jpyaks3

A few pictures of the fireworks from across the river.

A few meteors from the Lyrid meteor shower.

Two from a recent trip to Singapore

In truly shocking news the OAS is full of ****. Well glad we good thing the United States supported a fascist far right coup in Bolivia. 
 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/02/26/bolivia-dismissed-its-october-elections-fraudulent-our-research-found-no-reason-suspect-fraud/

When will people learn never to trust the United States information with regards to regimes that lean even slightly left especially in South America.

A few shots from around DC.

Looks like the new Bolivian government is definitely interested in Democracy and fair elections, who could have seen this coming. I for one am shocked that the normal coup cheerleaders in the media are silent as the army and police kill indigenous protesters with impunity (and immunity according to the new government) leaders and members of the opposition party are being arrested and prevented from doing the jobs they were elected to do, and the coup government is led by the far-right who have zero interest in free or fair elections. 

7 minutes ago, No Excuses said:

 

Supporters of an overthrown autocrat are usually met with force when revolutions happen. Morales could have not rigged the electoral process for three years. I don’t know, simple things like don’t change the constitution and don’t rig elections.

Revolution? When the military forces out the democratically elected party (and the next 2 people in line) then it’s not a revolution it’s a coup. And you still seem to be confused Morales didn’t change the constitution the Supreme Court of Bolivia rules that the term limits were unconstitutional.

There was also the offer for elections monitored by OAS and international observers but instead the opposition chose military intervention and a coup rather than the democratic process. Now they are shooting indigenous protesters in the streets. 
 

Also why were the earlier protests legitimate in your mind but these protestors should be met with extreme violence? 
 

Are you concerned about any of the rhetoric coming out of the self appointed President? 

And the fascist coup is. Is killing indigenous protesters. Who could have seen this coming? But Morales definitely had to be removed in a coup because he followed the Supreme Courts ruling on term limits. 

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/11/15/what-dictatorship-looks-bolivian-security-forces-open-fire-indigenous-protesters

https://mobile.twitter.com/sahouraxo/status/1194728799662956545

Looks like the Bolivian people (although current self declared President doesn’t count these people as real Bolivians) aren’t taking the coup lying down. It will be interesting if the media covers this or just ignores it to continue on with the coup is simply responding to the people’s wishes line they have been pushing which completely erases the majority of Bolivians.

1 hour ago, No Excuses said:

 

Their decision on overturning term limits had nothing to do with the constitution of the country as you had originally tried to claiNm. Term limits were in fact what the constitution mandated. The courts made a bogus argument that term limits violate the human rights of Evo Morales. So you have no idea what you are talking about and your entire factual understanding of this issue is extremely suspect.

 

Just to be clear, your voicing support for an act that included: Evo calling a referendum to gain popular support for running again, which he expected to win. Evo loses the referendum. Not accepting the results of his own referendum, Evo takes the issue to his friends on the courts, who decide that the constitution has to be changed because Evo wants to run again. Ironically, he could have never called a referendum and just let the courts side with him, but the fact that he was rejected by the public and still chose to undertake a nakedly authoritarian power grab set the stage for the past weeks events.

 

And after disregarding the public's approval of constitutional term limits, his party engages in electoral fraud in the subsequent election.

 

And to you this isn't a deeply undemocratic and problematic event, but rather totally fine. Obviously millions of Bolivians who have protested this for the past few weeks is the really problematic part. Attempting to paint all of them as fascists because of the actions of a few is ****ing stupid, when Evo's goons have been going around cracking skulls and engaging in violence and rioting themselves.

 

A power grab aided by the courts that annulled a key tenet of a countries constitution, followed by election fraud = fine, but the military stepping in after week of protests and proof of electoral fraud = fascist coup.

First off, I was quoting exactly what the Supreme Court said. Now you for some reason don't believe they are a legitimate organization despite their constitutional role in the country and the fact that they are democratically elected. I am not sure why that is. I was not arguing that term limits were against the constitution. I was simply pointing out that the people who decide what is and isn't constitutional ruled that they weren't. That's all. I think you are attributing the Supreme Court of Bolivia's opinion on the constitutionality of term limits for mine. I never commented on whether term limits were constitutional outside of what the Supreme Court of Bolivia decided.

Now voting irregularities are never a good thing, but the solution isn't to have the military overthrow the government, forcing out members of the leading party until they get to someone they like. That is the definition of a coup. Now what happens next is the big thing. If for like the first time ever the army steps in and holds free and fair elections like Morales was calling for with international monitors then this situation isn't a huge deal and you can resume democracy and it will probably be a net good that Morales is forced out but there are free and fair elections with all parties represented.

