The first item is the PSUV trying to remove the parliamentary immunity of a newly elected MUD legislator from Zulia, namely the Cabimas district. Apparently Hernan Aleman did a misappropriation of funds when he was mayor of Cabimas. In Venezuelan language that does not mean he stole the money, that means that he spent some budgeted money for something else than what was originally budgeted. That is, he took money to buy, say, police cars and used it to pay municipal employees because the regime did not send the funds it was supposed to send by law. This "crime" in Venezuela is enough to have you barred from public office. Ask Leopoldo Lopez who is rich from birth, who does not need to steal a penny from the treasury and who still got barred from running for who knows how many years, WITHOUT a trial and conviction, just because some comptroller somewhere reported that money was spent on Y instead of X during his tenure.
There are three problems with this story.
First, Aleman might be a thief, or not, but he deserves a fair trial.
Second, it was the Cabimas district that elected him, tired of chavismo wrecking the economy of the area when it confiscated the business of hundreds of PDVSA providers rather than pay them the due money. Removing artificially Aleman from office is certainly not the sure way to recover the affection of the locals, and in fact, if partial elections were to be hold chavismo would probaly lose even more this time around. Of course, unless the CNE allows for cheating.
Third, and most important. We must note the speediness at investigating Aleman and trying to unseat him. But the heavy dossier that has been submitted for investigation on the tenure of Diosdado Cabello as Miranda governor has remained gathering dust. I can assure you, I can bet my life on it, that the dossier contains not only severe misappropriations but also plain robbery. If Aleman is ousted, well, Diosdado should be in jail under a life sentence instead of sitting prettily in the new National Assembly (who I am afraid is fast on its ways to become a Nazional one...). And let not get me started on Chavez own misappropriations!
The second item comes form an art blog that I follow, one of the very few blogs that I have in my blog roll on the side. In her latest entry Lisa Blackmore confesses that she came late into the realization that Pastor Maldonado was going to make a demonstration of Formula 1 racing in Caracas. Although her blog tries to stay away from politics she cannot help but be surprised that the regime, the socialist regime of Chavez is spending a declared 20 million dollars on sponsoring the jump to Formula 1, a "sport" that is elite second only to sailing, and I am not even sure of that one. Let's just say that more people watch car racing than sailboats but cost wise I am pretty sure Formula 1 spends way more money.
 |
| Pastor comes even with a chavista rugged look of sorts...... |
There is another thing that I am willing to bet on: it is going to cost Venezuela more, way more than 20 million, if anything after you factor in all the chavistas that are going to travel at governmental expense to attend the Formula races that Pastor will run in. And I will let you speculate at ease on the real payment that the Williams house received when hiring Pastor. For reasons that escape me, Formula 1 is well followed in Venezuela. I do not get it, the mere noise of it is enough to make me run away from any TV set passing a car race. As such it is, we must admit, a good move for chavismo propaganda because under the pretense that car drivers are athletes newspapers will have to cover those races and root for Pastor, just as they root for any Venezuelan, ANY, that makes it to any B team in the US.... A strange phenomenon that one, to root for Venezuelans overseas while we let languish the ones here... But this is another story.
Fortunately Lisa has historical memory and she ends her post with the tale of our one before last dictator who paid a lot of money to have a Grand Prix race run in Caracas in 1957. Indirectly demonstrating that at least under democracy Venezuelan government did not get shamefully involved in car racing the way dictators do. And socialist dictators at that, unfucking believable!!!!
PS: Alek Boyd had a negative entry on that topic a few months back. Contrary to me he likes car racing and yet he was equally outraged.