Venezuela goes where Dem's can only Dream-Venezuela’s socialist gov't seeks to ban opposition party

[Neotrotsky]

Venezuela govt seeks to ban opposition over recall 'fraud'

The Venezuelan government asked electoral authorities Tuesday to ban the opposition coalition seeking to oust President Nicolas Maduro in a recall vote, accusing them of massive fraud.

Ratcheting up the tension in a country pushed to the brink of collapse by an economic crisis, Maduro’s camp hit back with a vengeance on the same day the opposition was hoping to get a green light to go ahead with its bid to hold a recall referendum.

“We have just asked for the cancellation of the registration of the Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD), for being involved in the worst vote fraud in the country’s history,” said Jorge Rodriguez, Maduro’s designated aide to monitor the recall process.​

 

[waltky]

Maduro takes mobbed up drug baron as interior minister...

Venezuela promotes general indicted in US on drug charges
Aug 3,`16 -- A day after Venezuela's former drug czar was indicted in the United States on narcotics trafficking charges, President Nicolas Maduro defiantly named him interior minister.

Maduro said Tuesday that he was promoting Nestor Reverol to the position that oversees law enforcement as a gesture of support for a man who had done good work cracking down on the drug trade in Venezuela and is being tarnished by the "U.S. empire." U.S. prosecutors on Monday announced the indictment of Reverol, who previously led Venezuela's National Guard, where senior officers are alleged to have been involved in cocaine smuggling. "He is a brave man who is not afraid of anything or anyone," Maduro said. "As interior minister he broke the record for arrests of drug kingpins. The DEA and all the United States drug-trafficking mafias want to make him pay, because the drug-trafficking mafia runs the Untied States."

Also on Tuesday, Maduro removed economic czar Miguel Perez, appointed six months ago, who had been seen as a potential moderate reformer in the socialist president's Cabinet. Together, the moves seemed to signal that Maduro is doubling down on his existing strategy of antagonizing the U.S. and refusing to make significant economic reforms. The Reverol indictment unsealed in federal court accuses the general of taking bribes in exchange for helping cocaine traffickers by tipping them off about raids. It also alleges that from January 2008 to December 2010, he deliberately allowed cocaine shipments to leave Venezuela and returned seized drug money to traffickers. Reverol, 51, has denied using his positions to facilitate the trafficking of cocaine.

Venezuela's National Guard Commander Gen. Nestor Reverol attends a ceremony in Caracas, Venezuela. On Tuesday, Aug. 2, 2016, Maduro announced that he was promoting Reverol to interior minister to show support for the general amid an attack from the U.S. "empire." U.S. prosecutors on Monday announced the indictment of Reverol, who once led Venezuela's anti-drug agency and National Guard. Reverol has denied using his positions to facilitate the trafficking of cocaine.​

The U.S. has indicted and sanctioned several other Venezuelan officials, including a former defense minister and head of military intelligence. Two nephews of Venezuela's first lady are currently jailed in New York as they await trial for conspiring to smuggle cocaine into the U.S. Venezuelan officials have regularly accused the U.S. of using drug cases to destabilize the government, and Maduro has a history of reacting to U.S. sanctions against officials by handing out promotions. The opposition said the Cabinet reshuffle was further proof that Maduro was committed to radicalizing the country and breaking off relations with neighbors. "Maduro is determined to shut himself off from the world," opposition congressman Luis Florido said.

News from The Associated Press

See also:

Venezuelan women seek sterilisations as crisis sours child-rearing
Thursday 4th August, 2016: Venezuela's food shortages, inflation and crumbling medical sector have become such a source of anguish that a growing number of young women are reluctantly opting for sterilisations rather than face the hardship of pregnancy and child-rearing.

Traditional contraceptives like condoms or birth control pills have virtually vanished from store shelves, pushing women towards the hard-to-reverse surgery. "Having a child now means making him suffer," said Milagros Martinez, waiting on a park bench on a recent morning ahead of her sterilization at a nearby Caracas municipal health centre. The 28-year-old butcher from the poor outskirts of Caracas decided on the operation after having an unplanned second child because she could not find birth control pills. Her daily life revolves around finding food: she gets up in the middle of the night to stand in long lines outside supermarkets, sometimes with no choice but to bring along her baby son, who has been sunburnt during hours-long waits. "I'm a little scared about being sterilized but I prefer that to having more children," said Martinez, who with dozens of other women took a bus from the slums at 4 a.m. to attend a special "sterilization day" in this wealthy area of Caracas.

While no recent national statistics on sterilisations are available, doctors and health workers say demand for the procedure is growing. The local health program for women in Miranda state, which includes parts of Caracas, offers 40 spots during these "sterilization days" but as recently as last year did not usually fill them. Now all the slots are scooped up and some 500 women are on the waiting list, according to program director Deliana Torres. "Before, the conditions for this program were that the women be low-income and have at least four kids. Now we have women with one or two kids who want to be tied up," she said. Health workers at a national family planning organisation and at three government hospitals in the states of Falcon, Tachira and Merida echoed her view that demand for sterilisations had grown in recent months.

