Ecuador wins Canadian case against Chevron Texaco

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Big Polluting Oil just lost a major judgment in the last place I expected it to: right here, in Harpolandia. How about THESE apples?

Pablo Fajardo, attorney for the Union of Those Affected by Texaco Operations, announced that the group won a legal case yesterday in Canada, when the Appeals Court of Ontario unanimously recognized that it had jurisdiction and competency to validate the Ecuadorian sentence and execute it in that country.

Fajardo specified that with this recognition, which three trial judges gave, it would be “an important step” to embargo Chevron assets in Canada and make the transnational pay for the judgment in Ecuador. He commented that the multinational has an investment there; that is, it extracts petroleum, an investment worth more than 10 billion dollars.

“This case opens the doors to make the business pay,” Fajardo said.

Fajardo says that this was an appeal presented by the multinational in Canada, and that the corporation could seek another recourse, before the Supreme Court at the federal level, but that it would be “very difficult for them to succeed at the Supreme Court; this case is very important in the battle with Chevron-Texaco.”

The lawyer maintains that the Canadian recognition opens the doors so that those affected can file suits in countries such as Australia, one of the nations in which the multinational has more assets. Of the 60 countries in which Chevron has assets, the Union of Those Affected has filed suit in three: Canada, Brazil and Argentina.

Translation mine.

$10 billion in assets. Of course they’re going to appeal this at the highest level, but if they lose…that’s gonna clean up an awful lot of rainforest in Ecuador. Which, by coincidence, is just what these big-time polluters mucked up.

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Quotable: Lizz Winstead on unplanned pregnancy

Lizz talks about how she got pregnant the very first time she had sex, in high school. She also talks about what it’s like to be completely oblivious…and an easy mark for anti-choice propaganda. She also dispels some serious bullshit. Contrary to popular myth, there’s no “virgin grace period” for first-timers. Also, the withdrawal method is called Vatican Roulette for a reason. And if some person impersonating a doctor tells you that “It’s either Mommy, or MURDER”…run, run for your life.

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Tories have wrecked Canada’s refugee system

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Damage to a downtown Vancouver neighborhood by the racist Asiatic Exclusion League, September, 1907. In the last hundred or so years, it’s astonishing how little has changed, at least in the way our government treats non-white immigrants.

If you ever wondered how fucked-up our immigration policy has become, wonder no more. Just look at how our lovely right-wing government treats refugees from what is surely the most despised and ridiculed régime on the planet right now:

A recent decision by the refugee appeal tribunal to side with Ottawa and overturn a North Korean woman’s refugee status has sent shockwaves among asylum seekers who fled the Communist regime.

Minseo Kim, 45, and her daughter, Sangah Rhee, 2, came to Canada via South Korea in early 2013 and were granted asylum by the Immigration and Refugee Board in April.

However, Immigration Minister Chris Alexander successfully appealed the decision with the board’s newly established refugee appeal division, arguing that Kim and Rhee should not be recognized as refugees because North Koreans are automatically South Korean citizens.

Gee, you’d think such a bunch of fascists as we have in government here would never miss a chance to stick their fingers in the eye of Kim Jong-un. After all, he’s a dirty commie. But no, their own cheapskate capitalist tendencies have got the better of them:

Historically, North Korean refugees have had an acceptance rate over 50 per cent, peaking at 72 per cent in 2010. However, the number of claims has been steadily creeping up. In 2012 alone, 718 new claims were received, prompting concern from the federal government.

“Concern”? A few hundred refugee claims, back in the old days, wouldn’t have been cause for batting an eyelash. If these had been white Eastern Europeans back in the Cold War era, the government would have waved them though, and maybe even discreetly pumped them for sensitive information on their countries of origin, if they seemed in a position to give any.

As it is, this government is only too happy to import cheap Chinese labor for the tar sands and its associated pipeline projects. It’s hardly “concerned” about all the jobs Canadian workers stand to lose under those circumstance. So why make an issue of a few little Korean refugees? How much taxpayer money could they possibly eat up? Why are they so “concerned” that we are a more popular refugee destination of choice than our neighbor to the south?

