Chavez and his acolytes keep going at a dizzying speed in their legislative coup d'etat. If there is no point in going over the details as the end goal is clear, no more challenges to Chavez powers, ever, it is more interesting to observe some reactions that are becoming stronger and stronger.
Let's start with Human Rights Watch that might not use the word coup d'etat explicitly but that has read carefully three of the new laws specific for the elimination of freedom of expression, and information along the way.
The opposition is finally taking stock of the situation and now denounces outright the coup d'etat in progress. That means X-mas is over and Chavez Grinch managed to steal it completely. The bastard, every year it seems manages to steal Christmas from us.
Today, Maria Corina Machado, the Representative elected with the most votes on September 26, read a damning communique, which I am sure will be translated soon in the English section of El Universal. It was read in front of all the new opposition Representatives which did not leave for vacation holiday and will be there, I hope, all through the holidays organizing resistance.
Meanwhile Chavez announces that the holiday plate at the arepera socialista will be only 18 Bs. (somewhere between 4 and 2 USD according to the currency exchange you believe in). That is fine and dandy except that these areperas socialistas are very scarce, 11 country wide, and probably will be closed for Xmas. But when has naked totalitarian populism bothered with such details? by the way, if you were trying to reproduce the "plato navideño" for 18 Bs at home, even shopping at Mercal you could not manage it. Why the A.S. can do that? You guessed it, for the same reason our gas is at a few cents a gallon, pure demagoguery.