The trend highlights how the oil-rich nation's brutal recession is forcing people to make difficult choices. Venezuela is a largely Roman Catholic country where Church doctrine rejects all forms of contraception and abortion is banned unless a woman's life is at risk. The Archbishop of Merida, Baltazar Porras, told Reuters an increase in sterilisations would be a "barbarity." But Venezuela's crisis has triggered almost daily riots for food and slammed a shrinking middle class as well as the poor who were once a bastion of support for late leftist leader Hugo Chavez's self-styled "beautiful revolution." Pregnant women are particularly affected as they struggle to find adequate food and supplements, give birth in crowded and under-equipped hospitals, and have to spend hours in lines for scarce diapers, baby food and medicines. The government ministries for health, women and information did not respond to requests for comment.

'I WANTED FIVE KIDS'

 

[NYcarbineer]

The Republican Party is banning itself.

 

[C_Clayton_Jones]

"Venezuela goes where Dem's can only Dream-Venezuela’s socialist gov't seeks to ban opposition party"

This belongs in Political Satire, because no one takes it seriously.

 

[Neotrotsky]

The socialists in American, the Democrats
take it very serious

 

[owebo]

4 legs good, 2 legs better....

 

[Tehon]

This is interesting, Maduro is using the republican playbook.

He accused the opposition of including the names of thousands of dead people, convicts and minors in a petition submitted in May with 1.8 million signatures requesting a recall vote.

Let's revisit this thread come Nov. 9th when your dumb ass is whining about voter fraud or rigged elections and you are crying out against the democrat party. It might be fun to compare the rhetoric.

 

[Neotrotsky]

6,100 dead people on Nassau voter rolls, Newsday analysis finds

Of course the fact that roughly 270 people voted
is the problem

Democratic registration drive

 

[Neotrotsky]

Oh those young innocent days..
When the dream was young and new

16 U.S. congressmen voiced their approval for Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. Representatives Barney Frank, John Conyers, Chaka Fattah, Jan Schakowsky, Jose Serrano, and others complained in a letter to President Bush that the United States was not adequately protecting Chavez

 

[waltky]

Yea, yea, yea, right - he dindu nuffin'...

Venezuela Interior Minister Lashes Out at US Over Cocaine Charges
Tuesday 23rd August, 2016 - Venezuela's interior minister and former boss of the country's anti-narcotics agency, General Nestor Reverol, hit back on Monday at accusations by a U.S. federal court that he abetted cocaine trafficking.

Earlier this month, U.S. prosecutors announced an indictment charging that from 2008 to 2010, Reverol and another official took payments to alert traffickers over raids, hinder investigations and arrange the release of suspects, cash and drugs. He called the accusations "unfounded." "I reject them categorically in all their parts," Reverol, 51, said at a news conference at the anti-narcotics agency he used to lead in Caracas. "They want to use it as a political weapon," Reverol said, flanked by General Edylberto Molina, his former deputy and until recently Venezuela's defense attache in Germany. Molina was also named in the Brooklyn court indictment and sat stony faced in a gray suit during the conference, without speaking.

Venezuela is a large, lightly populated country that shares a long and lawless border with Colombia. It is a major transport hub for its neighbor's cocaine destined to Europe and to a lesser extent to the United States. Washington has long alleged senior Venezuelan military officials and political allies of President Nicolas Maduro were complicit in the trade. Last year, two nephews of the first lady were indicted in New York on charges of attempting to smuggle cocaine to the United States via Honduras. Venezuela's late President Hugo Chavez kicked out the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in 2005 and Reverol said cocaine seizures almost doubled the following year.

The numbers have varied since then, but last year overall drug seizures were 79 tons, most of that cocaine, current ONA head Irwin Escalona told Reuters. This year until Aug. 21, Venezuela had seized 33 tons of drugs, including 29 tons of cocaine, Escalona said. Venezuela started seizing precursor chemicals used in cocaine production last year along the Colombian border, leading them to cocaine laboratories in Venezuela, he said.

Reverol accused the United States of hypocrisy, leading the fight against drugs on one hand while being lax on marijuana cultivation on its own territory and overseeing a surge in opium production in Afghanistan. He detailed his actions against drug trafficking and organized crime while he was in charge of Venezuela's National Anti-Drugs Organization from 2006-2012, including installing a radar network covering all Venezuela's airspace for the first time, arresting traffickers and eradicating illicit crops.

Venezuela Interior Minister Lashes Out at US Over Cocaine Charges

 

[Neotrotsky]

Socialism works...
as the country starves...
Politicians celebrate a dead man's birthday
big cake "birthday" for Hugo Chavez


All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others

 

[C_Clayton_Jones]

Socialism works...
as the country starves...
Politicians celebrate a dead man's birthday
big cake "birthday" for Hugo Chavez


All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others

Your thread premise remains as much a lie today was it was almost a month ago – and you are in fact a liar.

 

[Neotrotsky]

truth is hard for the left

in fact,
it is their worst enemy

just Like Papa Obama stopped school vouchers in DC and denied more poor black kids from
going to the same school as his own daughters... no doubt a token to unions to keep their support..

the promised utopia of socialism
is filled with false promises

 

[CrusaderFrank]

That's the progressive paradise: misery, poverty, starvation, and no opposition.

Trump should deport all the Bernies supporters there

 

[Unkotare]

I imagine at least 20% of self-identified 'liberals' in the US would support such a thing in the US.