Fausta's Blog

American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture

Archives for October 2016

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Venezuela: Protesting the cancellation

The Venezuelan government cancelled the recall vote; now Venezuelan Lawmakers Plan Impeachment Proceedings Against President

The legislature, which has been consistently undermined by the executive and the Supreme Court since the opposition took control of it in January, said it would begin on Tuesday putting Mr. Maduro on trial for violating the constitution just days after the government suspended an effort to recall the embattled leader.

This, as the article points out, is a mostly symbolic gesture.

It took Caracas Chronicles 18 years, but they finally recognized the fact that the Venezuela is a dictatorship.

Outsiders saw the handwriting on that wall over half a decade ago.

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Sunday palate cleanser: Dmitri Hvorostovsky & Elīna Garanča

From almost exactly a year ago,

More Sunday palate cleansers here.


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See Cuba like a native!

The sun, the beach, the gaol!

Wait, the what?

The gaol (h/t Babalu):
A tourist from Toronto was thrown in the clink for two weeks without being charged after he flew a drone with his camera,

A photographer with a media business in Toronto, Hughes said he had been travelling through the Americas, previously going to Panama and Colombia. He had brought a drone with him, which he used to shoot photos and videos. He said he did not have any issues using it the drone in other countries, and no problems bringing it in through Cuban customs on Sept. 28.

But two days later, the drone proved to be a significant problem.

Hughes said he and a Cuban friend and tour guide were questioned by police about the drone at the Plaza de la Revolucion, a historic square home to the Cuban administration. The pair was taken to a police station, where Hughes said they were interrogated for around 12 hours. He said he was brought to his rental apartment to pick up his clothes, and then brought to a detention centre, where he would remain for nearly two weeks — but never charged.

In case you think the word gaol is too medieval, let me point out that Hughes was held in a

dark two-by-two-metre cell, with no electricity, a small hole in the wall for a window and just a hole in the ground for a toilet

Gaol indeed.

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“That is the hit”

DNC Schemes to Bully Women at Trump Rally

Aaron Black, the deputy rapid response director for the DNC is caught on camera bragging about his involvement with the Chicago Trump protest that turned violent in March. In this video he schemes about getting men to bully women at a Trump rally, saying “That is what I’m going to do. That is the hit.”

I hope the lady they show in the video sues the beejezez out of the DNC and Black.

Related:
Dumped on.

Dem Operative Who Oversaw Trump Rally Agitators Visited White House 342 Times



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Colombia: How did Santos earn a Peace Prize?

Who stands to gain from the “peace” agreement?

Michael Fumento asks, A Peace Prize for Aiding and Abetting a Drug Cartel?

Santos made a cushy treaty with what’s been rightly called the world’s most powerful narco-terrorist group.

Fumento explains (emphasis added),

At one time the FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia) was indeed ideological and sought to violently overthrow the government. Today its ideology is plata (money), and it’s sworn off the traditional money-raiser of kidnappings. Which leaves drugs. And although the FARC controls only a small percentage of Colombian territory, curiously that area accounts for about 70 percent of the nation’s coca cultivation.

Colombia as a whole produces about half of the world’s cocaine supply, includingover 90 percent of that used in North America. Far from any success in reducing this, the latest Colombia Coca Survey, jointly produced by UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the Colombian government itself, shows an almost incredible doubling in the coca crop area in just the last two years.

Much of this increase is directly attributable to Santos ending aerial spraying last year, which as can be imagined is vastly more effective than sending troops into areas guarded by narcotrafficantes and their horrible land mines. I saw a lot of missing male legs in Colombia. “Las minas de las FARC?” I would ask. “Si, señor.” But Santos insists aerial spraying will not resume, despite the country’s chief prosecutor having recently called for it.

And then there are the heroin exports. Heroin, you ask?

A 2015 report from the UNODC shows opium-poppy cultivation in Colombia rose by almost 30 percent between 2013 and 2014, to the highest level observed since 2008. “Colombian organizations appear to have shifted their focus from low-level distribution to large-scale production,” notes the Insight Crime Foundation. “While acknowledging the growing importance of Mexico as a supply country for heroin reaching its market,” according to a 2013 UNODC report, “the United States continues to consider Colombia the primary source of heroin in the country,”although Mexico may be moving ahead. The FARC is believed to control a major portion of opiate production.

Read the full article.

Of course Colombians want peace. What they don’t want is the FARC in charge of the whole country.

Too bad the Nobel Committee doesn’t understand that.

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“Turnout, turnout, turnout”: The Dems handy-dandy guide to massive voter fraud

Straight from the horses’ mouths, a how-to on bussing illegals to vote,

In the second video of James O’Keefe’s new explosive series on the DNC and Hillary Clinton campaign, Democratic party operatives tell us how to successfully commit voter fraud on a massive scale. Scott Foval, who has since been fired, admits that the Democrats have been rigging elections for fifty years.

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Venezuela: As expected, infant mortality rises

21st Century Socialism collateral damage:
Infant Mortality Soars in Venezuela. With hospitals suffering a catastrophic lack of supplies, the country’s babies are dying at a rate higher than Syria’s

Venezuela’s overall infant mortality rate—defined as deaths within the first year of life—is currently 18.6 per 1,000 live births, according to the most recent government statistics. That is well beyond the upper range of 15.4 Unicef estimates for war-torn Syria.

Infant deaths in Venezuela remain significantly rarer than in the world’s most impoverished countries like South Sudan and Congo, but they are rising fast, while rates in those poorer countries have been falling.

You may recall that infants are placed on cardboard boxes due to the shortage of cribs and incubators.

Additionally, gangs of colectivos are attacking medical personnel who accept supply donations,

Related: Amid government silence, Venezuela’s microcephaly babies struggle.

There are reports of prison cannibal deaths.

Elsewhere,
Now that the government is easing price controls and inflation worsens, the shelves are full of unaffordable goods.

In case you are wondering, there ain’t gonna be no referendum.

Cross-posted at Wow! Magazine.



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