The Maduro gang is cueing the Jose Feliciano song and declaring that Christmas starts a bit early this year. I guess that's what you do when you steal an election. Let's check the details:

The world’s attention on Venezuela has been focused in the last weeks on the fallout from a highly contested presidential election that both the ruling party and its opponents claim to have won, the ensuing persecution of critics and the arrest warrant against the former opposition presidential candidate.

But as political tensions escalate, President Nicolás Maduro decided there was a more important matter to discuss: Christmas and the need to kick off the jolly season a tad early this year. In October, to be precise.

“It’s September, and it already smells like Christmas,” Maduro said Monday night during his weekly television show. “That’s why this year, as a way of paying tribute to you all, and in gratitude to you all, I’m going to decree an early Christmas for October 1.”

Yes, it's real. This is no joke. Maduro is creating the distraction of distractions and hoping that all those people on the streets will go home and celebrate "Navidad" instead.

The problem is that people have nothing to celebrate unless you are part of the Maduro clan. The typical Venezuelan is fighting with shortages and electricity blackouts. What's to celebrate? Nothing.

My friend Alberto de la Cruz said this over at Babalu:

The stench of socialist desperation coming out of Venezuela is impossible to ignore and shows how communists are willing to do anything to remain in power.

That's exactly right. This is all about staying in power. Even Christmas is in play. The sad thing here is that some Latin American leaders will probably join Maduro for the October Christmas party.

Sick but that's what the left has sunk to.

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Image: www//Kremlin.ru