Now if that doesn't come to pass (what has happened pretty much every other time the army has ever stepped in) then there is a massive problem because the opposition is already signaling they are going to be attacking the indigenous people and there are a lot of really ****ty folks floating around leadership roles in the opposition. So color me skeptical that this will all work out and the opposition and the army are really just standing up to a leader who overstepped democratic norms and bounds rather than a naked power grab and a way to subjugate indigenous groups and anyone who is to the left of center. 

Do you really believe that this situation results in free and fair elections and a resumption of the democratic process? 

28 minutes ago, TheGreatBuzz said:

Honest question:  Is there really a reason to give a **** about Bolivia?

I mean its a potentially violent situation and many people could lose their lives. On a more cynical note Bolivia has some of the largest amounts of lithium which are essential to a lot of smart technology, and they just nationalized the lithium industry so thats kind of a big deal

18 minutes ago, No Excuses said:

No amount of repeating this nonsense talking point is going to make this true.  You are not popularly elected if the constitution was changed by partisan courts and the election was rigged to ensure you stay in power. 
 

Expecting people to quietly and peacefully accept authoritarian takeover and rigged elections is an interesting position. As long as the wanna-be dictator says all things you like right?

 

 

The courts were popularly elected. The people of Bolivia chose the court and the people who sit on the court. It wasn't like Morales hand picked the judges. Additionally, almost everyone agrees that Morales received more votes now there were irregularities which is an issue but Morales was willing to have another election with international monitors.

The current opposition is burning indigenous flags, has openly fascist members in its ranks, is/was looting and burning MAS peoples homes, drug an indigenous mayor into the streets cut her hair and threw paint on her before throwing her out of government and has forced the entire succession line up until their person to resign. You seem to whte-wash all of this which is much much worse and more dangerous than the Bolviarian Supreme Court removing term limits because you disagree with the ideology of Morales.

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Don’t know if he does, but one of your key talking points in this thread on term limits and the Bolivian constitution was laughably wrong. It was clear that you had no idea what took place in 2016. So it’s peachy that you are asking this question to others when your own understanding of Latin American affairs is awfully shallow.

I was quoting the Bolvian Supreme court and their decision regarding term limits. It seems you have an issue with the Supreme Court of Bolivia because all I did was quote them and I trust them on the constitutionality of their decision rather you.

Whole bunch of peaceful democracy loving people here. Glad they could enact a coup to overthrow a popularly elected leader.

https://twitter.com/redfishstream/status/1194211935660728320

this is just one video of many. The opposition is burning indigenous flags, has arrested or forced out every member of the MAS in the succession line and has shown zero regard for democracy. 

1 hour ago, DoneMessedUp said:

Do you have zero historical knowledge of South and Latin America? Honest question here.

38 minutes ago, No Excuses said:

No one is disputing that they are popularly elected. Tossing out term limits, when the public had declared their support for it, despite the fact that term limits are not unconstitutional, was undemocratic and clearly done to enable Morales to stay in power. The Bolivian constitution even explicitly authorizes term limits for the justices, so term limits are not “incompatible” with their constitution as you say, is nonsense.
 

The OAS’s preliminary audit report is open to read for everyone and found severe irregularities that led to Morales calling new elections: https://www.oas.org/documents/spa/press/Informe-Auditoria-Bolivia-2019.pdf

No one is going to believe that fair elections can be held again by someone caught rigging them the first time. 

 

If you are caught rigging an election, after declaring a public referendum on your ability to run again invalid, people are going to be angry and they aren’t  going to trust that you and members of your party are driven by national interests, rather than self-preservation. It’s unfortunate what is happening now,  but this is typical anywhere in the world when people have had enough of authoritarianism. There is no peaceful overthrow of dictators or wanna-be dictators and violence and targeting of opposition is coming from Morales supporters as well. The mayor who was unfortunately targeted in your video was triggered by an opposition protestors being killed by having his skull fractured via an explosive.
 

If we’re spinning partisan narratives, people rigging elections and cracking the skulls of those in opposition isn’t a particularly good look.

My Spanish isn't strong enough to really dig into the OAS report, do you happen to have an English version? From what I gather a lot of the issues were with the electronic reporting/how they were transmitted, but I could be wrong there.

I think calling Morales a wanna-be dictator is pretty ridiculous considering the only thing that he has done is ask the Supreme Court to decide on term limits (which I agree is kinda ****ty since the referendum would have kept them in place). He still won the popular vote (pretty much everyone agrees on this) and after the OAS report offered to have new elections with international monitoring. In response the right wing opposition has launched a coup and has arrested the leadership of the party. If anyone is acting like a wanna be dictator it is the people that are overthrowing the popularly elected government and imprisoning (or attempting to imprison) opposition leaders. 
 

It isn't very difficult to look at the history of Latin and South America and to see exactly what is going on here. 

In your opinion is the opposition acting in a way that would foster democracy/anti-authoritarianism? What do you think the path forward for Bolivia looks like under the army/opposition?

