Free Republic

Dictator Hugo Chavez and friend of Sean Penn and Oliver Stone was mandated to take a sworn presidential oath before the National Assembly in Caracas, Venezuela this morning due to the specifics of their Constitution and that he won the Oct. election (unfortunately) for another six-year term starting today. However Hugo "smells of sulphur", it is reported, and is out of the country and deathly ill in Havana, Cuba of apparently malignant cancer, so he is not exercising his duties in addition to being absent from the country in the first place. There are succession plans in place in Venezuelan...

Venezuelan intelligence officers have raided the home of a Twitter user suspected of spreading destabilising rumours about the health of Hugo Chávez ahead of an inauguration that the ailing president looks increasingly unlikely to attend. The team of Sebin (Bolivarian National Intelligence Service) officers confiscated several computers from Medina's home in Valencia on Sunday night, according to domestic newspapers. Analysts on the state-backed channel Telesur claimed the government was under information attack. "This is an information war. All through the Bolivarian revolution you have seen this sustained information war. Twitter and the social networks are just extensions of this war,"...

Americas: Venezuela's Hugo Chavez is dying of cancer in Havana, in a live demonstration of Cuba's vaunted socialized medical care. He went there instead of Brazil because he wanted to make a political statement. What irony. As party cronies hover at his bedside, Cuban officials bark orders to the government in Caracas, and red-shirted Chavistas hold vigils, all signs are pointing to an imminent exit for the Venezuelan leader who controls a huge part of the world's oil. He's going out exactly as he wouldn't have liked — helpless and at the mercy of doctors, a far cry from the...

The Venezuelan Minister of Correctional Services, Iris Varela, has announced on her Twitter account the expulsion of a French citizen known as Frédéric Laurent Bouquet, December 29, 2012 Mr. Bouquet (photo) had been arrested in Caracas on June 18, 2009, with three Dominican nationals in possession of an arsenal. In the apartment he had acquired, forensic police seized 500 grams of C4 explosives, 14 assault rifles including 5 with telescopic lenses, 5 with laser sighting and one with a silencer, special cables, 11 electronic detonators, 19,721 cartridges of different calibers, 3 machine guns, 4 hand guns of different calibers, 11...

Dan from Squirrel Hill's Blog South Africa’s communist redistribution of farmland has been a colossal failure In their 1848 publication Manifesto of the Communist Party, Karl Marx and Frederick Engels wrote: “The theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property.”In 2009, the people of South Africa elected communist Jacob Zuma to be their new President. In 2012, Reuters wrote about a black farmer named Koos Mthimkhulu, who was given farmland that the South African government had seized from white farmers.But perhaps “given” is not really an accurate word, as Reuters reports:But Mthimkhulu does...

The next few days are full of uncertainty, but there are a few things I know. 1. Whatever we do, however much we restrain ourselves, as much as we show respect for the passing of the President, chavistas will cut and paste the few signs of happiness (I’m looking at you, Plaza Altamira) and play them over and over again, saying the opposition is happy, dancing in the street. 2. The funeral will be massive. Presidents will fly in from all over – Belarus, Iran, all over Latin America. There will be celebrities galore – Sean Penn, Danny Glover, etc....

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) -- Venezuela's vice president says Hugo Chavez has suffered "new complications" following his cancer surgery in Cuba. Vice President Nicolas Maduro did not give details about the complications,

Americas: Dictator Hugo Chavez's near-certain exit in Venezuela looks like a second wind for the country's democrats. But not so fast: The petrotyranny is no longer a republic, it's a cult of personality. Latin Spring is more like it. The shocking news over the weekend from Chavez, that he was heading back to Cuba for a third operation less than a week after treatment there, pretty well signals that the still-undisclosed type of cancer that afflicts him is terminal. A somber Chavez announced Saturday for the first time that he was turning over the reins of power to former bus...

Americas: Dictator Hugo Chavez's near-certain exit in Venezuela looks like a second wind for the country's democrats. But not so fast: The petrotyranny is no longer a republic, it's a cult of personality. Latin Spring is more like it. The shocking news over the weekend from Chavez, that he was heading back to Cuba for a third operation less than a week after treatment there, pretty well signals that the still-undisclosed type of cancer that afflicts him is terminal. A somber Chavez announced Saturday for the first time that he was turning over the reins of power to former bus...