At this rate, one wonders why we have a refugee policy at all. Why not bring back the old anti-Asian exclusion laws, if you’re going to be this irrational and hateful?

A pregnant woman from North Korea who is still waiting for a refugee hearing had her interim federal health coverage stripped in November, said Wright, because immigration officials deemed her a South Korean national. She gave birth at Sunnybrook hospital and is now $3,000 in debt.

“This is outrageous,” said Wright. “It just shows the mean-spiritedness of the government.”

Over the past year, Ottawa has designated 35 countries as “safe” for refugees and added South Korea to the list in May. It said it has no plan to put the “safe country” label on North Korea.

Given that North Korean refugees are treated as spies and enemy aliens in the “safe” South, this move could hardly be more cynical.

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Music for a Sunday: Snow, snow, snow, snow, SNOW!

Quite possibly my favorite number from White Christmas…Bing Crosby and friends travelling from Florida to Vermont to get INTO winter, not away from it:

And since today I had to dig out from under it, I figured I might as well make the most of it.

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Wankers of the Week: Black Santa and Brown Baby Jesus

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Crappy weekend, everyone! Well, it’s been a year since the Sandy Hook massacre…my sincerest condolences to all you folks out there. Sucks that you to have to remember this, and at this time of year, too. Sucks that it happened. Those kids and teachers are a loss that can never be made good. Good thing we still have these people to remind us of what else sucks, then; they’re no loss. And in no particular order, they are:

1. Ted Fucking Yoho. Remember Sandy Hook? He does. And he thinks the perfect way to commemorate that massacre is to turn more kids into gun-addled assholes. This would be like a Canadian member of Parliament doing the same thing on the anniversary of the Montréal Massacre, and would go over like a solid shit wall.

2. Thomas Joseph Fucking Tobin. Oh look, it’s another man in skirts, telling women what to do with their bodies. Except he left the women out of it and decided to attack the late Nelson Mandela instead…for recognizing that South African women, especially the poor and/or black, deserved more autonomy over their own bodies and a right to control how many children they would have. Such evil!

3. Mark Fucking Jacobs. And speaking of men who don’t understand women, this one’s had coaching from his wife and daughter on how NOT to do it. Trust me, I don’t need to be talked to on an “emotional level” by some smug-eyed schmuck who will only ever patronize me. I’m perfectly capable of understanding even the most abstract of intellectual concepts, fuckyouverymuch.

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4. Rush Fucking Limbaugh. And another man who obviously doesn’t know how to talk to or about women. The Pigman thinks women’s breasts FORCE men to gawk at them. Um, NO — trust me, mine want nothing to do with him. And neither do anyone else’s. PS: Watch out for that secret Socialist Handshake™! Boogaboogabooga!!!

5. Newt Fucking Gingrich. Oh boo fucking hoo, Nelson Mandela made Ronnie Fucking Reagan look bad! Well, no shit, Sherlock…Ronnie was pro-apartheid for the most cynical reasons. If it were up to him, Mandela would have DIED in prison. There’s no “smear” inherent in stating that simple fact. And how about going after your fellow conservatives for their obvious racism, Newty? Oh wait…that would mean turning into one of those “Reagan-smearing liberals”. Ha, ha.

6. Wayne Fucking Bell. Obamacare, “worse than any war”? Um, NO. That would be capitalism, dear.

7 and 8. Peter LaFucking Barbera and Andrea Fucking Williams. Oh, the poor oppwessed widdle homophobes! Not content to meddle in Uganda to impose their kill-queers agenda (and applauding Russia for the same), now they’re pushing Jamaica to hold on to outdated bigotries. That steamroller called History can’t roll over these ones soon enough.

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9. Stephen Fucking Marche. Dude. Would it kill you to pick up a broom or a mop once in a while and help out around the house? It’s not like you’re so fucking brilliant that you can get away with doing nothing. Hell, you’re not even bright enough to just fucking ask your wife why she hates doing the dishes. Boredom is not exactly esoteric. No doubt you’ll be equally befuddled when she finally divorces your slobby ass.

