Crazy Like a Fox (1 Viewer)

[KidRocks]

Love that part in the paragraph that states that "much of the rest of the world applauds" Hugo Chavez's speech. . It's seems that it's true because I am one of them that applauded Chavez the loudest. A 'Standing O' I gave Hugo!

I sure as hell pray that Venezuela wins that seat in the UN. Security Council. Looks like it's very possible what with the big boys, Russia, China and Brazil backing Venezuela. We need someone to 'check and balance' that madman, President Bush! Go Hugo!








http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1538623-2,00.html

Yet the problem for the Bush Administration is that while many Americans recoil, much of the rest of the world applauds. That's a big reason the U.S. is lobbying hard to prevent Venezuela from winning a nonvoting seat next month on the U.N. Security Council, where Chávez could run interference for his friend, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in the dispute over Iran's nuclear ambitions. The U.S. is backing Guatemala for the seat, but Chávez has lined up the support of such influential nations as Russia, China and Brazil. And if Venezuela does win it, it would be the latest reminder that while 20th century rebels like Castro could do little more than rail at Washington, the U.S. today faces post--cold war radicals like Chávez and Ahmadinejad who have the will, savvy and resources to constrain American power and thwart U.S. interests. Says an African diplomat: "Chávez will stand up and articulate, however coarsely, the notion many of our citizens hold--that Bush and the U.S. have kicked us around for some time now after 9/11 and we would like it to stop."...

 

[Trajan Octavian Titus]

Love that part in the paragraph that states that "much of the rest of the world applauds" Hugo Chavez's speech. . It's seems that it's true because I am one of them that applauded Chavez the loudest. A 'Standing O' I gave Hugo!

I sure as hell pray that Venezuela wins that seat in the UN. Security Council. Looks like it's very possible what with the big boys, Russia, China and Brazil backing Venezuela. We need someone to 'check and balance' that madman, President Bush! Go Hugo!








http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1538623-2,00.html

Yet the problem for the Bush Administration is that while many Americans recoil, much of the rest of the world applauds. That's a big reason the U.S. is lobbying hard to prevent Venezuela from winning a nonvoting seat next month on the U.N. Security Council, where Chávez could run interference for his friend, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in the dispute over Iran's nuclear ambitions. The U.S. is backing Guatemala for the seat, but Chávez has lined up the support of such influential nations as Russia, China and Brazil. And if Venezuela does win it, it would be the latest reminder that while 20th century rebels like Castro could do little more than rail at Washington, the U.S. today faces post--cold war radicals like Chávez and Ahmadinejad who have the will, savvy and resources to constrain American power and thwart U.S. interests. Says an African diplomat: "Chávez will stand up and articulate, however coarsely, the notion many of our citizens hold--that Bush and the U.S. have kicked us around for some time now after 9/11 and we would like it to stop."...

Hugo Chavez is a dictator in the making, he has packed the courts therby derailing the impartiality of the Venezuelan Judiciary, he has rewritten the Constitution, he has ended the free press in Venezuela, and now it seems he wants to become "president for life." Not to mention the fact that he's a god damn clown.

 

[cherokee]

Kiddocks, Did you even bother to read the rest of the story?...
Man you can be such a dip..:roll:




But Chávez is also a polarizing figure at home. Although his approval ratings are in the high 50s, there is growing impatience with the country's stubborn unemployment and violent crime. Teodoro Petkoff, an erstwhile socialist leader who is a campaign strategist for Chávez's main opponent in the December presidential election, Manuel Rosales, says Chávez's "21st century socialism" is only a short-term fix. "The real fight against poverty is a fight against unemployment," Petkoff says. Others complain that Chávez is a Castro wannabe who has subverted Venezuela's democratic institutions, especially the courts, and may well seek a constitutional change to let him run for a third term in 2012 if, as expected, he wins re-election in December. For the most part, Venezuelan media are still free to rail at Chávez--and they do. "Just watch two hours of television there," Chávez says. "My God, devil is the least of things the opposition is allowed to call me on the air."

What may ultimately erode Chávez's stature are exactly the things that he has skillfully used to boost it. As the price of oil begins to fall, critics predict Chávez's radical influence will too. Some analysts believe that Mexico's leftist candidate, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, narrowly lost the recent presidential race in large part because his conservative opponent painted him as a Chávez clone. The same thing happened a month earlier in presidential elections in Peru.

