Fausta's Blog

The big news this week, Fascist Venezuela: The end of the National Assembly

ARGENTINA
Buenos Aires Lures Foreign Buyers
A hunger for stable U.S. dollars is creating opportunities for buyers to nab steeply discounted properties. As long as the properties are owned by sellers willing to do a foreign-account-to-foreign-account sale, that is.

BOLIVIA
Bolivia throws out USAID

BRAZIL
Dams in the Amazon
The rights and wrongs of Belo Monte
Having spent heavily to make the world’s third-biggest hydroelectric project greener, Brazil risks getting a poor return on its $14 billion investment

Shock over latest Brazil bus rape
Police in Brazil are looking for a man who raped a woman on a moving Rio de Janeiro bus, in a case that has shocked the host nation of the football 2014 World Cup.

CHILE
Statistics in Chile
How many Chileans?

COLOMBIA
Colombian government FARC peace talks, first 6 months

CUBA
Political Change in Cuba so that Everything Remains the Same

FBI Adds Cop Killer Joanne Chesimard To Most Wanted Terrorist List
She Was Convicted Of Gunning Down A New Jersey State Trooper In 1973

In poor health, Cuban prisoner of conscience Marcos Lima released from jail

COSTA RICA
Costa Rica Declares Obama Visit a National Holiday

ECUADOR
Judge dismisses $19B Ecuador judgment against Chevron’s Canadian subsidiary

MEXICO
Obama In Mexico Gives Cartels Short Shrift

Evolving U.S.-Mexico Relations and Obama’s Visit

Mexico’s Drug War and Booming Economy

THE GANG OF EIGHT’S TORRENT OF IMMIGRANTS: IS THE REAL NUMBER 57 MILLION?

NICARAGUA
Nicaragua cloud forest ‘under siege’
Indigenous communities say that illegal logging and land speculators are threatening Central America’s most important tropical forest.

PUERTO RICO
Another top university official in Puerto Rico resigns amid protest

URUGUAY
‘Breaking the wall of impunity’ in Uruguay
Uruguayan judges and prosecutors begin to defy the Supreme Court of Justice’s closure of human rights investigations.

VENEZUELA
For foreign non-illustrated media and chavista supporters: chavismo media lock up

Mario Vargas Llosa: La muerte lenta del chavismo
PIEDRA DE TOQUE. Al mismo tiempo que el Gobierno de Nicolás Maduro convertía el Parlamento en un aquelarre de brutalidad, la represión se amplificaba y se detenía a funcionarios por votar a la oposición

The week’s posts and podcast:
About cinco de mayo, the American holiday

Venezuela: 50 shades of crazy

Obama in Costa Rica

Cuba sheltering Most Wanted Terrorist

Venezuela: The Cuban perp?

Obama heads to Mexico

Fascist Venezuela: The end of the National Assembly

Bolivia: No term limit for Evo

Ecuadorian Ambassador to Peru allegedly kicks a woman in public

Cuba’s message to dissidents: You had your trip, now we’re coming after you

Immigration from south of the Mexican border

Podcast: In Silvio Canto’s podcast.

Nicolás Maduro first said the yankis were going to kill Henrique Capriles, then he said the Salvadorans were plotting to kill Maduro, and now’s saying that Colombian ex-president Alvaro Uribe is plotting to kill him, too,

“Uribe is behind a plot to kill me,” Maduro said in a televised speech. “Uribe is a killer. I have enough evidence of who is conspiring, and there are sectors of the Venezuelan right that are involved.”

He did not provide details.

Maduro, as we know, talks to the birds, and placed an oath on anyone voting against him.

Yesterday Maduro also said he’d “willing to talk to the Devil for the peace of Venezuela”, while casting aspersions on the opposition (video in Spanish),

Rather than worrying about Uribe, Maduro ought to keep en eye on Diosdado, or he may get his wish sooner than he thinks.

Linked by Pirate’s Cove. Thank you!

National Assembly president Diosdado Cabello is not content with not allowing the opposition assemblymen to speak (unless they recognize Maduro as “legitimate”, or so he says). Now Cabello unleashes thugs to assault and punch the assemblymen:

Exclusivo: Video muestra la golpiza que ocurrió… by Globovision

Female chavista representatives had the courtesy of being the ones beating up opposition female representatives like Maria Corina Machado.

More photos at Noticias24. One of the assemblymen even put on his motorcycle helmet.

As far as I could ascertain, the man in the jogging suit is not an assemblyman and has not been detained.