10. Vladimir Fucking Putin. How to get absolute control over media coverage of Sochi, to make sure nothing supportive of gay rights (or critical of Russia’s lack of same) could possibly get through? Simple…take the most rabidly homophobic journalist you can find, and put him in charge of (what used to be) RIA Novosti. Problem solved!

11. Jack Fucking Cashill. George Zimmerman is like Nelson Mandela? Only in the fever swamp of a right-wing tinfoil-hatter’s overworked imagination.

12. Bibi Fucking Netanyahu. Does anyone seriously believe that the prime minister of the most US-funded apartheid state in the world can’t afford to travel to South Africa or hire security while he shows his hypocritical face at Nelson Mandela’s memorial services? No? I’m shocked. SHOCKED, I tell you.

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13 and 14. Maurice Fucking Vellacott and Stephen Fucking Woodworth. Why do these two even exist? Because right-wing rednecks love them some dumbass one-trick ponies who keep trying, one boneheaded way after another, to “reopen” the long-closed “debate” on abortion in Canada, which the pro-choice side won a quarter of a century ago. So decisively, in fact, that we haven’t had an abortion law since 1988. And we don’t fucking miss it, either. Just as no one will miss these two anti-choice turds, who have literally done NOTHING for their constituents in all their time on the Hill, other than these ham-fisted red-meat attempts to whip up their aging (and dwindling) fundie base every time Harpo & Co. start slipping badly in the approval ratings.

15. Dave Fucking Agema. Speaking of things that should not have existed since 1988, how about him? He’s still peddling every twisted old lie about AIDS and gays that I remember all too well from, oh, about 1988 or so. And now, he’s added a “fresh” twist: Evil queeeeers want “free medical” because they’re all dying of AIDS! This must come as a tremendous shock to most of my gay friends, who are over 45 and still alive and NOT sick with AIDS, quite contrary to Agema’s stale statistics. PS: No, your words weren’t “twisted”. The twisted one is YOU.

16. Jean-Guy Fucking Dagenais. Behold, the bitterness of an old fart who couldn’t get himself elected MP, so Harpo had to appoint him to the Senate. And then along comes a Bright Young Thing, who gets freely and fairly elected in his home riding. What does Bitter Old Fart do? Slam her in the most misogynistic, ageist, patronizing and belittling terms. Interestingly, though some young men were also elected as NDP MPs in Québec, none of them had to suffer a similar indignity:

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Things that make you go hmmmmm, eh?

16. Jill Fucking Stanek. Oh, Nurse Wretched, why can’t you be honest? The real reason you don’t want to mourn for Nelson Mandela isn’t abortion. It’s because you’re another of those hypocritical racist anti-choicers who try to pretend they aren’t…you gutless, gormless, disingenuous fucking idiotess.

17. Warren Fucking Farrell. Oh joy! The Godfather of MRAssholism is putting out his old book with a new cover. And he wants his misogynous acolytes to help him pick a pic, too! The choices are currently either boobs, bum, or moss-covered ladybits as the perfect illustration of why male power is supposedly a myth. Because anything that levitates the penis must be an automatic power-sucker, however male-gazey its presentation!

18. Patrick Fucking Howley. And speaking of MRAssholes, he sure does sound like one himself. Poor oppwessed widdle fing, he doesn’t like being told that women hate being ogled, leered at, and catcalled by random strangers! He just can’t take it that we refuse to take that shit as a “compliment”! Everybody, on the count of three: …DIDDUMS!

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19. Clint Fucking Carpentier. And back to A Voice For (Asinine) Men. Here’s a guy who thinks that everything went downhill since it became illegal to rape one’s wife. This along with beating her with a switch the thickness of one’s thumb, no doubt. Really, if you can’t just force yourself upon her, and expect her to do your housework for free, too — what’s she good for? And why marry at all? Jeebus…it’s like these fuckheads have never heard of LOVE. PS: Aaaand he doubles down on the dumbth. Yup, we got a real wiener here.

