Discendo Vox posted:

I don't think any of the expats in the thread are right wing, and it's still not a coup.

Judakel posted:

Gusanos have no wings.

Cease to Hope posted:

there's a lot of american leftists who can't keep their US chauvinism in their pants and don't understand that not every conversation everywhere is about the speaker's supposed affiliation in US politics. "you're not who you say you are, you're actually [the only hawkish US latino pressure group i've ever heard of]" is a bad look. you can make your point of "maduro is bad, but elliot abrams's puppet will make things 100 times worse" without showing your whole rear end.

Cease to Hope posted:

Pedro De Heredia posted:

Yeah honestly you are better off arguing that the coup is justified than arguing that it isn't one.

GreyjoyBastard posted:

i mean there's a reason i've settled on 'constitutional crisis' sort of language

if the Supreme Court is going to back whatever crazy poo poo Maduro gets up to and crush the opposition mercilessly (and there's been plenty of both those things), and if the National Electoral Council is going to get up to crazy poo poo to keep the PSUV in power, the opposition's only option for working even a little bit within the system looks a lot like what they in fact did

The "coup" terminology relies on whether it's constitutional for Guaido to declare himself interim president. If it's constitutional, that's not a coup, that's the normal (...ish) functioning of the government. If it's unconstitutional, it's an attempted coup, possibly of an unconstitutionally elected president, which would be less of a big deal than the coup of a legitimate president.

problem is, the legal mechanism for determining whether the PSUV's actions are constitutional has broken down pretty much completely

This might actually wind up being more dangerous for Venezuelan democratic institutions than the 2017-2018 election bullshit itself; restoring trust in the Supreme Court might be harder than restoring trust in the electoral system.

alternatively, if the PSUV succeeds in going from "one party state by virtue of chavismo being popular"* to "one party state by virtue of we said so, so there", we won't have to worry about trust in the supreme court or the electoral system

sexpig by night posted:

I don't know how you can say it's constitutional for Guaido to do what he did. The justification is literally just 'well he WOULD be next in the chain of succession' but that doesn't account for the fact that the other people are still, ya know, there.

Like, would it be constitutional if Pelosi just walked out and said 'I'm president now because I'm saying the election that got us Trump was fucky and he and Pence aren't valid any more'?

Discendo Vox posted:

We've discussed the constitutional basis for Guidano to claim the executive and declare new elections multiple times too, including citing the specific articles of the Constitution that do this. It's just a handful of pages back.

sexpig by night posted:

I don't know how you can say it's constitutional for Guaido to do what he did. The justification is literally just 'well he WOULD be next in the chain of succession' but that doesn't account for the fact that the other people are still, ya know, there.

Like, would it be constitutional if Pelosi just walked out and said 'I'm president now because I'm saying the election that got us Trump was fucky and he and Pence aren't valid any more'?

GreyjoyBastard posted:

If Donald Trump jailed Bernie and Harris and a 5-4 Kavanaugh opinion said the Democratic Party is disqualified from the 2020 election*? Maybe!

Because it's the closest remaining thing to a democratic remedy. That and/or just calling for new elections - but the thing in the Venezuelan case is that the new elections are part and parcel of the vacancy process.

To be clear, I consider the "election was broken, we need a new one" to be more important than the somewhat sketchy vacancy logic - but afaik there's not another mechanism in the Venezuelan constitution to do that (at least, not if the Supreme Court says the National Assembly can't do anything and Maduro's super double Parliament is the only one that can).

I'd have no problems with a position that the constitutional crisis means it's all a bit calvinball until new elections at the earliest, I'm just saying that EITHER Guaido's mechanism is constitutional OR there is no constitutional remedy to stealing a Presidential election, super-legislature, and supreme court. I submit that the latter case is Very Bad.

* yeah the Venezuelan opinion is a bit more complicated than this

sexpig by night posted:

This is just a bunch of hyperbole that doesn't say anything, though. You're just saying 'ok yea maybe it's not constitutional but it SHOULD be' which isn't inherently a wrong position but the problem is you keep saying it's not a coup which would have to mean it is in fact all legal and all.

Someone already said it, just say the coup is justified instead of this dumbass 'actually it's all legal and just and Maduro is the one being illegal by not leaving'.

Jose posted:

It'd absolutely a coup lmao

YodaTFK posted:

It's absolutely an illegitimate military dictatorship lmao

Jose posted:

Love to help the citizens of venezuela who desperately need help by blocking them getting medicine

https://twitter.com/fcn_84/status/1095774850415767552

quote:

Venezuela oil firm transferred millions of euros to Bulgarian bank accounts - security officials

SOFIA (Reuters) - Bulgaria has blocked transfers out of several bank accounts which have received millions of euros from Venezuela’s state-run oil company PDVSA (Petroleos de Venezuela), security officials said on Wednesday.

Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido assumed presidency of the country three weeks ago, arguing that Nicolas Maduro’s re-election last year was a sham. The United States and most Western countries, including Bulgaria, have recognised Guaido as the legitimate head of state, but Maduro retains the backing of Russia and China and control of state institutions.

Acting on a tip-off from the U.S., Bulgaria’s security services were checking accounts held at a local bank, by a man who had several citizenships, including a Bulgarian one, Bulgaria’s chief prosecutor, Sotir Tsatsarov said.

The money that came into the accounts was being sent to accounts abroad, Tsatsarov told reporters after a meeting with the U.S. ambassador to Sofia at the government building.

“We have established that there were money transfers from Venezuela, namely from the state oil company of Venezuela to these accounts,” Tsatsarov told reporters.

“All measures have been taken so that the funds that are still in the accounts, which are not in small amounts, will be fully under our control and not leave the country on false grounds,” he said.

There are millions of euros in the accounts, according to the head of the State National Security Agency, Dimitar Georgiev, who said the Bulgarian central bank was cooperating in the process.

Prosecutors will be looking at all the transfers into and out of these accounts before deciding whether to raise money laundering charges, Tsatsarov said, adding that the bank itself was not under suspicion.

“Our government is working very closely with Bulgaria and other members of European Union to ensure that the wealth of the people of Venezuela is not stolen,” the U.S. ambassador to Sofia, Eric Rubin, said after the meeting.

PDVSA is looking to increase exports to places like India as U.S. sanctions, designed to cut off the flow of foreign currency to Maduro’s government, hobble its deliveries to the United States and Europe.

AGGGGH BEES posted:

Lol if you think that money was going anywhere but the pockets of Maduro and his buddies. The hospitals havn't been getting much, if any meds for years now.

quote:

All the information contained here was verified in the original sources although the importer has been very cautious about the data provided due to fear of reprisals

AGGGGH BEES posted:

Lol if you think that money was going anywhere but the pockets of Maduro and his buddies. The hospitals havn't been getting much, if any meds for years now.

A Russian troll farm posted:

So does Venezuela have WMDs yet?

A Russian troll farm posted:

So does Venezuela have WMDs yet?

GreyjoyBastard posted:

I'm just saying that EITHER Guaido's mechanism is constitutional OR there is no constitutional remedy to stealing a Presidential election, super-legislature, and supreme court.

beer_war posted:

https://twitter.com/ICASO_/status/1096607375623184385

GreyjoyBastard posted:

EITHER Guaido's mechanism is constitutional OR there is no constitutional remedy to stealing a Presidential election, super-legislature, and supreme court.

Jose posted:

It is cool how similar Venezuela's situation is to the US

Munin posted:

Nice to see that you're consistent in your love of faux-populist authoritarians. You seem to be slightly less enthusiastic about the more popular one though.

Munin posted:

Nice to see that you're consistent in your love of faux-populist authoritarians. You seem to be slightly less enthusiastic about the more popular one though.

Jose posted:

The democrats could also impeach him

Jose posted:

It is cool how similar Venezuela's situation is to the US

Furia posted:

So it turns out that Maduro was in secret talks with Elliot Abrahams. I fully expect people who denounce any involvement of Abrahams with Venezuela to denounce the actions of the government now.

https://www.apnews.com/ee79b8c8f3a8497eab4a54741612dec8


gently caress you

Jose posted:

well so far he's just invited abrams to venezuela to talk

Furia posted:

So it turns out that Maduro was in secret talks with Elliot Abrahams. I fully expect people who denounce any involvement of Abrahams with Venezuela to denounce the actions of the government now.

https://www.apnews.com/ee79b8c8f3a8497eab4a54741612dec8

Furia posted:

He held “secret talks” with what the thread tells me is the violent sledgehammer man and I guess you’re just going to give him the benefit of doubt on that.

Meanwhile the opposition has done ??? about the whole Abrahams thing and that’s just evil

Not that it matters to you anyways because for you to think the US is in any way comprable to Venezuela you have to be either incredibly racist or misinformed so either way why would you give a poo poo?

Jose posted:

The "secret talks" were inviting him to venezuela for public talks.

Jose posted:

Yeah it'd probably end badly. Its true though, Maduro was elected with the popular vote while donald trump wasn't and the republican party manipulated the supreme court to work for them

Furia posted:

I mean they did say that, sure. You chose to believe them though.

And weird how you don’t address the other point I made about that but you do you.


If you had only just come into the world of Venezuelan politics I’d be willing to give on “misinformed” but that you follow this topic for a month now and not put the minimum effort to understand the situation as a whole says a lot about you

Pener Kropoopkin posted:

What do you suppose really went on at those secret talks? Because otherwise you're just expecting people to be mad that the Maduro government is engaging with the United States at all.