 

[KidRocks]

Hugo Chavez is a dictator in the making, he has packed the courts therby derailing the impartiality of the Venezuelan Judiciary, he has rewritten the Constitution, he has ended the free press in Venezuela, and now it seems he wants to become "president for life." Not to mention the fact that he's a god damn clown.

Gosh, Hugo sounds so much like President Bush what with all the redistricting the Republicans have managed and with Bush replacing and stocking the USSC with radical and extremist judges.

Bush hasn't rewritten our Constitution, (not that I am aware of) but he certainly has circumvented and ignored it to hell. Don't forget that Bush has cleverly armed himself with the "Patriot-Act" also.

Oh, and don't you dare get me started on how President Bush and the Republicans hate the free-press, how they hate the "media", how they hate "free-speech", how they hate "dessent", how they hate, "freedom of the press"!

 

[Trajan Octavian Titus]

Gosh, Hugo sounds so much like President Bush what with all the redistricting the Republicans have managed and with Bush replacing and stocking the USSC with radical and extremist judges.

Hay buddy the President didn't rewrite the Constitution or the laws to pack the courts the way Chavez did:

Rigging the Rule of Law:
Judicial Independence Under Siege in Venezuela

I. Summary
When Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez Frías faced a coup d’état in April 2002, advocates of democracy in Venezuela and abroad roundly condemned the assault on the country’s constitutional order. Today Venezuela faces another constitutional crisis that could severely impair its already fragile democracy. This time, though, the threat comes from the government itself.

Over the past year, President Chávez and his allies have taken steps to control the country’s judicial branch, undermining the separation of powers and the independence of the judiciary in ways that violate basic principles of Venezuela’s constitution and international human rights law.

The most brazen of these steps is a law passed last month that expands the Supreme Court (Tribunal Supremo de Justicia) from twenty to thirty-two members. The National Assembly will choose the new justices by a simple majority vote. With the new Organic Law of the Supreme Court (Ley Orgánica del Tribunal Supremo de Justicia, LOTSJ), the governing coalition will be able to use its slim majority in the legislature to obtain an overwhelming majority of seats on the Supreme Court. It will also have the power to nullify existing justices’ appointments to the bench. It will, in short, be able to both pack and purge the country’s highest court.

A political takeover of the Supreme Court will only compound the damage already done to judicial independence by policies pursued by the Court itself. The Supreme Court, which has administrative control over the judiciary, has suspended a program that would reduce the large number of judges who do not have security of tenure. It has fired judges after they decided politically controversial cases. And it has allowed the country’s second highest court to shut down by failing to resolve the legal appeals of its dismissed judges. Depriving judges of the security of tenure and allowing them to be summarily fired or prevented from exercising their due process rights violates basic principles of the Venezuelan constitution and international human rights law.

Human Rights Watch conducted research in Venezuela in May 2004, interviewing current and former judges and justices, justice officials, jurists, legislators, journalists and foreign observers about the legal and practical implications of these practices, as well as the justifications that might exist for pursuing them.

The president of the Supreme Court, the attorney general and a pro-Chávez legislator all sought to assuage our concerns about diminishing judicial independence by insisting that those wielding authority over judges and justices would show restraint and respect for the rule of law. Such assurances are beside the point, however. A rule of law that relies on the self-restraint of those with power is not in fact the rule of law.

Several officials stressed the need to understand the attitude of President Chávez’s opponents, many of whom—they argued—are unwilling to engage in meaningful compromise or subject themselves to the rule of law. They insisted that judges and even Supreme Court justices decide cases based on their political convictions rather than the dictates of the law. As examples they cited the Supreme Court’s failure to convict alleged participants in the 2002 coup and the failure of lower court judges to address allegedly illegal activities carried out as part of the general strike in 2003 that cost the country billions of dollars in oil revenue and did enormous harm to the economy.

It is true that some sectors of the opposition have subverted the rule of law in their efforts to bring down President Chávez. It might also be true that some opposition judges allow their political convictions to interfere with their application of the law. But rather than take steps to strengthen the rule of law, Chávez’s allies and supporters have instead moved to rig the system to favor their own interests.

We have seen similar efforts before elsewhere in the region. During the 1990s, President Carlos Menem in Argentina and President Alberto Fujimori in Peru succeeded in remaking their judiciaries to serve their own interests. The changes ensured their influence over the courts and contributed to a climate of lawlessness that would facilitate the forms of corruption for which both former presidents face criminal charges today.