20. Rob Fucking Ford. What goes around, comes around. And since Robbo has seen fit to harass, defame, and threaten a Toronto Star reporter for daring to cover something beyond the official “gravy train” line, it’s only meet and right that Daniel Dale is now dragging him off to court. (And for extra amusement, picture a slender young man of medium height, dragging the 350-pound lummox that is Robbo.)

21. Orit Fucking Arfa. You thought Miley Fucking Cyrus was a crap artist? You should see her. No, really. She’s a CRAPAGANDA ARTISTE!

22. Jean Fucking Boyd. Why?

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That’s why. If little Richie Rich is suffering from “affluenza” (which, by the way, is NOT a real disease), then the “cure” is a jail term equivalent to what any poor schmo in the same boat would have to face. That way, he’d at least get to see how the other 99% lives.

23. Johnny Fucking Weir. Time was, American figure skaters were out to show the Russians how much better their way of life was than communism. They did propaganda for capitalism, in other words. Well, now that the Soviet Union is history, just look how much is changed! We now have washed-up US skaters doing propaganda for Mother Russia! And even funnier: GAY skaters, trying to convince us that Russia’s homophobic laws are really not so bad. Tovarisch, PLEASE.

24. Theodore Fucking Beale. “All women are bitches, so show ’em who’s boss”, says a guy who got his ass kicked time and again, by women. Straight out of the Science Fiction Writers of America, as I recall. And what’s this “alpha game” crap? Dude, you’re married. Knock it off.

25. Megyn Fucking Kelly. Jesus and Santa Claus are both fictitious, so it hardly matters if they’re not always portrayed as white men. But thanks a lot for playing the race card, you little shit. PS: Oh, who the hell do you think you’re kidding? Children don’t watch FUX Snooze…and any parent who makes them watch is a child abuser. PPS: Uh oh, where’d she go? Off hitting the whiter-than-white eggnog, I bet…

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26. Kanye Fucking West, AGAIN. Yeezus, is there a week goes by that you DON’T wank? What you do is NOTHING like police work. Or the military. Ranting on stage is about as unrisky a profession as can be, unless perhaps you think risking ridicule (in a bulletproof leather kilt?) is somehow life-threatening.

27. G. Dick Fucking Miller. So, he’s sorry he used the ridiculous word “affluenza”, but still thinks that spoiled-rich-kid is a legit legal defence? Sorry, not sorry to be listing him here as a fucking wanker.

28. Ethan Fucking Couch. A little belated, but #27’s client also deserves a listing, just for being That Spoiled Rich Brat.

29. Seth Fucking Thompson. Because it just wouldn’t be a wanklist without an entry that actually pertains to wanking, here you go. One all-too-enterprising Internet porntrepreneur, capitalizing on the invasion of students’ privacy at the university library john. And look! It’s Florida Man…AGAIN! Fappy now?

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30 and 31. Dean Fucking Blundell and Derek Fucking Welsman. Why the hell do morning-zoo shock-jocks exist at all? This shit got old in the ’80s, fergawdsakes. As did all the homophobic AIDS jokes these two regularly made on air (among other hostile horseshit that passes for “humor”). Even worse, though, is that Welsman somehow got picked to be on a jury in the trial of a gay man…and as foreman, too. Shouldn’t a media job be an instant disqualification in the jury selection process, rather than a promotion to the top of the queue? Because that’s a clear conflict of interests right there. And why his track record for broadcast standards violations was not a major red flag in the vetting of that jury, I do not know.

32. Stephen Fucking Brawn. Newsflash: sleeping women cannot consent to sex, and getting “permission” in advance should not be an acceptable rape defence. Can’t believe the court bought it. This is bullshit, people. A sleeping person is not in any condition to consent, and prior conversation is not an adequate substitute.

33. Ivan Fucking Okhlobystin. Dude, your ass-ugly tattoos and your fascism are more of a threat to your children than gay people are. Drop this Nazi shit, you’re disgracing your grandfathers!

34. Bob Fucking Newhart. Well, look who outed himself as an old homophobic poop. He’s going to an anti-LGBT Catholic conference? Let’s hope this was all just some mistake on the part of his bookers. Because I keep remembering that episode of The Big Bang Theory where Sheldon is palling around with a TV science guy played by Newhart, and we all know that Jim Parsons is gay-gay-gaiety-gay-GAY.

