October 30, 2008   Ecuador's Rafael Correa, essential incompetent that he is, runs Ecuador like a cheap cartel, imbued by his dishonest crime boss family, also called Cabinet members. When this one armed bandit needs to do anything, it simply pulls the lever and throws all accountability in to the trash bin and lies, manipulates, cheats and steals....just like each and every single sainted Madre in Ecuador instructs all Ecuadoreans today to do.  This Lebanese failed state and ethically dead mentality has gotten Ecuador in to the failed state category where no one is honest and no one is dependable and no one is welcome. And of course it gets Ecuador what it wants: manipulated justice designated not by mental capability of service to the law but by.... a lottery system where everyone loses.
 
To be sure, Ecuadoreans do not even run clean lotteries and for sure under Correa, his lottery for justice is like a major crap game with the dice loaded. But Ecuadoreans think that rigged ethics and pre set gambits are fabulous because this is how they live too: on the take, on the make and on the lam.
 
Goldman Sachs's team reported on 10-30-08:  "ECUADOR
Government Plans to Repudiate US$1.1 Billion in AGD Bonds Held by Central Bank

President Correa may repudiate the current US$1.1 bonded debt held by the central bank. The so-called AGD bonds (equivalent to about 2.2% of GDP) were issued to the central bank to compensate for the central bank bailout of a number of domestic banks and depositors during the 1999 banking and financial crisis.

The government is submitting a bill to the government-controlled transition legislative commission, according to which the central bank would sell the bonds back to government at a 100% discount (i.e., hand them back to the Treasury for free). These bonds were set to mature in 2013-2014 and their repudiation will create a capital hole in the balance sheet of the central bank.

President Correa has on several occasions harshly questioned the legitimacy of these bonds. The repudiation of this debt generates no immediate cash flow impact for the government (as the coupons were very low and the central bank was handing the payment back to the government via profit transfers) but shows the lack of independence of the central bank vis-à-vis the executive, and the weak willingness of the government to honor its outstanding debt obligations."

Goldman is correct: Correa's acts against the debt concerns are of no fiscal interest since the total figure is somewhat irrelevant. But it is incredibly relevant that Correa now controls the Central Bank of Ecuador just as he completely controls the military-police, the courts, the schools and all infrastructure. Yesterday's AP writes, "Ecuador chooses new Supreme Court by lottery: The old court was dissolved on Sunday under a new constitution that took effect last week. The temporary 21-member court chosen at random from the ranks of the 31 former justices is supposed to operate until a permanent body takes over in 2009.Judges warned last week that they would refuse to take seats determined by the `degrading' lottery. Ex-justice Mauro Teran was the first to reject his seat following Wednesday's selection. He said the rest would follow suit, and called the lottery `an affront to the judicial office.' It is not clear what officials will do if all the judges refuse their seats."
 
Justice by lottery is degrading?  Of course it is. Correa makes a mockery of justice, just as he makes a mockery of everything that he touches, including the Central Bank. But the Carter Center and the hundreds of US AID pro Correa operatives crawling all over Ecuador want you to actually believe their lies when they tell the world that all of Correa's mockery of Western Civilization is necessary because....Ecuador needs a dictator to -what do they call it-? consolidate and strengthen power for the government. Power in the hands of one man of the cartel and for the cartel is a disgusting justification for pouring tens of millions of U.S. dollars to boost the narcozone now formed across the Andes.
 
Do you seriously believe that Correa's little scam of judges by lottery is legitimate and will deliver even handed justice to his already total state controls?

Are you that depraved already? Do you continue to believe your Mama and your Familia that all this deception, all the lies, all the cover ups- all the Ecuadorean manipulative living is a good thing because....it strengthens government? Manipulative living gives you what you get: life by dishonesty/life by lottery where liberty is by chance because you did nothing to stand united to protect what God gave you....which cannot be manipulated no matter what you are taught by these liars.
 
