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Surprise! Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro given power to rule by decree
The Venezuelan parliament on Sunday approved a law giving the president, Nicolás Maduro, the power to legislate by decree for nine months in the face of what he described as threats by the US government.
The so-called “anti-imperialist” law will be in effect from the time it is published in Venezuela’s Official Gazette until 31 December.
Maduro requested the expanded powers in response to new US sanctions on Venezuelan officials accused of human rights violations. Critics of Venezuela’s government have called the move a power grab.
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I’m sure that he will immediately use his new powers to alleviate the chronic shortage of toilet paper that has been so evilly orchestrated by the imperialist Yanqui scum and their lickspittle toadies. Cows will immediately start giving more milk, olives will immediately start producing more oil. After all, all he wants to do is ‘arrange’ society so that everyone gets the decent, sufficient and dignified standard of living that they are entitled to. Right?
llater,
llamas
I’d respect them a little if they just called him a Dictator.
(In the way of the Romans, who also had the “for a limited time, rule by decree” thing, and invented that word for it.
Dictator; one who dictates, as in diktat.
I am less convinced the timespan here will be “limited”, of course – the Romans didn’t put up with any nonsense around that, but Venezuela isn’t Rome.)
‘Critics of Venezuela’s government have called the move a power grab.’
Gee, ya’ think !!!!!
A former bus driver running a country by decree. Yeah right!
Barry Sheridan:
Yes, it’s terrible to see a man who once did honest work fallen so low.
Its too bad Obama didn’t think about that before the last election. He could have negotiated a treaty with the UN that would give him that power, and gotten the Democrat-controlled Senate to ratify it, thus giving him the power to rule by decree. I am sure that the UN would have loved to do this.
And my first rule is that my rule by decree shall last forever and not only until new year as previously advertised. Suckers.
Good idea, rxc, but it wouldn’t have worked. The Constitution requires that the Senate ratify treaties by a 2/3rds majority, which Obama never had.
As to Maduro’s new “temporary” dictatorial power, of course it’s a “power grab.” That doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a legitimate beef with the US*, though. But precisely how that power could counteract the US’s “imperialist” actions I quite fail to understand.
* The US has denied visas to senior Venezuelan security officials because of their alleged “human rights violations.” Such denial seems entirely legitimate. But our government has also apparently frozen such officials’ US assets, and I can’t see how that is legal without due process of law. Perhaps I’m missing something here.
Even Al Jazeera appeared to be shocked by this move (at least by its being publically admitted).
Although, no doubt, “RT” will have justified it.
I avoided RT today – not in the mood for that degree of bullcrap.
To the young……
What the ruler of Venezuela got today is called an “Enabling Law”.
See the National Socialist Chancellor of Germany in the 1930s.
Barack Obama says he does not like the destruction of democracy in this country.
But he has given hundred of millions of Dollars to the Marxist government of El Salvador.
I suppose because they are “democratic” Marxists.
As I said elsewhere, he’s probably seen Obama dismiss the Senate in seeking a unilateral deal with Iran and thought why should he be the only one allowed to run a banana republic?
Out of no where, the current regime in the US picks a fight with Venezuela over some nebulous violations, takes some meaningless actions towards a few diplomats, and hands the Maduro regime a nice excuse to whip up some fresh anti-US frenzy to justify expanded powers.
Just a coincidence with the Iran stuff going on, I guess. Yeah, right.
If not this excuse, then another. Always a good time for expanded powers, if you’re a Bono Fide member of the collective.
The gobmint don’t need a new cause- they’re still engaged in the Wars on drugs, terror, and poverty! Probably obesity will be next.I wonder when we’ll see some action films about those campaigns? “The longest Diet”? “All quiet on the Wahhabi front”? “The Battle of the Bong”?
Can we call him a “right wing dictator’ yet?
Anyone want to bet this hasn’t already been used unwittingly by a member of the left?
He wants to be Obama
Perhaps a little bird told him to do it.
They ran out of other people’s money, so now the velvet glove comes off and the iron hand is in play. Be afraid, Venezuela.
I don’t know much Venezuelan history. Have they ever enjoyed a good democratic government?
Cincinnatus? NOT!