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35. Justin Fucking Bieber. Ladies, beware! If you go to the Biebermansion, you will be plied with Bieberalcohol, whereupon you will end up needing an ambulance to get you the hell out of there. Not to hospital, mind you — just the hell out of there.

36. Lance Fucking Armstrong. Just when you thought it was safe to get back on your racing bike…um, don’t. Just don’t. Because if you do, chances are a doping cheater will ask you to throw a race so he can go down in history as the cheatingest doper of all fucking time.

37. Kevin Fucking Bollaert. My best friend e-mailed me this link saying he’s a psychopath by definition. I quite agree. Who BUT a fucking psychopath would give his own victims advice on “reputation management”?

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38. Gretchen Fucking Carlson. Oh noes, there’s a Festivus pole! And Baby Jesus is BEHIND it! The horror! THE HORROR!!! Oh come on, Wretched, it could be so much worse. Your Baby Jesus could have been portrayed as an actual Palestinian Jew!

39. Jacoby Fucking Kindred. When is a girl not a girl? When a pastor who is not a pastor is raping devils who aren’t devils out of her, duh.

40. Rick Fucking Santorum. Oh, Icky Ricky Buttsploodge…what would a wankapedia be without you? Just as wanky, but not half as wacky. Ha, ha.

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And finally, to the Fucking Simon Wiesenthalers. Why, oh WHY can’t they go hunting for real Nazis? It’s not as if there’s any shortage of them in, say, Alberta, or the Deep South. No, they just HAVE to go picking on Roger Waters again…for correctly pointing out the fascist/apartheidist tendencies of the Israeli government. Come to think of it, maybe they should stick to their own backyard. They have clearly become what they set out to fight. And somewhere in the Great Beyond, Nietzsche is palming his face. MIGHTILY.

Good night, and get fucked!

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Festive Left Friday Blogging: Democracy comes to Colombia…

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…whether the Colombian oligarchy wants it or not. This is nothing if not heartening:

Thousands of Colombians today offered massive support to the mayor of Bogotá, Gustavo Petro, recently removed from office and prohibited from politics for 15 years, in a large mobilization for peace and democracy in Bolívar Square.

Bogotans, in company with peasants, indigenous people, workers and social organizations from other parts of the country, united to support the capital city’s mayor, as they did last Monday, when the Procurator General sanctioned Petro for irregularities in implementing a new sanitation program for the city in 2012.

From the beginning, hundreds of city residents called the dismissal unjust, and affirmed that the procurator, Alejandro Ordóñez, has violated their rights. “I didn’t vote for the procurator, I voted for Petro”, they say.

Last night the mayor called for a peaceful march, with love and fraternity, in an historic mobilization for democracy, and denounced that violent individuals were looking to infiltrate the marches in order to silence “the peaceful voice of the people”.

It is also expected that in this demonstration the indigenous guard would attend. They were detained by police in Calarca, in the central department of Quindío, while travelling to Bogotá yesterday, according to one of their leaders, Feliciano Valencia.

In a Twitter message, Valencia denounced that members of the police immobilized their vehicles with excuses of a supposed mechanical check.

“There are pressures from the central government to impede the arrival of citizens to the mobilization in defence of democracy,” he announced.

Along with the march in Bogotá, there are also days of protest in support of Petro planned for other parts of the country, such as Barranquilla.

Translation mine.

Meanwhile, president Juan Manuel Santos has been put on notice; and, in contrast to his putschist predecessor, he has announced a decision to meet with Petro. Let’s wait and see what comes of it, and hope he has better sense than El Narco.

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Uribe’s Colombian putsch

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Left to right: Fernando Londoño, Alejandro Ordóñez, and Álvaro Uribe.

Who are these three? Well, chances are you already know the third one as El Narco, if you read this blog on a regular basis. He’s the nasty little shit who used to be president of Colombia not so long ago. As for the other two…well, read on:

The procurator of Colombia, Alejandro Ordóñez, deposed Gustavo Petro, mayor of Bogotá, elected by popular vote, and prohibited him for 15 years from any public office. What the procurator did is a “soft” coup, in the style of those of Honduras and Paraguay.