On October 29, Caracas's EL UNIVERSAL ran a large headline,

McCain calls Chávez a dictator 

 "The Republican candidate for the presidency of the United States, John McCain, described on Wednesday Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez as a "dictator" and joked about the attacks of Cuban leader Fidel Castro, in an electoral event in Miami. 

McCain referred to the Venezuelan Head of State after recalling that his rival, Democrat candidate Barack Obama is willing to meet with the "worst dictators" citing among them `Hugo Chávez, the Castro brothers and (Iranian President Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad.'"
 
Noteworthy about this headline from Caracas are a few items:  first point needed here is that no one in the USA, unless a slobbering leftist or a deranged willful undereducated, if they think about it at all, does not seriously believe that Chavez is not a dictator. The entire world believes that Chavez is a dictator. President Bush and most known world leaders believe this also. However, this gut check ends here because not only do almost all Latin American leaders jump when Hugo Chavez says JUMP! but not one has the grace and integrity to stand up to the Chavez cartel. Moreover, no one in the U.S. government has or holds the cojones to state the facts about Hugo Chavez and his cartel bloc today either. Indeed, U.S. governmental officers and elected leaders across the U.S. Congress from the Democratic Party soothe and lie and pretend in all formats that Chavez and the Russo-Iranian cartel bloc of nations, formed now, are meaningless.
 
Chavez is a dictator. He deserves prison time after a free and fair trial and he warrants booting from the OAS today as well as removal from any international entity which has any sense left. The same is true for Evo Morales and Rafael Correa and Daniel Ortega.
 
FAUSTAS BLOG updated more on the Correa government by lottery as substitution for verifiable democracy:
 
Meanwhile, over in Ecuador…
October 28th, 2008
Hugo Chavez is visiting Ecuador, where he and his pal Rafael Correa called for all Latin American socialists to work jointly to solve the economic crisis.

It would be more convincing if the Venezuelan economy had been doing well up to now, but don’t let the details bother you.

Chavez also told Correa he’ll be dropping by “every two or three months”, I would guess to supervise the binational integration program implemented by both countries.

Correa has been busy at implementing all massive changes to the Ecuadorian Constitution, including a full overhaul of the courts. The country’s top judges are dismissed and temporary 21-member court is supposed to be chosen at random from the ranks of the old one until a new, permanent court takes over in 2009.

Ecuador’s top judges faced a trial by lottery on Tuesday — with 10 of the 31 justices set to lose their jobs by chance under a newly approved constitution. And the justices say they won’t go along with it.

The court was dissolved on Sunday under a new constitution that took effect last week. A temporary 21-member court is supposed to be chosen at random from the ranks of the old one until a new, permanent court takes over in 2009.

But the court’s justices issued a statement last week announcing they would refuse to take seats determined by what they called a “degrading” lottery process.

Omar Simon, president of the electoral body appointed to carry out the lottery, told the Gama TV station Tuesday that he does not know what officials will do if the judges refuse to rejoin the new court.

Supreme Court Judge Rodrigo Bucheli said that the lottery process threatens the security of the judicial branch and the integrity of pending rulings.

“Instead of a technical judicial process, they are going to hold an implicitly political process,” Bucheli told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

The constitution approved by referendum on September 28 established a transitional regime that will govern until general elections are held in early 2009. A new, permanent court is supposed to take over then as well.

Also related to Ecuador:
My friend Maggie had part of her letter published in the Miami Herald last week. Here’s what she wrote:

Before the Law Stands a Gatekeeper
It is a true and honorable old saying that the most successful constitutions are short and concise. Indeed, it can be said that a direct correlation can be drawn between successful nations and their short and sweet constitutions versus failed and failing states which most often hold overly lengthy, wafty and imprecise constitutions and laws. If as Kafka once lamented, `Before the law stands a gatekeeper’ for many global residents, that gatekeeper remains increasingly opaque, daffy and impossibly aberrant constitutions.

