In a move that has surpassed even the most permissive standards of batshit lunacy, the Venezuelan government has published its definitive list of suspects linked to Patriota Cooperante José Pérez Venta’s murder and hacking-up of Liana Hergueta. Along with your everyday presidential assassins (María Corina Machado), arsonist coup mongers (Leopoldo López) and paramilitary fascists (Álvaro Uribe), newcomer…
As a regular fan of Con El Mazo Dando, I always suspected that the Patriotas Cooperantes, the mysterious network of government informants that infiltrate opposition ranks and compile dirt for Diosdado to use as defamatory fodder, didn’t actually exist. I was more inclined to dismiss them as fictional characters concocted in a VTV basement somewhere,…
Friend of the blog and Economist DAUZ shares a guest post about the Indiana Jones-meets-Wolf of Wall Street reality that is dealing in Venezuelan debt instruments. Interested parties (read: tropical adrenaline junkies, Bloomberg enthusiasts, and PDVSA bondholders) will surely geek out on this colorful, slice-of-life from the trading floor. It’s days like February 10th, 2015, that…
Non-reading TSJ magistrates and Central Bank economist can rest easy, thanks to Nelson Bocaranda´s feature of Anabella and Barbara´s open letter to the TSJ in his prime-time radio show today. Maybe TSJ folks just needed our request in audio format to get the memo. Yeah, that´s probably it. Listen in to Anabella´s on-point interview, which…
Last Friday saw the end of a nasty and self-destructive struggle for supremacy within the opposition coalition for the right to nominate the candidate for the safest opposition seat in the country: the Este-del-Este‘s Miranda Circuit #2. The outcome was…discomfiting: an AD-Voluntad Popular stitch up that sold Maria Corina Machado down the river in a nasty, vindictive slight…
The time has come to put away your Uncle Sam dart-boards, Silvio Rodriguez CD’s and you “Yankee, Go Home!” shirts. A Red White and Blue dawn has risen over the Ávila! American love is the future, baby! and I am…so confused. Remember how we once were so pissed off at the Imperialist North for wanting…
This account is adapted from an eyewitness report by Vente Venezuela activist Pedro Urruchurtu (@Urruchurtu). His original piece in Spanish is available at GuayoyoEnLetras. June 18, 11:30 a.m.. A Brazilian Air Force plane transporting eight Brazilian Senators is scheduled to land shortly on Rampa 4, the tarmac reserved at Simón Bolívar International Airport in Venezuela for government officials…
Don’t you know they actually help our thriving economy? What have YOU done for your country lately? Yeah, I thought so. Now get off your ass and go wait in line, it’s the least you could do. A big thank you to Venezuelan State Television for bringing this to our attention.
Over the last three years, divisions within the Venezuelan opposition have gone from taboo to in-your-face, from elephant in the room to full-blown suppurating eyesore. And everyone seems to admit this, except for the opposition leadership. I understand Chavismo’s need to resort to denial of dissent as a defense mechanism for unresolved daddy issues, but…
Dear underpaid intern at the State Dept. stuck in the Venezuela desk having to file reports about the BRV’s response to the president’s Executive Order, I feel for you. I really do. In the scheme of things, with Putin issuing nuclear threats to Denmark, ISIS spreading terror like it’s ebola, and China’s looming financial domination of your country, who has time…
Making decisions can be tough, especially if you’re expected to solve the worst economic crisis in our petrostate’s memory on a 22% approval rating, and don’t have the first clue what you’re doing. Leave it to a psychopath like the Defense Minister to show you how it’s done. While Maduro dithers like a paralyzed hamster at the…
Tomorrow, opposition leader María Corina Machado will go to the National Prosecutor’s Office to be indicted as an alleged conspirator in a plot to assassinate the President. Hefty charges that, if proven, carry the maximum penalty of 28 years in prison. In any other country, the “if proven” part of this sentence would be the most…
Over the past week, with the story of El Pollo Carvajal’s Aruba narco-escapade, and reports of an obscene dollars-imports-military scam, we have come to understand what we’re up against in Venezuela: drug-trafficking generals. Leave it to a last minute blocking of a U.S. Senate bill to clear things up a little more: we’re actually facing drug-trafficking…
The MUD has been getting a lot of flack lately for not getting things done. But the opposition alliance continues to use what little institutional maneuvering room it has to fight the good fight. Much of this flies under the radar, and it’ll never filter out into broader public attention, but at least the political…
Ahhhh.. everlasting love. Just the thing you need instead of basic food supplies and neoliberal announcements. Happy anniversary to the first couple (Thank you Capriles) of our failed state. May you have loving years of whiskers and salsa until 2019 (Thank you Capriles).
Caracas Chronicles 