Fausta's Blog

American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture

Archives for September 2012

September 24, 2012 By Fausta

Venezuela: Hugo’s “Plan B”

As readers of this blog know, Venezuela’s general election is a few days away, on October 7. Hugo Chávez has every intention of holding on to power, and, in the unlikely event he loses by a high enough margin that he’s actually defeated, he’s got a “Plan B”: station the National Guard on Caracas and the states of Miranda and Vargas, and 1,150 troops around the presidential palace, with orders to fire on any protestors.

Carlos Eire translates a report from Spanish newspaper ABC,
Surpise! Hugo Chavez Readies Armed Forces to Seize Control After Election

Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez and his government are planning to bring out the National Guard into the streets of Caracas and the states of Miranda and Vargas, the most densely populated and urbanized areas of the country, in case some of the Venezuelan people protest against alleged fraud in the results of the upcoming presidential election or they come out to celebrate victory for the opposition.

Venezuelan authorities state: “To prevent endagering our Bolivarian Revolution, units of Regional Command 5 will be able to apply Plan Delta Carlos, to deploy themselves in strategic locations in sensitive zones, and also to apply Plan Delta Papa to defend Miraflores Palace.” (where Hugo Chavez resides). ABC has obtained a copy of the official “Strategic deployment plan for securing and restoring public order.” This contingency plan includes preventive measures against peaceful demonstrantions.

This document, which includes the names of the commanders in charge of each unit and their telephone numbers, specifies that “in case demonstrations by the opposition get out of control, especially around the presidential palace of Miraflores, the National Bolivarian Armed Forces will be authorized to use as much force as necessary to quell disturbances, including all issued weapons.”

Chavez has threatened civil war and is preparing for it; there’s also the issue of his health.

Now, imagine if Venezuela descends into chaos and Fidel, in solidarity with Hugo (and facing the end of Venezuelan oil money) decides to pull another Mariel just weeks from the US election…

Nah. That’s just conjecture.

Besides, the State Dept. would have a contingency plan or something.
Wouldn’t it?

UPDATE,
Linked by Not Clauswitz. Thanks!

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Filed Under: Communism, elections, Hugo Chavez, Venezuela Tagged With: Fausta's blog

September 23, 2012 By Fausta

Coming up this week: Dhimmitude at the UN, plus The View UPDATE

The Middle East and most of the Muslim world are in flames, but the President of the USA will not have time to meet with Netanyahu, nor with the the presidents of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Tunisia, Yemen, Myanmar, or the king of Jordan at the UN this week: Obama skipping face-to-face meetings at the UN.

Hillary will do it instead.

While at the UN, however, he will denounce the film in a speech before the United Nations General Assembly:

National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor previews the president’s speech to the UN General Assembly next week:

“UNGA always provides an opportunity for the President to put the international situation in context, and to put forward a vision of US leadership. I would certainly expect the President to address the recent unrest in the Muslim world, and the broader context of the democratic transitions in the Arab World.”

“As he has in recent days, the President will make it clear that we reject the views in this video, while also underscoring that violence is never acceptable[.]

Perfectly timed, along with the $75,000 apology ad.

Over in Washington,

Senate Republicans are furious the Obama administration rebuffed their attempts to learn details of the Benghazi attack, only to give the coveted information to The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.

But fret not, priorities are priorities, so when he gets to town, Obama will join his wife, Michelle, on the set of ABC’s “The View,” where his appearance in 2010 drew a television audience of roughly 6.5 million people.

Priorities, people, priorities.

And look at the bright side:
That visit to The View (and the huge midtown traffic jams) ought to give the media something to talk about, until they start again wailing about Mitt Romney’s make-up (h/t Riehl World News) and taxes.

UPDATE,
What Egypt Wants: More U.S. Appeasement

Linked by Pirate’s Cove, & Stop the ACLU. Thank you!


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Filed Under: Barack Obama, Democrats, elections, Mitt Romney, politics, Republicans, terrorism, UN Tagged With: Fausta's blog

September 21, 2012 By Fausta

How to bake bread

Needing to be on a low-carb diet, I don’t bake, but many of my readers do. Le Creuset is starting a series of how-to videos with sales pitch (h/t Al Dente via Mr. Bingley) taught by cute guy Michael Ruhlman, starting with bread baking:

Very simple.

Blogging about the world’s troubles shall resume later.

UPDATE,
Well, what do you know! Amazon carries them,

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Filed Under: food Tagged With: Fausta's blog, Le Creuset, Michael Ruhlman

September 21, 2012 By Fausta

¿Cómo se dice “chutzpah” en castellano?*

Elderly woman who botched religious fresco demands royalties
The elderly Spanish woman who ruined a religious fresco with her botched restoration is now demanding royalties from her work after it became an unlikely tourist attraction.

