Originally published at: U.S. seizes Venezuela president Nicolas Maduro’s plane - Boing Boing
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That might have more teeth behind it if a certain Supreme Court hadn’t declared a certain ex-president above the law…
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Well, they could put Trump on the plane and send it back to Venezuela…
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How long before the far right accuses Biden of giving the plane to Hunter?
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This could be even better if they deported a blogger turned far-right coup apologist to Brazil
Look for Allan do Santos
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WHERE’S HUNt3R kAmALA?!? /s
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The message to world leaders here is - don’t buy your jets in the U.S.
Or visit the Dominican Republic if you do.
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https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/2fa1d06b-a83e-4cd8-9767-ea2fe5cca638
EDIT: no auto-pic? Oh well. It’s J.K. Simmons saying “FFS put him on the next flight to Venezuela.”
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I totally forgot about this guy. Whatever happened to the Bolsonarista troupe?
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Maybe that’s why Mr. Musk posted that bravado/veiled threat to take the plane used by the Brazilian presidency. Little does he know that the plane is part of the Brazilian Air Force…
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There are some inexactitudes in this report - not Mr. Beschizza’s fault, it has been reported like this.
The plane is not “the” presidential plane. And not even in the sense that normally you have more than one of those. Right now, Venezuela doesnt seem to have an official set of planes that is the “presidential” plane(s).
Maduro has used this one, for sure. There are photos of him getting out of it in Saint Vincent when he went to have a chat with the Guyanese PM about the Esequibo thing, and there are also photos of it being used to bring Alex Saab back to Venezuela when that prisoner exchange was done. But lets say that Maduro traveling arrangements are very fluid. Or opaque. Or both. Sometimes he has used this one. Sometimes a Cuban Ilyushin Il 96-300. Sometimes planes from Conviasa (Venezuelan state airline) commanded for his use. Who knows what else.
The authorities in Venezuela… such as they are… are a bit split between crying this an act of piracy and stealing the plane from the country, and trying to spin that this is not a Venezuelan plane, look, it doesnt have a Venezuelan registration number (starting with YV), but a San Marino one (starting T7)
Again, why Maduro used, some times, a plane bought in Florida for a supposedly Saint Vincent and the Grenadines company and then got a San Marino registration number and was parked on the Dominican Republic, well… I dont know, but I bet the answer is quite interesting, and probably not forthcoming.
Just yesterday they announced that they were issuing a warrant to arrest Edmundo González Urrutia, after the third time he refused to go to have a “chat” at the prosecutor’s office. Signed by a “terrorism” judge, none the less. Not sure if the airplane saga is part of a reaction to this, but we will see. Right now he is still not arrested, is not known where he is, rumours about him fleeing the country are circulating and several countries in the region and elsewhere have expressed their rejection of this.
And what is Maduro doing? Well, giving a speech calling for a “revolution inside the revolution”, to clean up corruption (aha), and how he will “when the time comes” transfer power to… another Chavista president. Well, in fact he said he was the first Chavista president, which leaves me thinking what was Chávez then… But well, kinda clear what is the message, right?
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Ah, an old-fashioned Stalinist or Maoist purge. I’m sure the incompetent clown will manage to screw that up too.
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I suppose that “corruption” mean people who steal and don’t kick up enough to the boss.
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Well, on one hand, this is time number… I lost count of how many times they have said that shit.
On the other hand, they did a purge last year, related to the PDVSA-Crypto case, or how the guys that were supposedly using cryptocurrency to evade sanctions while selling Venezuelan oil ended up “losing” $ 21 billion. That ended up the career of Tarek El Aissami, who was one of the top Chavistas around, was even vice-president sometime. The whole thing ended up with all his “clients” in different parts of the government in jail and El Aissami disappearing from public life for about a year, and then he got arrested - I think they were saving his arrest for the presidential campaign.
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What I’d rather want to know is under what authority did the US seize anything in the Domincan republic. Or did Dominican authorities seize it at the behest of the US?
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They asked the Dominican Republic authorities, that went to court, first the judge ordered the airplane to remain in the DR till further notice, and then I think another judge was the one that said ok, all checks out, you can give it to the US.
The Foreign Minister of the Dominican Republic said that the plane was not registered by the Venezuelan government or privately to Maduro, but to a company. The US says it was adquired to be used by Maduro, jumping some hoops to make it not clear that it was a sale to a sanctioned regime and person, and the DR seems to have said well, all yours, you untangle that shit.
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Thanks, all the articles tend to skip over this details.
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Guess who had things to say.
Maduro’s plane has just been seized by the U.S. That’s OK, he can now go out and get a much bigger and better one with all the money we pay to Venezuela for oil that we don’t need. We have more LIQUID GOLD than any other Nation. HOW STUPID ARE OUR “LEADERS?” WE ARE A LAUGHING STOCK ALL OVER THE WORLD!!! DJT
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Which comes down to whether that question’s more like “Was Christ a Christian?” or “Was Marx a Marxist?”
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Well, considering he has a chance to become “leader” again, I’d say the average is “stupid”, due to a data point that is “unfathomably stupid” bringing it down.
The most irritating thing is that Maduro is, basically, what Trump wishes he could be. Hell, he is even more succesful than Trump; he actually stole an election.
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