Opposition assemblymen Maria Corina Machado and Julio Borges

The opposition said at least 17 of its allies and five pro-government deputies were injured. One was hospitalized.

Cabello watched and laughed. The assemblyman who was speaking went on talking.

All of this was timed to coincide with a cadena, so the radio and TV media were tied up and wouldn’t have been able to report live, had they dared.

Workers later had to show their phones to see if they had photos or videos of the incident.

This is the outright fascism that Diosdado Cabello has been promoting in the National Assembly since Chavez died.

Two days ago, the Washington Post was foretelling,

The real danger in Venezuela is not that an Obama administration unwilling to provide leadership in Syria would make any serious attempt to prevent Mr. Maduro’s consolidation of power. It is that Mr. Maduro will follow up on his jailing of an innocent American with a full-scale crackdown on the opposition.

Venezuela’s democratic movement is being violently shoved into the kind of underground resistance it never envisioned for itself, never sought, isn’t well prepared to take on, and never actually wanted.

Today many May Day demonstrations are scheduled, with Henrique Capriles encouraging the people to participate. The melee at the National Assembly is only a warning.

Talking about

President Obama gave a rare press conference today and covered several topics, including immigration reform, budget negotiations, and the investigation into the attack last year on our diplomats in Benghazi.

With Rick and PJ Media’s Washington insider Bill Straub.

Listen to it live or at your convenience.

Venezuela Vote Faces Review, namely, the CNE (the electoral council) will wait until after Maduro’s inaugurated, and

Details of the audit were unclear. Ms. Lucena said the revision would be electronic and wasn’t the same as a recount, which is what the opposition had demanded following the election. “This should not be interpreted as any sort of ‘scrutiny,’” she said in televised comments.

Which, from the looks of it, means that they’ll just go over some data from the electronic voting machines while ignoring the paper ballots, fingerprint data, and the voting location records.

Or something.

Do keep in mind that all Venezuelan institutions are 100% chavista-controlled.

Daniel Duquenal is equally skeptical,

I do not want to offer any opinion because it is a complex matter to evaluate how good the news really is. Capriles team seems happy with it so for the time being let’s roll. However I will note that the CNE is talking of 30 days of audit and who knows how many more for a final verdict. In short the regime is accepting an audit as long as it gives it time to come up with a better strategy to confront the opposition and smash it down before the result is out. At least that is my worry at this time as a one week audit should already generate enough info to see if it is worth going on.

Over in Peru, Chavez’s brainchild UNASUR stands by Maduro, which comes as no surprise.

UPDATE,
Or, is it a recount? Read the post and comments at Devil’s Excrement.

talking about Mexico & other US-Latin America issues with Silvio and Allan Wall.

Live now, or listen to the archive at your convenience.

Live now, or you can listen to the archived podcast at your convenience.

At The Economist:
Margaret Thatcher
A cut above the rest
As prime minister from 1979 to 1990, Margaret Thatcher transformed Britain and left an ideological legacy to rival that of Marx, Mao, Gandhi or Reagan

Live coverage at the BBC (audio starts right away).

Associated Press: Praise Chavez, Grouse About Thatcher

Drudge:

'Towering, divisive, revered'...
Indifference wasn't an option...
'I Can't Bear Britain In Decline, I Just Can't'...
Staunch ally in Cold War victory...
Global champion of free markets...
'The PM Who Changed the World'...
Will be honored with biggest funeral for PM since Churchill...
Tributes pour in...
Leftist Parliament Member Trashes: 'Tramp the Dirt Down'...
CSPAN: THE EARLY YEARS...
In Her Own Words...
Updates...
IRON LADY DIES IN LONDON 

FAREWELL…

‘Force of nature’…

Memeorandum thread:

 BBC:

Margaret Thatcher dies  —  Former Prime Minister Baroness Thatcher has died “peacefully” at the age of 87 after suffering a stroke, her family has announced.  —  David Cameron called her a “great Briton” and the Queen spoke of her sadness at the death.  —  Lady Thatcher was Conservative prime minister from 1979 to 1990.