Give it time: the Whitney will have her as guest artist.

* How do you say “chutzpah” in Castilian Spanish?


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Filed Under: art, news, Spain

September 20, 2012 By Fausta

@BarackObama at the @Univision forum

Contrasting Mitt’s confident and relaxed replies last night, today Obama was wordy and hesitant. Drudge has the headlines (and points out this was Obama’s “first serious interview” in…how long now?)

Obama still blames video for Libya attack?
Ramos Rips Away...

'YOU DID NOT KEEP YOUR PROMISE'...
Shouldn't you 'fire' Eric Holder? 
Student asks president for advice -- on how to find a job!


FIRST SERIOUS INTERVIEW: PRESSED ON FAILURES BY UNIVISION

 

His answer when asked “what is your biggest failure” started with pandering and ended with Obamamalaise,

Obama’s Learned He’s a Failure:

1) Given how he so often says he wakes up every morning thinking about what he could do to create jobs, it’s interesting that he says his inability to pass comprehensive immigration reform (even when he totally controlled Congress) was his biggest failure. But I suppose that can be written off as simple pandering.

Which, incidentally, didn’t work, since Ramos did not let him off the hook later in the interview,

2) His biggest lesson, meanwhile, is that “you can’t change Washington from the inside.” Wait a second. In the 2008 primaries, his whole argument with Hillary Clinton was over this exact question. She believed that you can change Washington from the inside and Barack Obama said you couldn’t.

It took no time for Romney to fire back,

Matthew Boyle describes Obama’s answer on Fast and Furious,

You told me during an interview that you and Mr. Holder did not authorize the Fast and Furious operation that allowed 2,000 weapons from the United States into Mexico and they were in the drug trafficking [cartels’] hands,” Univision co-host Jorge Ramos asked Obama, according to a translator, during the interview. “I think that up to 100 Mexicans might have died and also American agent Brian Terry. There’s a report that 14 agents were responsible for the operation but shouldn’t the attorney general, Eric Holder, he should have known about that and if he didn’t, should you fire him?”

Obama responded with similar talking points his administration has used time and again.

“Well, first of all, I think it’s important to understand that the Fast and Furious program was a field-initiated program, begun under the previous administration,” Obama said. “When Eric Holder found out about it, he discontinued it. We assigned an inspector general to do a thorough report that was just issued — confirming that in fact Eric Holder did not know about this, that he took prompt action and that the people who did initiate this were held accountable. But, what I think is most important is recognizing that we’ve got a challenge in terms of weapons flowing south, and the strategy that was pursued out of Arizona, obviously, was completely wrongheaded. Those folks who were responsible have been held accountable. The question now is, how do we move forward with a strategy that will actually work?”

“We are going to have to work with Mexican law enforcement to accomplish this, but I will tell you that Eric Holder has my complete confidence, because he has shown himself to be willing to hold accountable those who took these actions and is passionate about making sure that we’re preventing guns from getting into the wrong hands,” Obama continued.

Ramos followed up in English: “But if you have nothing to hide, then why are you not releasing papers to the –”

Obama responded: “The truth is we’ve released thousands of papers.

“But not all of them,” Ramos countered. (RELATED: Inspector general: Obama administration obstructed Fast and Furious investigation)

“We’ve released almost all of them,” Obama said. “The ones that we don’t release, typically, relate to internal communications that were not related to the actual Fast and Furious operation. The challenge that we have is that, at any given moment in the federal government, there may be people who do dumb things, and I’ve seen it, I promise. Ultimately, I’m responsible and my key managers, including the attorney general, are responsible for holding those people accountable, for making sure that they are fired if they do dumb things and then fixing the system to ensure that it doesn’t happen again, and I’m very confident that you will not see any kinds of actions like this in the future, but what I don’t like to see is these kinds of issues becoming political circuses or ways to score political points in Congress partly because it becomes a distraction from us doing the business that we need to do for the American people.”

When pressed on for an independent investigation,

Obama answered: “Well, understand that, not only have we had multiple hearings in Congress, but the inspector general is put in place specifically to be independent from the attorney general. This attorney general’s [sic] report was not a whitewash in any way. I mean, it was tough on the Justice Department, and it indicated that, potentially, more supervision was needed, people should have known in some cases, even if they didn’t actually know. So, it was, I think, independent, honest, it was a clear assessment of what had gone wrong in that situation.”

“And we are happy to continue to provide the information that is relevant to this, but one of the things that happens in Washington is, very quickly, these issues become political distractions as opposed to us actually solving the problems that we need to solve,” Obama continued. “And, this issue of guns flowing south is a hard issue to solve, because this country respects the Second Amendment, we want to protect the rights of gun owners and those who are seeking to purchase firearms, but oftentimes that’s exploited as well. And so we’ve got to make sure we’re properly balancing the rights of U.S. citizens but making sure that we’re also interdicting those arms that would get into the hands of criminals.”