Today a new crop of the wackiest manifestos are being pumped up around the Andes. Almost one year ago, Venezuelans rejected Chavez’s latest constitution which did not stop Chavez from enacting this incredulous screed by presidential mandate anyway. Bolivia will host a nationwide vote on their new one soon enough and Ecuador just voted on theirs the end of September. In all three cases, these horrifying so-called constitutions doom liberty and cease to function as constitutions and are instead manifestos.

In fact, all three interlock these Andean nations in to a constitutional bloc of states, also called “multi polar” thus obliterating what used to be known as independent states or Republics, joining now as a united bloc by constitutional caveat.

Coincidentally, all three share identical goals and share power as well. All three enjoyed so called constitutional scholars from Europe’s old communist party, notably so called “academicians” from Spain who buzz in and out of Quito, La Paz and Caracas. Our particular enmity is raised for the strict take over of educational curricula by the state….and for the state. This is the special parvenu of Hugo Chavez’s “academicians” out of the MIRANDA CENTER in Caracas, currently assisting in the full communist manifestos in these three nations, now forming a regional bloc. One of Chavez’s Miranda Board members in support of the Cuban school curricula is Barack Hussein Obama’s friend and supporter, Bill Ayers of Chicago. Chavez is also host and employer to Ayers’s step son along with numerous FARC actors such as FARC moll Piedad Cordoba, also enjoying Chavez’s accounts and “hospitality”, such as it is.

Having been one of a tiny handful who has actually studied these so-called constitutions and concluded that they are horrifying indeed, while handing full powers to one man for one purpose- I was astonished to note that the MIAMI HERALD reprinted whole cloth, with no due diligence and no fact checking, a well paid discourse promoting the Chavez-aligning so-called constitution of Ecuador, which removes democracy and attendant functional liberties, in a piece entitled, ” New constitution good for democracy.”

Here’s what the Miami Herald published:

Ecuador vs. democracy
Ecuador’s ”new” constitution was promoted in Luis Gallegos Chiriboga’s Oct. 8 Other Views column, New constitution good for democracy. However, Gallegos, ambassador for Ecuador to the United States, fails to mention that numerous articles in the ”constitution” hand full powers of the courts and every governmental or civic duty over to one man, Rafael Correa, Ecuador’s president, potentially in power until 2017.

Correa teamed with a group of so-called constitutional scholars out of Caracas, plus FARC-supporting ”academicians from Spain” representing the old Communist Party who co-authored the recent Bolivian and Venezuelan constitutions. Understandably, Ecuador’s Catholic bishops rightly fear that Correa will seize all religious schools.

Although Correa repeatedly informed Ecuadoreans that they had no need to study the more than 150-page constitution, which they voted on in the fall, Correa himself oversaw a genuine restriction of open discussion and debate about the contents.

This so-called constitution also ensures safe haven for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as FARC, while legalizing narcotics. Of additional concern is a mandate in Article 418, that only leaves one to conclude that Ecuador is now formally inside the Chávez bloc of Bolivia and Venezuela.

The president of Ecuador calls this the ”new democracy.” But this constitutional manifesto is not new, and it is not democracy.

MARGARET L. PETITO, president, Friends of Rule of Law in Ecuador Inc., Washington, D.C.

Correa is only getting started in his changes.

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ECrisis agrees with Fausta's blog: Correa is only getting started. Justice by happenstance/by lottery is no justice at all. Justice by lottery is just another way of saying "MANIPULATIONS." It is one end product of the Ecuadorean unChristian ethic that all of life must be manipulated. Tragically, there is no confidence, no assuredness, no progress, no tranquility, no benefits to humanity, no safety and nothing but miserable lives for all who live under Ecuador's La Vida Manipulativa. This dire tragedy will end when Ecuadoreans finally stop lying to themselves, their families and their societies and start taking life on the honorable ethic. Until then, all families are instructed to be as repugnantly manipulative as they can be. This has got to stop.

-Pedro Camargo for Ecrisis