It is a decision which he carried out along with his true boss, the ex-president Álvaro Uribe, and the fascist Fernando Londoño, ex-minister of justice and the Interior under Uribe, known in Colombia for his embezzlements of the Colombian state oil company, Ecopetrol.

He is the same prosecutor who barred senator Piedad Córdoba from office for 18 years, and also removed from office two parliamentarians (Piedad Córdoba and Gustavo Petro were both senators) who led hard debates in the Colombian congress over the nexus between Uribe and paramilitarism and the drug cartels in Colombia.

But there’s more. Petro, elected mayor, municipalized garbage collection and so confronted a mafia of garbage-collection companies. Between them, there is a nexus with the Uribe family via his wife. It was a most lucrative business, in which the companies divided the “market” and the profits in a city with eight million residents.

The decision to municipalize garbage collection was received with rage by the oligarchy and the powers-that-be in Colombia. And yesterday, by way of the Procurator, they committed a coup against the fragile democracy and the political rights of the people enshrined in the constitution.

Now the Procurator continues his inquisitorial career against the Peace Process in Havana. He says that there is no negotiated way out if the commanders of all levels of the FARC were sentenced to prison.

[…]

The Procurator is a cheap and powerful tool, controlled by the most obscure, violent and militaristic of forces. The people must mobilize, as they are doing right now, throughout the land with the aim of toppling Alejandro Ordóñez as procurator of the nation. He is a real risk for the future of Colombia in peace with social justice.

But not only him. The ex-president Uribe, and Londoño, who are the intellectual authors of the conspiracy against Petro, must also face trial.

So said the ex-constituent Otty Patiño, last night. It all began when Pacho Santos called consultant Rodrigo Rojas into his office in the “G Zone” of Bogotá to ask a favor of him. Upon request of Rodrigo Rojas, who did not want to go alone, Otty Patiño accompanied him to the secret meeting. There, Santos told them that he had privileged information of the imminent removal of Gustavo Petro, and for that reason, he was preparing a government plan to run for the mayoralty himself, but he would need a little help: that Rodrigo Rojas secure the endorsement of the Independent Social Alliance party (ASI), because after his defeat in the Uribist convention he had left very offended with them and would not run for that movement.

Patiño, who we know was a comrade of Petro’s in the M19 guerrillas, and who is also director of the observatory of the Secretariat of Culture in Bogotá, immediately sought an audience with the mayor to alert him of the revelation, even though Pacho Santos had asked him to keep it secret.

In the mayor’s office, however, they already had information of what was about to happen. Patiño could not meet directly with Petro because the leader was in New York, but another Rojas was in attendance; namely, Jorge Rojas, Secretary of Social Integration of Bogotá. The functionary told Patiño that the mayor had information over certain private meetings which took place between ex-president Uribe and ex-minister Londoño and the procurator, Ordóñez, in which they were cooking up the political death of Gustavo Petro.

Uribe and Londoño would remove from the political path one of their greatest detractors; at the same time, they would appease the wrath of Pacho Santos, supporting him for his imminent ascent to the mayoralty, while Ordóñez would make felt his authority in all corners of the land for a possible presidential candidacy with the aid of Uribism in 2018, without having to face a leftist contender like Gustavo Petro.

But Uribe, Londoño and Ordóñez didn’t reckon with the fact that Pacho Santos was not in agreement with this political plot, and was already seeking another way.

Translation mine.

So it looks like I was right, yesterday; Gustavo Petro was up against something a lot bigger than just a few lousy garbage collection companies. We can now see that he was up against no less than his old enemy, El Narco himself. And since El Narco’s wife had ties to the garbage rats, who of course were mafiosi (why, oh WHY am I not surprised?), it was inevitable that this would be the wedge they used to throw Petro out. With no popular support whatsoever for their plan…naturally. (Uribe, popular? Ha!)