Discussion: The Moderate Voice, Shakesville, The Mental Recession, BizPac Review,Mediaite and FP Passport

 Daily Mail:

‘Tramp the dirt down’: George Galloway’s extraordinarily crass tweet leads the Left’s sickening ‘celebration’ just minutes after Baroness Thatcher’s death  —  George Galloway has provoked criticism after writing a ‘distasteful’ comment following the death of former Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

Discussion: The Moderate Voice, Business Insider, National Review and The Other McCain

 Andrew Sparrow / Guardian:

Margaret Thatcher dies: live reaction and updates  —  Sort by:  —  5.17pm BST  —  Reaction from India  —  My colleague Jason Burke has sent me this on the reaction from India. … 5.14pm BST  —  Earlier I quoted a spokesman from the UN Environment Programme saying that Lady Thatcher …

Discussion: The Week, Twitchy, Scared Monkeys, Towleroad News #gay, Joe. My. God., The Hinterland Gazette, NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth and Jammie Wearing Fools

 Telegraph:

Margaret Thatcher dies of stroke aged 87  —  Baroness Thatcher, Britain’s greatest post-war prime minister, has died at the age of 87 after suffering a stroke, her family has announced.  —  Her son, Sir Mark, and daughter Carol confirmed that she died this morning.

Discussion: blogs.telegraph.co.uk, NEWS.com.au, Colorado Peak Politics,Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, The Week and NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth

 William Kristol / Weekly Standard:

Three Who Saved the West  —  And now the last of them is gone.  Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, and Pope John Paul II—three who won the Cold War and, it isn’t too much to say, saved the West (at least for a while!)—are no longer with us.  Their examples remain.

Discussion: Power Line

 Joseph R. Gregory / New York Times:

Margaret Thatcher, Who Remade Britain, Dies at 87  —  Margaret Thatcher, the “Iron Lady” of British politics who pulled her country back from 35 years of socialism, led it to victory in the Falklands war and helped guide the United States and the Soviet Union through the cold war’s difficult last years, died Monday.

Discussion: The Caucus, BuzzFeed, The Week and The Hugh Hewitt Show

 Michael White / Guardian:
Margaret Thatcher dead at 87 following stroke

Discussion: Telegraph, The Jawa Report, Washington Monthly, Mashable and The Monkey Cage

 Annie-Rose Strasser / ThinkProgress:
Why The Modern Republican Party Would Reject Margaret Thatcher15 minutes ago

Discussion: Wonkblog, david-frum, Applesauce and Hot Air

 Jamelle Bouie / American Prospect:
No, Margaret Thatcher Wouldn’t Have Been a Liberal Now29 minutes ago

Discussion: Eschaton

 Richard Allen Greene / CNN:
Margaret Thatcher, Britain’s first female PM, dead at 87

Discussion: Alan Colmes’ Liberaland, The Moderate Voice, ABCNEWS, Hot Air,Feministing, Applesauce and Associated Press

 Sky News:
Margaret Thatcher Dies After Stroke

Discussion: Taylor Marsh, The PJ Tatler, americanthinker.com and Vox Popoli

 Congressman Steve Stockman:
Stockman: Thatcher would want us to ‘fight on, fight to win’ and crush liberalismNEW!

Discussion: Business Insider and msnbc.com

 David Weigel / Slate:
Margaret Thatcher vs. Pop Culture

Discussion: msnbc.com and Hullabaloo

 Guardian:   Margaret Thatcher: a life in quotes

 Fred Barbash / Washington Post:
Margaret Thatcher, former British prime minister, dead at 87

Discussion: The Fix, Outside the Beltway and Booman Tribune

 Fox News:
Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher dies after suffering stroke

Discussion: Weasel Zippers and protein wisdom

Hugo Chavez idolatry as a campaign tactic in the 23 de Enero slum in Caracas:
Shrine to mourn and celebrate Venezuela’s Chavez,

“He is our saint of the poor,” says Eva Garcia, 45, who tends to the shrine each day after her shift at the local municipal offices as a community organizer.

As I predicted months ago, Chavez is joining Che in the Communist Idol show.

The Maduro campaign manipulates the poor’s ignorance and superstition,

To each and every visitor, Garcia hands out a copy of Chavez’s official agenda for the 2013-2019 presidential term he won’t complete. She also offers a handbill with Chavez’s last public remarks in December, in which he named Maduro his chosen successor.

The red canonization continues,

The Maternity & Children’s Hospital in the Western Caracas neighborhood of El Valle (seen in the picture left) is set to finally be opened to the public after 23 years in construction (14 of them under current management).

If they followed the old custom and named it after the leader who started the job, they’d call it the Maternidad Carlos Andres Pérez Rodríguez Hospital. Ermm…no chance of that.

Can you guess the new name they’ve when it opens? Yup: Comandante Supremo Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías.

Meanwhile, Roy Chaderton, Venezuela’s Ambassador to the OAS, is bellyaching about the opposition’s unfair advantage in the campaign.

No birds were harmed in the writing of this post.

That’s Yasser Arafat, creator of modern terrorism, smiling down on the leader of the free world.