Video below the fold, since it starts right away,
[Read more…]

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Filed Under: Barack Obama, Democrats, elections, media, Mitt Romney, politics Tagged With: Fausta's blog, Univision

September 20, 2012 By Fausta

@MittRomney on @Univision last night

Spanish-language station Univision is holding two question and answer sessions with the Presidential candidates. Last night was Mitt’s turn.

The show was at the University of Miami in front of a live audience, with simultaneous interpreters (the man translating Romney did a brilliant job). Jorge Ramos, Univision’s Mexican anchorman and pro-illegal immigration/open borders advocate, and Maria Elena Salinas asked the questions. Here’s the first part of the show,

[CORRECTION: video below the fold below since it starts right away]

The first question was on the 47%. Romney answered he’s about the 100 percent of America:

“The last several years you’ve seen greater and greater divisiveness in this country,” said the GOP hopeful. “We had hoped to come back together. But instead you’ve seen us pull apart. And politics has driven us apart in some respects. So my campaign is about the 100 percent of America. And I’m concerned about them. I’m concerned about the fact that over the last four years life has become harder for Americans.”

The second question was on immigration. Romney emphasized that Obama’s recent executive order is a temporary measure, while “I will reform immigration the immigration system”; Salinas tried to interrupt but Romney asserted that he wants permanent solutions and he supports Marco Rubio’s ideas. Salinas asked about deportations and Romney answered that we need to find permanent solutions instead of deportations or Obama’s temporary plan. Ramos pressed on deportations and got boo’ed. Romney replied that self-deportation is an individual’s choice and emphasized legal immigration as vital to the US’s growth. Ramos asked about the Arizona law, to which Romney replied that the reason the states are taking measures is the Obama’s administration failure to find a solution to the problem.

Overall, Romney came across as relaxed, clear, and confident. He had no notes, no teleprompters, and remained on topic, bringing his point across, regardless of the interruptions.

Definitely a good preview for the presidential debates.

UPDATE,
Linked by Extrano’s alley. Thank you!


VIDEO OF THE UNIVISION INTERVIEW BELOW,
[Read more…]

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Filed Under: elections, media, Mitt Romney, politics, Republicans Tagged With: Fausta's blog, Univision

September 20, 2012 By Fausta

Puerto Rico: Would you like some fries with that?

Governor Luis Fortuño, campaigning for re-election, lends a hand at Wendy’s in Cidra.

Compartiendo con los empleados del Wendys de Cidra, ya voy de camino para actividad del @pnp_pr yfrog.com/oe29dszj

— Luis Fortuño (@luisfortuno51) September 19, 2012

UPDATE:
Linked by El Ñame. ¡Muchas gracias!

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Filed Under: Luis Fortuño, Puerto Rico Tagged With: Fausta's blog, Luis Fortuño

September 19, 2012 By Fausta

France: Charlie Hebdo strikes one for freedom of the press and freedom of expression

The guys who were firebombed last November over a Mohammed cartoon are at it again,
Charlie Hebdo, Satirical Weekly, Publishes Cartoons Of The Prophet Mohammad. The French government ordered schools and embassies to close on Friday.

This is what the cover looks like,

Gateway Pundit has the definitely-not-suitable-for-work inside cartoons. More NSFW here. It already sold out.

The government issued a statement,

Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault reaffirms that the freedom of expression is one of the fundamental principles of our Republic. This freedom is exercised within the framework of the law and under the supervision of the courts when a case is referred to them.

He also reaffirms the principle of laicité [secularism] which, along with the values of tolerance and respect for religious convictions, is at the heart of our Republican Pact.

And this is why, in the current context, the prime minister would like to express his disapproval of any excesses. He urges everyone to demonstrate a spirit of responsibility

Certainly the cops won’t be showing up to take away CH’s editor for questioning.

Taranto says that Paris is defending American values more vigorously than Washington is:

Free speech does not mean government-sanctioned speech, and Fabius’s criticism of the magazine’s editorial decision is an entirely reasonable and prudent one. The qualification, however, is crucially important–and, as we noted last week, it was missing from the statements of President Obama and Fabius’s counterpart, Hillary Clinton, about the YouTube film that the Obama administration blames for the recent anti-American violence in North Africa and elsewhere (though the Washington Examinerreports that the White House press secretary today put in a word for “the freedom of expression that is enshrined in our Constitution”).

Particularly since the riots are not about the video.

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Filed Under: Charlie Hebdo, France, Islam, media, Mohammed cartoons, terrorism Tagged With: Fausta's blog

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