But how terribly inconvenient for El Narco that his mayoral pick turned out to be an underling from the “Party of the U” whom he’d insulted and pissed off so badly that the latter now wanted nothing to do with him or his party anymore. Francisco “Pacho” Santos was hoping to become mayor, all right, but he was looking for other backing, and he was hoping Rodrigo Rojas would help him secure it. Too bad for him that the distrustful Rojas took along his friend Otty Patiño, who just happened to be Gustavo Petro’s old guerrilla comrade, for security…and, worse luck, Petro’s office was already, somehow, aware of the conspiracy through other sources, no doubt yet to be revealed.

Meanwhile, here’s a TV interview with Otty Patiño, in Spanish:

Basically, Patiño iterates everything that the above article reveals.

As for how Petro knew…well, we shall await that revelation in due course, no?

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Gustavo Petro is out of a job

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Well, this sucks. Bogotá just lost a progressive and very popular mayor:

The Procurator General’s Office (Public Ministry) of Colombia removed from office the mayor of Bogotá, Gustavo Petro, on Monday, and prohibited him from performing all public duties for fifteen years due to his handling of a garbage-collection crisis in 2012.

“The Procurator’s Office imposed as sanction upon Mr. Gustavo Petro a removal from office, and general prohibition from exercising public functions for a term of fifteen years,” said procurator Alejandro Ordoñez upon reading out the public declaration.

Petro, a former M-19 guerrilla, was elected mayor in 2011 as a candidate of the Progressive movement for the 2012-15 term.

In December of last year, Petro tried to change the method of garbage collection in the capital, and proposed exchanging the contractors who performed the service for an official agency. Several days later, with the streets filled with bags of garbage, the mayor reversed his decision.

He is the second mayor of Bogotá to be removed from office. In May 2011, the Procurator’s Office suspended then-mayor Samuel Moreno for neglecting to properly oversee public works contracts in the city. Moreno, who has always denied the charges, has been in prison since September 2011, and is currently awaiting trial.

The Mayoralty of Bogotá is the second most important electoral post in the land, after the presidency, since Bogotá is Colombia’s largest city, and in fact many capital mayors later became presidents.

Translation mine.

A relatively minor thing like garbage collection seems an odd reason to depose a mayor from office. If that were the case everywhere, the Majunche would be out of a job himself; the garbage in the state of Miranda, Venezuela, has been piling up on a regular basis since the little fascist prick decided he was more “useful” gunning for first Chavecito, then Maduro. Toronto had a garbage crisis of its own a few years back (actually, it seems to have “garbage crises” on a regular basis!), and no mayors were sacrificed in the resolution. I haven’t heard of this happening anywhere but Bogotá! No, I don’t believe this is the real reason Gustavo Petro was ousted. I suspect it’s just the pretext for something else. What? Well, how about sabotaging some FARC-EP peace talks, currently under way in Cuba?

The Colombian FARC guerrillas have called the ouster of the mayor of Bogotá, Gustavo Petro, a “grave blow” to the peace process. Petro, one of the most distinguished leftists in the land, was prohibited from public office for fifteen years.

The pronouncement of the leftist Armed Revolutionary Forces of Colombia (FARC) comes a day after the Procurator General, Alejandro Ordoñez, made public the sanction against Petro, a former M-19 guerrilla, considered a probable candidate for the presidency in 2018.

“The decision of the procurator is another grave blow against the peace process in Havana, which affects confidence and credibility,” stated the FARC in a communiqué on their Internet page.

“For several years the establishment has insisted hypocritically on the success of Petro being a demonstration that in Colombia it is possible to conduct leftist political activity, without weapons,” added the rebel group, criticizing the procurator’s decision.

According to Ordoñez, the mayor established a model of sanitation outside of the law, violating the principles of free enterprise and competency, with which he committed a severe fault in stopping the collection of garbage in December 2012.

Petro, 53, changed the means of garbage collection in Bogotá, which was in the hands of private operators, and handed this task to the Aqueduct Agency, which caused the city to end up inundated in trash. The mayor’s office returned to contracting the service to some private operators after the crisis.