What makes the developments in Venezuela even more alarming is their potential impact on the country’s already explosive political situation. Tensions have been mounting for months as President Chávez’s opponents have sought a recall referendum to end his presidency. When the country’s National Electoral Council (CNE) disqualified hundreds of thousands of signatures on a petition to authorize the referendum, thousands of people joined street protests, which culminated in violent confrontations with state security forces that left thirteen people dead, scores wounded, and hundreds more in police detention.

Whether the current crisis is resolved peacefully and lawfully will depend in large part on the country’s judiciary. It is the courts that must ultimately determine whether the CNE’s decisions are valid—as well as whether the actions of Chávez’s supporters and opponents, in the streets and elsewhere, are legally permissible. It is, in other words, the courts that must ultimately ensure that the political conflict does not result in the trampling of people’s freedom of expression and association, due process guarantees, and other basic human rights. To do so effectively, it is imperative that judges and justices be able to act with the independence and impartiality that are mandated by the Venezuelan constitution and international human rights law.

http://www.hrw.org/reports/2004/vene...m#_Toc75153595

 

[Trajan Octavian Titus]

Bush hasn't rewritten our Constitution, (not that I am aware of) but he certainly has circumvented and ignored it to hell. Don't forget that Bush has cleverly armed himself with the "Patriot-Act" also.

The President didn't create the Patriot Act the Congress did.

Oh, and don't you dare get me started on how President Bush and the Republicans hate the free-press, how they hate the "media", how they hate "free-speech", how they hate "dessent", how they hate, "freedom of the press"!

Oh ya so what laws have the President and the Republican Congress passed to limit the 1st amendment sir? Because Chavez has passed a whole shitload of them, in Chavez's regime it is now illegal to speak out against the government and anti-Chavez reporters are routinely harrassed, attacked, murdered, arrested, tried, convicted, and imprisoned. And don't you dare sir have the gaul to say that we have a strictly pro-Bush media because that would be the biggest joke I've ever heard.

It is now illegal to speak out against the government in Chavez's Venezuela; The Descarto Laws:

1. Desacato laws (insults to authority)

451. As was stated in the section dealing with the Supreme Court’s judgment of July 15, 2003, Venezuela’s criminal laws contain provisions that are incompatible with Article 13 of the Convention. An example of this are those laws that criminalize offensive statements made against public officials, known as desacato laws (insults to authority).

452. Venezuela’s Criminal Code contains a series of provisions that, if enforced, would restrict full enjoyment of freedom of expression by criminalizing offensive statements made about public officials. These precepts are the following:

Article 148. Any person who offends, verbally or in writing or in any other fashion, the President of the Republic or the person serving in that capacity shall be punished with a prison term of between six and thirty months, if the offense was serious, and of half that duration, if it was slight.

The punishment shall be increased by one-third if the offense was made publicly.
If the offense was made against the President of either Chamber of the Legislature or the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, the punishment shall be from four months to two years, if the offense was serious, and half that duration, if it was slight.

Article 149. When the actions described in the Article above are made against the Governor of one of the nation’s States, or against Cabinet Ministers, the General Secretary of the President’s Office, the Governor of the Federal District or Federal Territories, Supreme Court Justices, the Presidents of the State Legislatures, and Superior Judges, or against persons serving in those capacities, the punishment indicated in that Article shall be reduced to one-half; and, with respect to Presidents of Municipal Councils, Federal District Department Prefects, or District Civil Chiefs, it shall be reduced to one-third.

Article 150. Any person who publicly insults the Congress, the Chambers of the National Legislature, the Supreme Court of Justice, the Cabinet or Council of Ministers, any of the Legislatures or Legislative Assemblies of the nation’s states, or any of the Superior Courts, shall be punished by a prison term of between fifteen days and ten months.

Those who carry out the same acts against Municipal Councilors shall receive half that punishment.

The punishments shall be increased by one-half if the offense was made during performance of official functions by the institutions in question.

Article 151. The courts shall be responsible for distinguishing the serious and slight offenses referred to in Articles 148, 149, and 150.

Article 152. Prosecution for the actions referred to in the articles above shall not commence except at the request of the offended person or institution, lodged with the competent judge through the offices of the Public Prosecution Service.

