Chavez gets power to rule by decree; Obama taking notes
Venezuela continues its death spiral, courtesy of socialist dictator Hugo Chavez. Last week Chavez asked the lame-duck congress to grant him the power to rule by decree, rather than having laws passed by congress.
You'd think that members of congress wouldn't want to cede their most significant power. But in Venezuela ideology trumps everything, so the lame-duck congress agreed.
Why would they do that? Turns out that in the last election, the party opposing Chavez won enough congressional seats to enable them to have a good shot at blocking outrageous bills.
Chavez responded by getting the outgoing congress (lame-duck, remember?) to agree to cede their lawmaking authority to him for 18 months--an action which effectively removes any power from congress and thus nullifies the big gains made by the opposition in the last election.
Proving yet again that votes mean nothing if the guy at the top is determined enough.
Of course such a thing could never happen here. Can you imagine the outcry if a U.S. president tried to get his allies in a lame-duck congress to ram through outrageous laws a month or so before a new and much less compliant congress was to take office? Why, the NY Times would have six-inch-tall headlines at the top of the front page.
Wait, sorry...that's only if a Republican prez tried that. The socialist Chavez can do this with not a word of condemnation.
As seems to be true of the members of Obama's Democratic party as well.
You'd think that members of congress wouldn't want to cede their most significant power. But in Venezuela ideology trumps everything, so the lame-duck congress agreed.
Why would they do that? Turns out that in the last election, the party opposing Chavez won enough congressional seats to enable them to have a good shot at blocking outrageous bills.
Chavez responded by getting the outgoing congress (lame-duck, remember?) to agree to cede their lawmaking authority to him for 18 months--an action which effectively removes any power from congress and thus nullifies the big gains made by the opposition in the last election.
Proving yet again that votes mean nothing if the guy at the top is determined enough.
Of course such a thing could never happen here. Can you imagine the outcry if a U.S. president tried to get his allies in a lame-duck congress to ram through outrageous laws a month or so before a new and much less compliant congress was to take office? Why, the NY Times would have six-inch-tall headlines at the top of the front page.
Wait, sorry...that's only if a Republican prez tried that. The socialist Chavez can do this with not a word of condemnation.
As seems to be true of the members of Obama's Democratic party as well.
posted by SF at
6:10 PM
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