Free Republic

Scenes of mass grief and hysteria have accompanied the deaths of many dictators, from the Soviet Union’s Josef Stalin in 1953 to North Korea’s Kim Jong-Il in 2011. The public mourning in Venezuela following the death this week of the country’s Socialist President Hugo Chavez from cancer at the age of 58 will be played out for weeks. The Venezuelan people have been whipped into hysteria by the propaganda of the sinister — and aggressively anti-American — political machine Chavez left behind as his legacy. The complete collapse in law and order in his country meant crime spiralled out of...

The Obama administration has sent an official three-person delegation to Caracas to attend Friday’s funeral for deceased Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. According to US State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland, they are former Massachusetts Congressman William Delahunt, U.S. Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York and State Department diplomat James Derham. Chavez´s funeral is being attended by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Cuban President Raul Castro and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, all of whom, like Chavez, have their issues with Western capitalist society.

CARACAS, Venezuela -- Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. will be attending the state funeral for Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Friday in Caracas, the nation's capital. Jackson, founder of the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, will be leading a delegation organized by the civil rights organization -- which is separate from the official U.S. delegation

Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez died of a massive heart attack after great suffering and inaudibly mouthed his desire to live, the head of the country's presidential guard said. "He couldn't speak but he said it with his lips … 'I don't want to die. Please don't let me die,' because he loved his country, he sacrificed himself for his country," General Jose Ornella said. The general said he had spent the past two years with Chávez, including his final moments, as Venezuela's president of 14 years battled an unspecified cancer in the pelvic region.

Socialism: The left is out in force, bleating its praise for deceased Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez as a champion of the poor. It's a big lie. Fact is, Chavez hurt the poor, not just in Venezuela, but all over the world. Chavez's death from cancer Tuesday set off a chorus of wailing from the left's politicos, media and movie stars, hailing Chavez as a friend of the poor. "President Chavez cared deeply about the poor," declared Citizens Energy President Joe Kennedy, who's made it his business to distribute Chavez's oil handouts to the poor to help the dictator's political ends....

If you drove by CITGO’s corporate headquarters yesterday you would have seen what many consider a disturbing sight. Many Houstonians are up in arms after driving by CITGO's Eldridge Parkway headquarters and noticing the U.S., Texas and Venezuelan flags being flown at half staff, and you let your feeling show on Matt Patrick's afternoon show. “I gave them a call, and the operator told me that it was in observance and respect of the death of Hugo Chavez,” Teddy told Matt Patrick on his afternoon show on The 9-5-0 yesterday. Teddy wasn’t satisfied with the company’s explanation. “I told the...

Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has been criticised for saying that Hugo Chávez will be resurrected along with Jesus Christ in his tribute to the Venezuelan president who died on Tuesday.

The White House, in an effort tamp down viral rumors, took the unusual step of releasing a statement that President Barack Obama is “alive and well.” The terse statement comes in response to internet rumors that a charismatic, eloquent, leader who swept to power promising to take money from the petroleum industry to fund entitlement programs, had died. The White House clarified that it was, in fact, Venezuela’s socialist President Hugo Chavez who passed away after a long battle with cancer. “Some people just skim the news, or hear a snippet as they walk by the TV,” said White House...

President Hugo Chavez died of a massive heart attack after great suffering and inaudibly mouthed his desire to live, the head of Venezuela's presidential guard said late Wednesday. "He couldn't speak but he said it with his lips ... 'I don't want to die. Please don't let me die,' because he loved his country, he sacrificed himself for his country," Gen. Jose Ornella told The Associated Press.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wins the crown for praise of Hugo Chavez, declaring in a letter to the Venezuelan people that Chavez will be resurrected with Jesus and a revered Shiite imam, reports the Guardian. “I have no doubt he will come again along with all the righteous people and the Prophet Jesus and the only successor of the righteous generation, the perfect human,” he said, the latter referring to the Hidden Imam, explains the New York Times. Ahmadinejad also agrees with Venezuela's government that Chavez's death is a little fishy.

In the flesh he seemed indestructible. Hugo Chávez was not especially tall, but he was built like one of the tanks he once commanded. He was possessed of seemingly inexhaustible energy. He travelled incessantly, both around his vast country and abroad. Each Sunday he would host live television shows lasting up to 12 hours. He would ring up ministers in the early hours of the morning to harangue them. For 14 years, everything that happened in Venezuela passed through his hands, or so he liked to think. Yet Mr Chávez turned out to have been as reckless with his health...