[...]

Article 223. Any person who, by word or deed, offends in any way the honor, reputation, or dignity of a member of Congress or any public official shall be punished as indicated below, if the offense was made in the presence thereof and in connection with their functions:

1. If the offense was directed against a law-enforcement officer, with a prison term of one to three months.

2. If the offense was directed against a member of Congress or a public official, with a prison term of one month to one year, according to the rank of the person in question.

Article 224. If the action described in the Article above is accompanied by violence or threats, it shall be punishable by a prison term of between three and eighteen months.
Any person who, in another way not provided for in the cases listed in the previous chapter, makes use of violence against or threatens a member of Congress or other public official, should that act take place as a result of the victim’s functions, shall be punishable with the same punishments.

Article 225. When any of the actions described in the above articles is committed against a public official not as a result of his functions but at a moment in which he is performing them, the same punishments shall apply, with a reduction of between one-third and one-half.

Article 226. Any person who, by word or by deed, offends in any way the honor, reputation, or dignity of a judicial, political, or administrative body, if the crime is committed at a time when it is established, or any magistrate in a hearing, shall be punished with a prison term of between three months and two years.

If the perpetrator used violence or threats, the prison term shall be from six months to three years.

Prosecution shall take place only by means of a request lodged by the offended party. If the crime is committed against bodies not meeting at the time, the prosecution shall only proceed following a request made by its presiding members.

Said request shall be lodged with the Public Prosecution Service in order for the applicable steps to be taken.

Article 227. In the cases provided for in the Articles above, the guilty party shall not be allowed to admit any evidence regarding the truthfulness or notoriety of the allegations or defects with which the offended party is accused. [235]

 

[TurtleDude]

Gosh, Hugo sounds so much like President Bush what with all the redistricting the Republicans have managed and with Bush replacing and stocking the USSC with radical and extremist judges.

You clearly have no clue about american jurisprudence if you call Alito or Roberts radical and extremist judges.

Bush hasn't rewritten our Constitution, (not that I am aware of) but he certainly has circumvented and ignored it to hell. Don't forget that Bush has cleverly armed himself with the "Patriot-Act" also.

you obviously are ignorant of history. Bush hasn't come close to ignoring the constitution that compares to what FDR did. In fact Clinton's actions with the second and fourth amendments were more destructive. Dems voted for the Patriot act too. If its passed by congress, signed by the president, and not struck down by the supreme court, its a bit hard for whiners to claim its unconstitutional.

Oh, and don't you dare get me started on how President Bush and the Republicans hate the free-press, how they hate the "media", how they hate "free-speech", how they hate "dessent", how they hate, "freedom of the press"!

More stupidity. Its the left that hates freedom of speech and the free press. Its the left who has imposed idiotic speech codes at various colleges. Its the left that destroys right wing newspapers. Its lefties who try to drown out Clarence Thomas or assault Ann Coulter. Its the left that tried to prevent the NRA from placing ads in favor of self defense in magazines. POlitical correctness is as big an attack on free speech as the McCarthy witch-hunts and that is your side that does it

 

[RightinNYC]

It would be the latest reminder that while 20th century rebels like Castro could do little more than rail at Washington, the U.S. today faces post--cold war radicals like Chávez and Ahmadinejad who have the will, savvy and resources to constrain American power and thwart U.S. interests.

If you read that sentence and don't immediately wonder why on earth we allow, support, and endorse this system, then you have a serious problem.

 

[Trajan Octavian Titus]

If you read that sentence and don't immediately wonder why on earth we allow, support, and endorse this system, then you have a serious problem.

What system? The U.N.?

 

[RightinNYC]

What system? The U.N.?

Well, the UN in its current incarnation, yes. I do think we obviously need some sort of an international body to address international issues, but the current format is clearly outdated.

 

[Trajan Octavian Titus]

Well, the UN in its current incarnation, yes. I do think we obviously need some sort of an international body to address international issues, but the current format is clearly outdated.

OK I totally misinterpreted the stament I thought you were saying that we should support the system. It can be read two different ways.


But yes I totally agree the U.N. has become a bully pulpit from the worlds dictators and despots now preach their anti-American propaganda.

There is one part in Chavez's speech that I do agree with though, the part about him saying that the U.N. should be moved out of New York, it's taking up prime realestate.

U.N. out of the U.S., U.S. out of the U.N..