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This will probably come as a crushing blow to Chris Hayes, (the legacy of Hugo Chavez is “complicated” donchaknow…) but it seems that the dictator may miss out on his chance to become a permanent national monument in corpse form. It turns out that the process to permanently embalm and display the now room temperature leader would take a bit more work than can be managed. Venezuela’s information minister says the government has decided that the body of Hugo Chavez will not be embalmed for permanent display, as officials had said it would be.Ernesto Villegas’ tweet Friday night says the...

At first glance it seems like a reasonably decent airport. Then after a while you notice the dilapidation, the inoperative urinal, the broken floor tiles. A surprisingly pretty Immigration Agent waves me over, inspects my documents, asks a few questions in passable English and allows me into the country. I retrieve my bag and then pass both the bag and the carry-on through the x-ray machine just before the the exit. This is my first trip to Caracas and I was not without anxiety given the tumultuous events of the last few weeks. I had been invited to come and...

Chavez is dead. Is Venezuela?h/t Devil's Excrement Daniel, one of my two favorite bloggers on things Venezuelan, published this article today. It summarizes what's wrong with Venezuela today and does not raise any false hopes for her immediate future. Her future is bleak. Here's the first paragraph. The wake is suspended, Chavez rests for the time being in a military museum, an old barrack to ensure past presidential safety at Miraflores, now unable to ensure safety in an area that has been overcome by slums. For a military that was never able to understand what the civilian world and democracy...

AFP - Venezuela's acting president Nicolas Maduro joked on Wednesday that late leftist president Hugo Chavez's recent death must have played into the selection of the first Latin American pope. "We know that our commander has risen up there and is face to face with Christ," Maduro said, to an outburst of laughter at a political event, just over a week after Chavez died following 14 years in charge of Venezuela.

CARACAS — Venezuela's government said on Wednesday it may not be possible to embalm the remains of late leader Hugo Chavez as planned because the process should have been started earlier. Chavez died last week aged 58 after a two-year battle with cancer. His body has been on display in a glass-topped coffin at a grandiose military academy in the capital Caracas, where millions of people have filed past to pay homage. The government had said it planned to embalm Chavez's remains "for eternity" in much the same way as was done with the remains of Soviet leaders Lenin and...

CARACAS (Reuters) - Late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez may have had a hand in Christ's decision to opt for a Latin American pope, acting President Nicolas Maduro said on Wednesday. "We know that our commander ascended to the heights and is face-to-face with Christ," Maduro said at a Caracas book fair. "Something influenced the choice of a South American pope, someone new arrived at Christ's side and said to him: 'Well, it seems to us South America's time has come.'" Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina was elected in a surprise choice to be the new leader of the Roman Catholic...

CARACAS, VENEZUELA — Business has never been better for Eudis Carrillo. Sure, he’s heartbroken over the death of his hero Hugo Chavez, but there’s precious little time for sentiment: Hats and T-shirts of the late Venezuelan president are flying off the shelves at his streetside stand faster than he can keep them in stock. Ditto demand for Chavez tattoos, Chavez earrings, Chavez mugs and talking Chavez action figurines. One can even buy Chavez boxer shorts and panties, part of a cult of personality that began while the former paratrooper was still alive, but exploded in the week since he succumbed...

Leaving aside his antisemitism and his dictator allies, why would the left celebrate a man who repressed his people and wrecked the economy? It’s an insult to Venezuelans, says Bernard Henri-Lévy. The death of Hugo Chávez, followed by his elaborate funeral, has unleashed a wave of political idiocy, and thus of disinformation, of a magnitude not seen in some time.

Amateur Diplomacy: Somebody explain to us why an official U.S. delegation was sent to Caracas for the funeral of Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez. It only boosts our enemies while diminishing America. The death of Chavez this week should have been an opportunity for the U.S. to rally global support for Venezuela's battered democrats and make a stand for democracy. Instead, the Obama administration has done all it can to validate and bolster Chavez's gangsterly minions desperate to perpetrate their Marxist kleptocracy. Already these surviving Chavistas have made clear who they are and what the U.S. can expect: President Obama called...

Mr. Chávez would have enjoyed the comparisons to Christ and Mr. Bolívar. "He wanted to be the Bolívar of the 21st century," said Enrique Krauze, a leading Mexican historian and author of "Redeemers," about Latin America's messianic caudillos, or charismatic political leaders. The late president often saw himself as a reincarnation of the 19th-century patriot who liberated five countries and sought to unite the former Spanish colonies, say former colleagues.

1. Production quotas on all forms of food, including rice, the country’s primary food item. 2. Price controls on anything from cooking oil to sugar to coffee. Rice, for instance, was only allowed to be sold for 2.15 bolivars ($0.34USD), but cost 4.41 bolivars ($0.70USD) to produce. 3. Both of these policies led to extreme food shortages. For most families, especially the lower- and middle-classes, grocery shopping was a hit or miss. They would be lucky enough to grab a roll of toilet paper. 4. Prior to Chavez’s death, the oil-rich Latin American nation struggled with the worst food shortage...

Wolf Blitzer: “What do you say to the Venezuelans, not only in the opposition but those who have fled the country, who considered Hugo Chavez a vile dictator?” Jesse Jackson: “Well, you know, democracies mature, Our first 15 presidents owned people. They owned slaves. Democracies mature.” Read more: http://conservativevideos.com/2013/03/jesse-jackson-compares-hugo-chavez-to-founding-fathers/#ixzz2N5Yp4HNE

Venezuela's Hugo Chavez slid into a coma the day before he died of respiratory failure after cancer spread into his lungs, sources say. Chavez's precise condition was one of the world's best-kept secrets since his cancer was announced in June 2011. Since his death this week, however, details have emerged of the 58-year-old president's battle with cancer and the last moments in the hospital with close family and senior aides.

Caracas, Venezuela, Mar 6, 2013 / 12:01 pm (CNA).- A source in Venezuela has revealed to CNA that President Hugo Chavez died “in bosom of the Church” and received spiritual direction and the sacraments in his last days. In announcing Chavez’s death to the nation on March 5, Vice President Nicolas Maduro said the Venezuelan leader died “clinging to Christ.” The source in Venezuela told CNA that during the last weeks of his life, Chavez requested spiritual direction and asked to receive the sacraments. Ever since he assumed power in 1999, Chavez butted heads continuously with the Catholic Church over...

The mourners lamenting the death of late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez included the presidents of Iran and Cuba, a Spanish prince and a man that Chavez himself once floated as a possible American ambassador to Venezuela: Hollywood actor Sean Penn. Penn flew to Caracas for the Friday funeral, where he was filmed among the mourning crowd. Earlier this week, he called Chavez “a great hero to the majority of his people.”

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....