Our friend Daniel Lansberg-Rodríguez took the issue of Maduro’s stunt double in Panama, and ran with it – all the way to the end zone. He weaves a masterful put-down over at Foreign Policy’s Transitions blog. The whole piece is well worth your time, but here is the highlight for me: The act of picking out one’s own…
Maduro received the power today to rule by decree. It is the second time he has had these. Hugo Chávez had a ton of these during his tenure. You know what? It does not matter. Maduro could do whatever he wanted yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Does he have any constraints on governance? Perhaps, but if he does,…
A translation of a delicious put-down of our cerebrally-limited President, courtesy of Harvard Prof. Ricardo Hausmann: After a trip to Albania, South Africa, India, and Kazakhstan, where I have spoken to governments about how to confront their problems, I found out that Nicolás Maduro has again tried to hold me responsible for his own failure. Apparently, Venezuela’s financial problem…
So what did Venezuelan President Maduro say yesterday after Venezuela suffered a heavy blow at the OPEC meeting? Basically, we will not cut anything significant in the budget. Social and military investment – whatever that is – will not suffer. Not a single bolívar will be cut from the budget (hint: why would they? they can just keep on…
I wonder about Nicolás Maduro sometimes. I mean, it’s easy to dismiss Maduro as insane. The latest from the man who talks to birds, who thinks Chávez was “innoculated” with cancer? Well, the opposition is spreading tropical diseases, and it’s all the media’s fault. Still, barring the possibility that he’s insane, can he really be this…
What is an appropriate gift to bring to a birthday party in which the honoree is dead? Why, tons of fireworks, a cake, live music, national TV, and the resurrection of Sabado Sensacional, apparently. Leave your sense of shame, and your pitch, at the door.
Imagine the scene at the Dallas Police Station, November 22nd, 1963. A man is captured in a movie theater and brought into custody, a man named Lee Harvey Oswald. The President of the United States has been murdered a few miles away. Imagine then, in this parallel universe, the Dallas police department deciding that Oswald can go home. In…
Leopoldo López has been attending hearings regarding his current judicial situation for the past few days. It’s been a week-long affair, which makes you wonder why they go through all this this trouble when, at least in Cuba or the Khmer Rouge’s Cambodia, quickie trials were swift. While I have not been able to follow the nature…
According to Nicolás Maduro, an assasination attempt against him has been thwarted. The culprits? Maria Corina Machado, along with a bunch of opposition leaders, as well as the US Ambassador to Colombia. Now, I don’t have the serenity to give you the details of the preposterous claim. Suffice to say they claim to have emails where…
(A guest post by friend-of-the-blog Daniel Lansberg-Rodríguez) It’s amazing how little of the truly delicious ridiculousness spouted by the regime’s members gets noticed abroad, isn’t it? Since the death of Chávez, whose personal musings regarding, say, Martian economics or eau de azufre, would sporadically find their way into international news, today equally delectable morsels cooked up by his…
After Nicolás Maduro took away all power to legislate from the National Assembly and kept it for himself, deputies have a lot of time to kill. It’s only fitting that one of the first things they decide to do is … plunge, head first, right in the middle of a celebrity catfight! Roque Valero is…
(An open letter to Nicolás Maduro, courtesy of reader and sometime guest blogger Aquiles LaGrave) Dear Nicolás As a college student, I worked as a plumber to help supplement my income and buy beer for my friends. I got the job not thanks to merit, but because a well-meaning friend put me up to it,…
Maduro. Sunday night: “I have decided, once the Enabling Law is approved, to set percentage limits on earnings in every sector of the economy” Really Nicolás? Every sector? How long is that going to take? Do you even know how many sectors there are? Are you going to apply the same blanket percentage to everything?…
Amidst the typhoon of crazy we have had to suffer courtesy of Nicolás Maduro, we haven’t even had time to discuss this more deeply: Maduro has ordered anti-aircraft weapons to be placed in Caracas’ hillside slums. Human shields, anyone? It’s clear this – if it gets done, big if – is not intended for the…
Presidential Decree No. 541, published in yesterday’s Official Gazette, is one for the ages. It contains not one, not two, not three, but nine (9!) poorly written, exceedingly sappy, irrelevant “considerandos” in its decision to decree the upcoming day of the municipal election as “Day of Loyalty and Love for Supreme Commander Hugo Chávez and…
Caracas Chronicles 