“Yesterday, with just the stroke of a pen, Ordoñez gave armed rebels a lesson in what democracy means to the oligarchy in Colombia, and over the empty guarantees of performing an independent political exercise,” stated the guerrilla group, considered a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union.

Petro took up the mayoralty of Bogotá, the second most important political job in Colombia after the presidency, in January 2012. The guerrilla group to which he had belonged handed over its weapons and demobilized in 1990.

His electoral victory was considered an example of how the guerrillas could abandon armed warfare and do politics, one of the points which the government is negotiating with the FARC in a peace dialogue with which they seek to put an end to the internal conflict of about half a century, which has cost more than 200,000 lives.

Last month, the two parties met in Cuba to agree to guarantees for the right to exercise political opposition, which would establish the basis for the guerrillas to abandon arms and convert themselves into a party if the peace process culminated with the signing of an accord.

Translation mine, again.

So now it’s painfully obvious what the real agenda is. This isn’t about garbage, or free enterprise, at all! This is about preventing the rise to presidency of a popular leftist mayor, who also happens to be an ex-guerrilla (long since disarmed) and a major player in the peace talks. Which, it now appears, will either stall or be broken off entirely. In that light, the fifteen-year prohibition on Petro taking any public office reads clearly as a political move, one designed to effectively bar him from all political activity, as well as a warning to other democratic leftists seeking change via the public political route (as the FARC communiqué indicates). He can’t return to the mayoralty, or to the senate, where he previously presided over peace talks, working with Chavecito in getting the FARC to hand over hostages, some of them quite high-profile. (Such efforts have been sabotaged before.) And of course, he can’t make any more positive changes to the capital city of Bogotá, either.

It may not be another Gaitán assassination, but I think this move effectively condemns Colombia to years and decades more of political violence. The fact that there is not a second Bogotazo in response to this outrage speaks less to the Colombian people’s peaceful intentions than, I think, their utter resignation to the likelihood that things will never truly change.

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Another big Bolivarian victory in Venezuela

maduro-voted

Here it is, for all you doubters. Even at the municipal level, the PSUV and its allies dominated the leaderboard in yesterday’s elections…and the president of the land couldn’t resist getting a few well-aimed jabs in:

“Today, no room for doubt, we have won a great victory: the people of Venezuela have told the world that the Bolivarian Revolution goes on, stronger than ever,” said President Nicolás Maduro on Sunday, following municipal elections.

“Not even the economic war staged by the right can stop the Revolution,” he added.

He also said, in reference to the twice-losing candidate Henrique Capriles, “Here is your plebiscite, ‘Caprichito’. Arrogant, overbearing fascist. I hope you learn humility, that you will show your face before the land and resign from the political directorate of the [united opposition party] MUD.

“Defeat number 4 in a row for the MUD, and its corrupt leadership,” added Maduro. “Does nobody demand accounting over there? Four defeats in 14 months. Does no one there demand any accounting?”

Translation mine.

This comes after all kinds of efforts at economic and electrical sabotage, in an effort to make Madurito look bad. 58% of all Venezuelan mayoralties are now Chavista, and that’s a solid win. It’s also a testament to the unshakable faith of the PSUV’s supporters in their candidates, who have been under all kinds of siege ever since the electoral campaign began.

Yeah, I bet Majunche Capriles was nursing a red ass this morning. He took another embarrassing kicking there yesterday. First Chavecito, then Madurito, and now the municipal candidates of the PSUV/PCV coalition have handed it to him. Do you suppose that now, he’ll finally get down to the business of governing the state of Miranda? Or will he slink off to Miami, to lick his wounds there amid fawning sympathizers, while the trash keeps piling up in the ‘hood? Or does he have something darker in mind?

majunche-threatening

“If we don’t win all the mayoralties, we’re going to go out and kill Chavistas like we did on April 14 and 15! Let nothing stop us!”

Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that…and if it does, let’s hope the Bolivarian National Police are ready for them.

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Music for a Sunday: Beautiful friends

In memory of John Lennon, who died today in 1980, and the great bossanovista Tom Jobim, who left us today in 1994, here is birthday boy Jim Morrison:

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