Hollywood bids a fond farewell to Hugo Chavez By: Patrick Gavin March 6, 2013 07:05 AM EST As the legacy of Hugo Chavez gets debated in the wake of his passing, filmmakers Michael Moore and Oliver Stone took to Twitter to praise the late Venezuelan president. “You won’t hear much nice about him in the US media in the next few days. So, I thought I’d say a couple things to provide some balance” wrote Moore. “Hugo Chavez declared the oil belonged 2 the ppl. He used the oil $ 2 eliminate 75% of extreme poverty, provide free health &...

According to a Mortgage Bankers Association release this morning, mortgage applications were up 14.8% from the previous week. Mortgage purchase applications rose 15.04% from the previous week. But in the general scheme of things, we are still stuck in a lower volume rut (as Chris Whalen and I discussed in Zero Hedge in October 2010). Mortgage refinancing applications rose 14.77% from the previous week. But one week doesn’t make a trend. In other economic news, factory orders fell 2.0% in January. And the stock market continues to rise. The Dow is up over 50 point as of 10:15am EST. And...

The controversial leader had a slew of Hollywood heavyweights supporting him throughout his reign, with the most vocal two being actor Sean Penn and filmmaker Oliver Stone. "Today the people of the United States lost a friend it never knew it had. And poor people around the world lost a champion," says Penn in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter. "I lost a friend I was blessed to have. My thoughts are with the family of President Chavez and the people of Venezuela."

DORAL, Fla. (AP) -- Venezuelans in the U.S. cheered and expressed cautious optimism that new elections will bring change to their homeland after the death of President Hugo Chavez. "My hope is that Venezuela will become a free country once again," said Elizabeth Gonazalez, 52, who wore a smiley face sticker on her sweater with the words, "Venezuela without Chavez."

All one needs to know about Hugo Chávez’s poisonous political legacy can be determined from the circumstances in which he died. Or how little we know about the manner in which—or when, or how—he died. As Venezuela’s bombastic caudillo was expiring in Cuba—and then at a military hospital in Caracas—various newspapers, pundits, and bloggers had already declared him dead, speculated on the cause of his supposed death, and examined the fragmentary evidence of his condition in an attempt to determine with what he was afflicted. His handpicked successor, the fanatically loyal former union leader Nicolas Maduro, denounced those who speculated...

Now that Hugo Chávez is out of the picture, former U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela Otto Reich warns President Obama to tread carefully in dealing with the “evil, evil men” that are now running the South American nation. “These guys are so tricky and so evil, quite frankly,” Reich, tells Newsmax in an exclusive interview following the announcement of Chávez’ death on Tuesday. “The people in power in Venezuela today are evil.” … Reich added that Fidel Castro and his brother may be calling the shots in Venezuela. …

BOSTON (AP) -- Former U.S. Rep. Joseph Kennedy II is mourning the death of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, saying he cared deeply about the poor. Kennedy, who heads Citizens Energy, said Chavez and the people of Venezuela donated about 200 million gallons of heating oil to Citizens Energy, which distributes oil to lower income families in 25 states and Washington D.C.

Former President Jimmy Carter released the following statement on the passing of Hugo Chavez: "Rosalynn and I extend our condolences to the family of Hugo Chávez Frías. We met Hugo Chávez when he was campaigning for president in 1998 and The Carter Center was invited to observe elections for the first time in Venezuela. We returned often, for the 2000 elections, and then to facilitate dialogue during the political conflict of 2002-2004. We came to know a man who expressed a vision to bring profound changes to his country to benefit especially those people who had felt neglected and marginalized....

Well folks, proud anti-American Hugo Chavez has finally bought it. The right has been resilient down there -considering- yet the VP who's recently taken charge of affairs is not just a Marxist but a Sopranos-style thug who's reportedly managed executions of Chavez opponents in the past, so any expecting a more just and uncorrupted democratic process are probably in for some disappointment... Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez dead at 58... VENEZUELA DEPLOYS ARMY AND POLICE... Fears of spiralling violence... Venezuela Expels American 'Spies'... Socialist Leader 'Amassed Private Fortune of $2 Billion'... Penn: 'I Mourn a Great Hero'.. h/t Drudge