Italian government bond yields jumped on Monday after Prime Minister Mario Monti’s decision to step down early raised worries over the future pace at which the heavily indebted country reforms its economy. While investors are clearly nervous about Mario Monti’s resignation as PM of Italy, investors seem to be signalling increased optimism about Venezuela’s Chavez’s return of cancer. Venezuelan bonds surged, sending benchmark yields to a five-year low, as speculation mounted that President Hugo Chavez will be unable to complete his third term after he acknowledged a recurrence of his cancer. I am sure that Hugo Chavez would have preferred...

Documents obtained by CBS News show that the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) discussed using their covert operation "Fast and Furious" to argue for controversial new rules about gun sales. PICTURES: ATF "Gunwalking" scandal timeline In Fast and Furious, ATF secretly encouraged gun dealers to sell to suspected traffickers for Mexican drug cartels to go after the "big fish." But ATF whistleblowers told CBS News and Congress it was a dangerous practice called "gunwalking," and it put thousands of weapons on the street. Many were used in violent crimes in Mexico. Two were found at the murder...

A senior Syrian diplomat visited Venezuela on Tuesday bringing a private message to President Hugo Chávez from his ally Syrian leader Bashar Assad. … Venezuelan officials have previously acknowledged that the state oil company has sent three shipments of diesel fuel to aid Syria. Asked if Syria plans to request more fuel from Venezuela, the diplomat didn’t respond, saying through an interpreter: “Relations between Venezuela and Syria are very advanced, and we’re showing our thanks… for the support offered economically and politically.” …

Prediction: Obama and Democrat Party will seek to have the Presidential 2-term limit law changed to enable him to remain in office. Wanted to be the first to predict that here.

Reports are that Ahmadinejad of Iran and Chavez of Venezuela have called the election for Obama. Both men, experts at manipulating supposedly-democratic elections to disenfranchise voters who don't want them, have observers on the ground reporting similar tactics are being employed by the Democrat Party with great success.

The Romney campaign is blanketing Spanish-language media in Florida with a new ad connecting President Obama with Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, the Castro family in Cuba, and Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara, the Miami Herald reports. The Herald reports the ad has been in heavy rotation since at least Tuesday, citing anecdotal evidence: "[T]he spot that aired three times in one prime time Spanish-language news program Tuesday and at least four times on the same show Wednesday -- including twice in the same commercial break." The ad shows Chavez and Mariela Castro, the niece of Fidel Castro, saying they would vote for...

Obama's secured the dictator vote...does he have yours?

<p>The latest [dictator] to publicly announce his support for the commander-in-chief’s reelection bid was Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, who this week assured he’d vote for Obama if he were from the United States. The America-bashing strongman made the announcement on state-owned television, saying “Obama is a good guy” and that if Obama was from Caracas, he’d surely return the favor by voting for Chavez.</p>

President Obama appears to getting reelection support from three world leaders notorious for their anti-American views. Venezuela President Hugo Chavez, after winning a fourth term earlier this month, reportedly said he would vote for Obama and that the president would likely vote for him. The socialist-leaning ruler also reportedly called Obama a “good guy.” His support follows that of the Castro family, which has ruled Cuba under a communist dictatorship for more than 50 years. In June, Mariela Castro, the daughter of Cuban President Raul Castro, said in a CNN interview, translated into English: “As a citizen of the world,...

Granted it is rough English to understand, as it is machine translation from the mainstream, non-Chavez "El Universal" newspaper in Caracas, Venezuela today, but it gives the street level tactics the Socialist Community Organizers used in Venezuela to eek out a victory for Communist Hugo Chavez earlier this week. It is provided below in its entirety, with the link to the original Spanish.Of specific interest will be the tactical description of the "double wave" Chavez PSUV strategy on Election Day in polling zones they identified as somewhat sympathetic to the anti-Chavez democratic forces. Pay close attention because these tactics...

Treasury Targets Major Money Laundering Network Linked to Drug Trafficker Ayman Joumaa and a Key Hizballah Supporter in South America 6/27/2012 WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of the Treasury today designated four individuals and three entities involved in laundering the proceeds of narcotics trafficking for drug kingpin Ayman Joumaa. Treasury also designated a Colombia-based individual under its terrorism authority, Executive Order (E.O.) 13224, for directing Hizballah’s fundraising activities in the Americas. This individual was previously designated under the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act (Kingpin Act) for his role in narcotics-related money laundering. Today’s designations further expose Ayman Joumaa’s network as...