32 minutes ago, No Excuses said:

 

There is literally nothing unquestionable about his undemocratic tendencies. Overturning a public referendum on term limits through a partisan court is as undemocratic as it gets. One branch of government, packed with your supporters, invalidating a majority referendum from the public is undemocratic bull**** by every standard.

 

And again, you want to deny the OAS's findings on vote manipulation and then say that Evo won the election "free and fairly". There is no discussion to be had when the the apple staring you in the face is called an orange. Anything that casts doubt on Evo's undemocratic nonsense is "questionable" but years and years of nonsense from him is "legitimate".

 

The fact that the country underwent weeks and weeks of anti-government protests is because of a history of Morales disregarding democratic norms. People are going to react violently if they feel that their votes don't matter and that someone is attempting to cheat and manipulate their way into staying in power.

 

And really, if Evo was a right wing fascist, you would be calling him a dictator who overtook via fraud and deceit. You like his political agenda and you are thus comfortable in white washing his authoritarianism, and what was years and years of rigging the electoral process. Wanna-be dictators, left or right wing, suck equally.

Once again the Supreme Court or Supreme Tribunal is popularly elected. He didn't appoint them like what happens in the United States. Additionally, a referendum isn't a binding be all-end all thing and the Supreme Court found that the term limits were not compatable with the Bolivarian consitution. 

The court found that:

“All people that were limited by the law and the constitution are hereby able to run for office, because it is up to the Bolivian people to decide,” Macario Lahor Cortez, head of the Plurinational Constitutional Court, wrote in the ruling." 

All the opposition had to do was win an election which they couldn't do (and no one is disputing that they recieved far less votes).

The OAS has not provided any proof for their claims of voter manipulation. 

Right now Evo Morales is by far the better actor in this situation since his oppositon has enacted a literal coup after they lost an election. You can have isssues with Morales and his politics but it is impossible to support the coup if you actually believe in democracy or the peoples will. 

If the Chilean military had overthrown Pinera after the much more widespread and persistant protests he has facec (or Moreno in Ecuador) I would still call it a coup and bad for democacry. Ideology doesn't matter when one side is burning ballot boxes, attacking members of the popularly elected party, and initiates a coup with show trials agains tthe opposition, that side is the ****ty side and we shouldn't cheerlead that.

EDIT: This is the opposition, they clearly are worried about democratic processes.

35 minutes ago, No Excuses said:

Let's just be clear, you are voicing support for Evo because you agree with his leftist politics, even though he has increasingly shown himself to be an authoritarian who will bend the electoral process to his will. For starters, the military is stepping in weeks after anti-government protests by the general public. This does not happen if Evo Morales doesn't show a clear pattern for disregarding democratic norms and institutions to maintain his grip on power.

 

Ignoring the public's referendum and using your partisan friends on the Supreme Court to invalidate public opinion on term limits is straight up authoritarian thuggery.

Evo Morales recieved more votes than the opposition party which responded by burning ballot boxes (since they knew they lost) and pushing a coup to overthrow a democratically elected leader. Whenever the military/police overthrow a democratically elected leader that is a bad thing. The Supreme Court was elected by the people so if they are partisan it is because the Bolivarian people voted them in. 

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Even in this election, he declared himself the outright winner, without having to go to a runoff, despite the fact that all votes had not been counted and he had not secured the margin necessary to avoid the runoff. Ballot counting goes silent for 24 hours and then he magically has enough votes to avoid a runoff? Please, the OAS found irregularities and Evo himself proposed a new election. To say this last election was a clean victory for Evo is not accurate at all.
 

 

The quick vote was halted but that happens in every election in Bolivia (from what I can understand) the official vote was still going on when the opposition decided to burn the ballot boxes. The OAS is not exactly a non-partisan organization and has supported coups in the past so it isn't exactly shocking they were pushing voting irregularity (although I haven't seen them come out with actual proof of any wrongdoing). Additionally the increase in late votes makes sense considering the rural/urban divide and the fact that rural votes would come in later and would be Evo's main support.If the opposition really had electoral concerns with irregularity or thought that they had actally won why would they burn the ballot boxes and the proof? I think its much more likely that they realized they would lose and their only path to power was through violence and a coup and wanted to muddy the waters and provide plausible deniability.

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If these were the antics of a right wing government, you would be labeling it a coup as well. It's unfortunate what's happening in Bolivia, but this would not be the case if Morales doesn't take the stance over the past few years that democracy is inconvenient when it challenges his authority. This is his own disregard for democracy backfiring at him, especially since at least half of the country is strongly against him.

 

Don't be surprised when the opposition also decides to participate in undemocratic thuggery.

