BoRev.Net

Meanwhile, back in Caracas:

http://www.vtv.gob.ve/videos-emisiones-anteriores/20874

The opening segment is particularly good for shits 'n' giggles at Abuelo Monster's expense. Evo ought to teach this old pendejo how to do a REAL hunger strike.

Sorry, I couldn't make the hyperlink work on typepad, so here it is:

http://tinyurl.com/lekm4x

NPR gives Miami Hondurans 100% air time.

NPR (National Propaganda Radio) is 100% behind the coup. Check out this entry by my friend Matt Murrey over at the blog NPR Check.

Toronto used to have a Metro mayor, but then that was all amalgamated as part of some Harris Tories scheme to download everything onto the municipalities and force THEM to hike their taxes so it would look like a conservative provincial government had saved the taxpayers something. It was a weird arrangement too--mainly, though, because a number of small cities and 'burbs around Toronto had basically grown, too, and merged into it over the decades.

Meanwhile, to see something hilarious about Grandpa Monster, click here:

http://www.vtv.gob.ve/videos-emisiones-anteriores/20649

Mario and Eva make fun of the Vampire's hunger strike. Five days without a drop of blood, what a hero!

Maybe it was done because people saw the Mayor as inept? Crime is bad Caracas and it is the Mayor's job to administrate the good governance of the City.

No different than Detroit where a Commission has to oversee the Mayor and PD because of the level of crime and incompetence.

The Caracas "alcaldia mayor" is a weird post, btw. I have never quite understood why they created it. (I don't know any other metropolitan area that has posts like that. E.g., Boston has a mayor, Cambridge has one, Somerville has one, but there is no "super mayor" of the metropolitan Boston area; ditto for the metropolitan LA area, for example: the municipality of LA has a mayor, West Hollywood has a mayor, Santa Monica has a mayor, but again, there is no super-mayor of the "LA Metropolian area". It is also ironic that when the Chávez administration (or rather the legislature with a Chavista majority) created the "alcaldia mayor" post, the opposition was opposed: Primero Justicia, e.g., voted against, as did the others if I remember right. It seems the tables have turned.

Insulza I think was entirely right in claiming that how center-state-municipality relations are handled are internal matters and as such, the OAS cannot pronounce on such issues unless there is good reason to believe that democratic principles are being undermined.

Jackson Diehl basically parrots and channels Venezuela's opposition claims, often without a clue as to what it all means.

By the way, here is a good post about what the issues are in the "Ley del Distrito Capital" case:

http://okrimopina.blogspot.com/2009/04/la-ley-de-distrito-capital-y-su.html

Be careful with this story from Cubadebate and ABN that current coup leader Romeo Vásquez Velásquez was arrested in 1993 for car thieving.

Although his name is mentioned as an accused in the 1993 El Heraldo article scanned in, other sections of the same article and other article suggest that it may be the General's brother Marvin, as the brother was later arrested for other crimes.

Maybe it's true that it really was Romeo instead of or along with Marvin, but it should be verified by someone able to look up the judicial arrest and charge documents.

The Washington Post's point-turd on Latin America, Jackson Diehl, gets all het up about how dare the U.S. and the meddling Chilean Insulza of the OAS try to restore the recognized President of Honduras while the OAS and Insulza do nothing regarding the power battle between the mayor of Caracas and that the Venezuelan capital district which was voted by the legislature to handle most of the former Caracas municipal authority.

Maybe Jackson Diehl has a point: maybe the OAS should become more involved when a member state systematically acts or appears to allow acts which seem to contradict the letter and spirit of the OAS' democracy charter, particularly if important local or decentralized authorities find themselves facing intimidation or manipulation from carrying out their democratic responsibilities:

Wiretap investigator claims harassment

Friday, 10 July 2009 | 8:41 Adriaan Alsema | via Colombia Reports

An assistant prosecutor, in charge of the investigation into the alleged illegal wiretapping by Colombia's intelligence service DAS, says eleven heavily armed men came to his home to harass him.

According to newspaper El Tiempo, jurist Gustavo Roa Avendaño denounced the intimidation attempt before Prosecutor General Mario Iguaran.

The newspaper says that in the complaint to Iguaran, Roa says that a group of eleven men armed with mini-Uzis and other guns had gone to his home, but entered the wrong apartment.

The armed men allegedly told the building's security guard they were police and had come to arrest a drug trafficker. After being allowed entrance they went up tho the investigator's floor, but entered the wrong apartment, scaring an elderly couple living there.

The intruders allegedly pushed the woman in the apartment to the floor and went to another room and demanded from the husband his name and ID number.

Witnesses say that the armed men were told through radio they had entered the wrong apartment and were carrying a car battery connected to a burner to be able to open locked doors.

Prosecution officials told the newspaper they are "very concerned" about the incident and increased security measures around prosecution investigators and their families.

"We are worried the incident may be related to important investigations carried out by this office, like that of the DAS, the purchase of 40 million pesos worth of Sig Sauer guns from the police, the process against the former governor of Vichada ... for his alleged relation with paramilitaries, that of the former governor of Cesar ... and former senator Ruben Dario Quintero," said Jesus Antonio Marin, direct superior of the allegedly intimidated official.

This is a bad analogy, though, since everyone knows that when 'heavily armed men' show up apparently targeting the investigator of an agency used by the conservative national government to spy on the opposition, businessmen, journalists, Supreme Court justices, prosecutors, human rights workers, and union organizers, they are just some random illegal armed group and only paranoids would suspect any connection to national authorities.

After all, the mere fact that the last 4 directors of Colombia's state intelligence agency have been arrested for collaboration with right wing death squad narco-paramilitaries, and every single one of them was nominated to their position by conservative President Alvaro Uribe, is a complete and bizarre coincidence.

I like pie

Am I the only one having problems with accessing aporrea.org tonight, or is it a more general problem?

Thanks, Utpal...and I'm working on getting my comments back. I tried resetting the switch, but it's not working, so my friend's gonna try upgrading the blogware. Hope it'll be working by this time tomorrow...

Bina: does your blog not allow comments anymore? (Welcome back, btw)

Ahhh thoughts of Patty-watty B:

Sometimes, there just aren't enough snipers.

I know it's crazy, but if the things happening daily in Colombia were happening in Venezuela, they might make the headlines.

For example, so far I haven't seen any U.S. coverage of Colombia's electoral authority nullifying 2006 Senate elections won by right wing President Uribe-allied politicians because there was too much collaboration with and pressure by right wing paramilitary death squads.

I'm just thinking, I know, it's crazy, right, but if a Venezuelan authority found that 2006 elections for Venezuela's legislative elections had to be annulled because the Chavez-allied politicians had allied with narco-guerrilla leftist death squads...

...Well, it might have made the news. Maybe. Or that's just the DFH in me.

Ooo! OOOO! I know what to do...how be we just kill that racist old Nazi, Pat Puke-Cannon, and leave Teh Injunz in peace?