if on occasion something comes through it is because the regime has given them official dollars so they avoid again the high armed robbery the regime did against them last year.

We will start with the book store in Caracas that I tended to use. I had not been there in 6 months. Well, there is nothing.

A noisy silence upon our corruption

Silence like a cancer grows.

For the last time maybe I read my Sunday edition of El Universal.  I suppose that the new owners still did not have time to change the contains significantly but I am more than certain that within weeks major journalists will be leaving the paper, that the editorial line will go from confrontational to bland if not outright supportive of the regime. It happened with Ultimas Noticias, it happened with Globovision, it was such since day one at Tves.  And more minor examples that I could list. Today we are left with only two national papers that publish it all, El Nacional and Tal Cual; some local papers like El Carabobeño and El Impulso; some AM radio here and there. Period.  If you live in Yaracuy State, you need to make a significant effort to get news that are not filtered to support the regime in its main points (even though the red page cannot hide the whole truth). The hoi poloi cannot be bothered.

Requiem for El Universal?

UPDATE: It has been confirmed.

The rumors on the sale of El Universal are intensifying again. Not only Bocaranada's Runrunes inside El Universal today mention them, but in his web page he gives more details. But as it is usual in Venezuela gossipmongering, they always fall short of spitting out the beans in full. Which of course creates even more uncertainties.

Homage to the Venezuelan student

I have no credits for it, in case someone can send them please!

The fascists in charge of Venezuela want to kill the press, while banging students

UPDATED with scene of panic food distribution

Maduro yesterday said that he was willing to risk being called dictator but that he was going to restrict press reporting on stuff he does not like it to be reported on.  Let's start with clearing up something: Maduro is ALREADY a dictator because he claims he has won an election that he has refused to verify as the opposition demanded then last April. That the rest of Latin America has decided to screw the opposition (and democracy and human rights) and recognize Maduro anyway does not detract from that fact: the opposition has documented extensively the electoral fraud of last April and the judicial system of Venezuela has simply decided NOT to review the case. The complaint was simply not received. Henceforth, as far as I am concerned Maduro is an illegitimate president, hence a dictator.

This being cleared let's look at the reasoning of Maduro.

2013 in review: the year we also lost freedom of information

The paradox for the casual observer of Venezuela is that people like me can write in blogs or in twitter the darndest things without anything happening to us. Yet. But it is a very misleading appreciation.

The repressive, dictatorship consecrating, enabling law is out

Original

So, after much, much hot air the regime had to show the enabling law it wants for Maduro to become a full time dictator. It does not matter whether the unconstitutional project is to silence the opposition or to purge the ranks of chavismo of its undesirable elements (they are all undesirable but apparently there are gradations within chavismo). The fact of the matter is that chavismo does not want its bankrupt regime to be discussed either on the air waves, or the newspapers and even less at the Nazional Assembly (yes, I am retaking the "Nazional Assembly" moniker because after this re-edition of Ermächtigungsgesetz the next step is our own version of Nuremberg Laws which the projected enabling law contemplates as an extension of our very own Tascon list).


The excuse the government offered is that there is a need to fight corruption and to face down a severe economic crisis. But the solution offered by this enabling law is to silence the opposition, find corruption there and among some token chavistas for good measure, more to make room for other corrupt chavista officials rather than any good intention.  The economic measures are fake ones as a regime whose currency went from 500 to a dollar to 50,000 to a dollar in 14 years has no credibility anymore on this respect. Amen of an inflation currently at 50% annual. As long as the perpetrators of this economic disaster remain in office no enabling law of any type will solve the problems. This is not a matter of laws, it is a matter of personnel.

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.

Globovision-less evenings, information-less TV

I am back in San Felipe after a few days in Caracas, when we learned the end of Globovision. And thus I had to face my first evening without Leopoldo Castillo, a.k.a. El Ciudadano. It is not that I was a slave of that show, never watching it when I am away from home, but in San Felipe it was part of my routine, the essential routine considering that I got ideas for many a post by listening to the discussions of the talk show.

Media shopping and its future use

We are in an economic crisis of increasing dramatic proportions and yet "groups of investors" are buying media groups....

Globovision last gasp?

It looks like the end of Globovision as we knew it is at hand.  The top group of journalists is fired or resigning and the network new owners have decided after their meeting with the regime to stop broadcasting anything about Capriles. We even learn that Globovision twitter followers are dropping quite fast, a bare few weeks Globovision had bragged becoming the most followed TV account in Venezuela (Note: for full disclosure I never followed Globovision, too many tweets).

Oh well...  back to the newspapers, nothing left to listen or watch in all of Venezuela....

Catastrophic news for the regime: Inflation at 4.3% and RCTV revenge

The regime got two major knockdowns today.

Goodbye Globovision, goodbye freedom of information

Tonight we had final confirmation that the sale of Globovision has been accorded, to a group of financiers that are rumored not to be too distant from the regime. I am choosing the link from El Pais in Spain to announce it so that we detach ourselves a little bit of the local emotion, one I refused to participate in as soon as the first tweets popped this past week end. And also because as far as Venezuela is concerned El Pais, mistaken Chavez picture in its cover or not, has the best track record on Venezuela info overall in the last decade.

Digital TV in Venezuela: safely pro regime (Globovision to be executed)

How late we are.....

URGENTE UPDATE (including modified title)

So today I read there was a cadena (I am at work, no broadband, no TV). The reason (any reason is good to promote the hair, Maduro) was to inaugurate the first relays of digital TV. According to the official state TV, VTV, we will start with 11 channels.

Since I am accused of being always a critic I will start by the good part. The regime insists that digital TV will be free (on open broadcast, cable remains pay, of course). Also, they claim that they have done enough investment to bring very soon 50% of the population within coverage (they claim installations in 13 cities already). That is it, that is all the positive I can manage to find.

Yesterday in Caracas

We saw these:

The vote in Spain falls mainly in the plain center

The vote tomorrow in Spain is quite remarkable although not for the reasons that your average pundit will advance.  The result is well known, the only question remaining for tomorrow is whether the Partido Popular will get a majority of its own in the Cortes.  No, the remarkable in that election is elsewhere.

First, when we see the disasters in Italy and Greece, disasters that not only Spain seems to have escaped so far (the political disaster, not the economic crisis, mind you) we get the tale of a country where democracy and institutions seem much better entrenched than what one would have predicted not even a couple of decades ago.  And this election seems to confirm that the Spanish political system is not ready yet to give itself up to the first Berlusconi that shows up, or to your average Greek-like pimp leadership.

The Nazional Guard of Venezuela is opening private correspondence

rigid small envelope

UPDATED

A friend coming back from France after a stay of several months showed me the following envelopes that he received while there.  These envelopes had been opened by the Nazional Guard of Venezuela as you can read on the resealing tape if you click on the pictures to enlarge.

 These envelopes carried business items that required signatures: contracts, loans, sales, etc.. Just normal stuff that he is required to sign as he is one of the owners of the business but not working there anymore. The envelopes used were standard Federal Express ones: that is either the larger plastic fiber ones to ship single books or dossiers, and the flat thin rigid cardboard ones to ship letters of no more than a dozen pages. In other words envelopes that can not be used for drug trafficking, or in small amounts for personal use so to speak, or that any dog can sniff by simply clipping an edge of the envelope if the border police wished it so. In other words, there is no justification to open these envelopes, and even less justification to open so many of them.

But that is not all, it happens with the other international carrier too, DHL (he receives about 3 envelopes a month between both of them, all of them opened by the Nazional Guard in the last three months).