 

Well he has continuously won elections (freely and fairly) and he clearly won this one was well (jno one is disuputing he recieved at least a plurality of votes) so I don't think people calling him undemocratic really have a leg to stand on when the opposition has burned the ballot boxes, prevented outside auditing, and when offered a new election attacked and burned MAS leadership and their homes and family,  enacted a coup, arrested enough of Morales party leadership to ensure that one of their own was put in power. 

Look was Morales the perfect leader? Absolutely not, but the people decrying his undemocratic actions (which its quesitonable how undemocratic they are) are cheerleading a coup by a group that lost the election and have shown zero regard for democracy. So those calls ring pretty damn hollow when Morales "undemocratic actions" at this point are: He followed the direction of the Supreme Court of Boliva regarding term limits and he won an election..

10 hours ago, No Excuses said:

Evo was a very successful leader but it’s hard to feel sorry for him here. People rejected his bid to run again years ago and he rigged the constitution to stay in power. The legitimacy of this election was always going to be up for debate. He really should not have been on the ballot to begin with.

It didn't matter what he did the right wing was always going to find an excuse to start a coup. Look at what happened in Brazil or in Chile in 1973 or Honduras or pretty much any Laitn and South American country in the last 50-100 years. 

The Supreme Court of Bolivia which is also popularly elected and has that authority under the Bolivarian consitution okayed his run and struck down the referendum.

He then won a clear majority of the vote (no one disputes this) and the opposition responded by burning ballot boxed and claiming fraud (without proof). The fact is this is a right wing coup that was going to happen sooner or later no matter what happened Bolivia has the largest lithium deposits in the world and that industry is nationalized there was precisely zero chance there wouldn't be a right wing "the country is for sale" coup.  Here is a good thread on why opposition claims of fraud are most likely bull**** (we will never know for sure because the opposition burned the ballot boxes because they know they lost) 

https://twitter.com/kevinmcashman/status/1193703918624108544 

Now was running again a wise move? Who knows, but it seems clear by the right wing coupers actions that no matter what happened he was and his party were going to get overthrown. This coup was triggered after he called for more elections, since the coup kicked off the Vice President and Senate Leader have been forced to resign so that the Deputy Senate Leader (the first oppoistion member in the line of succession) could take over. This is a classical right wing coup in Latin America.

Hopefully there will be free and fair elections but at this point it looks doubtful considering the right is having show trials and burning MAS members homes and the indigenous flags.

A few from Thursdays sunrise 

A few from a recent trip to Ecuador 

This seems like it could be a big deal

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/07/10/us/politics/donald-trump-jr-russia-email-candidacy.html?action=click&module=Top Stories&pgtype=Homepage

WASHINGTON — Before arranging a meeting with a Kremlin-connected Russian lawyer he believed would offer him compromising information about Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump Jr. was informed in an email that the material was part of a Russian government effort to aid his father’s candidacy, according to three people with knowledge of the email.

54 minutes ago, skinsfan1523 said:

So why did they do it than?  Is it just because they are dumb?  Also I've seen on Facebook that the green card ban has been reversed.  

Because Steve Bannon is a white nationalist and has Trump's ear (and now a spot on the National Security Council) its as simple as that. 

1 minute ago, skinsfan1523 said:

Ok I'm ignorant I'll confess.  This is only a 90 day ban, and only is coming from 7 war torn countries, that could possibly be infiltrated by terrorist organizations.  What am I missing here here as far as this outrage is concerned.  It seems like a new administration is just upping the vetting process to me.  But like I said I'm ignorant to this stuff.  

There is a whole host of issues. The EO is banning green card holders and people who are legally here from returning, it is sending refugees who have already been vetted and sending them back into war zones, it is preventing Iraqi nationals who worked with the American military from entering the county and getting their visas, it is blatantly discriminatory against one religion (further emphasized by allowing Jews and Christians special privileges), it also does absolutely nothing to protect the country and presents ISIS or any other extremist organization with a golden recruitment tool, and frankly it is anti-American and violates the core of what this country stands for.  

Pretty funny, I love the SHHH over Bahrain.

According to the AP Twitter feed Kim Jong Il has died.

AP Tweeted

BREAKING NEWS: North Korea says supreme leader Kim Jong Il has died

Really interested to see what happens in North Korea following his death, definitely the possibility to destabilize the country/region.

Post from one of my friends via facebook.

Police are making a charge... protesters streaming down both streets on either side of my building. And the side-street connecting the two under the balcony, which had been turned into a field hospital, was just hit with tear gas. The doctors are stayed with the patients, until the last possible moment and then carried them with them. Extraordinary courage. Don't know if the tears are from the gas or what I'm seeing anymore.

He is between Midan Falaky and Mohammad Mahmoud Street I believe.

Al Jazeera Arabic/Egypt has a pretty good view of the fighting on Mohammad Mahmoud Street.

http://mubasher-misr.aljazeera.net/