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Watchdog.org reported: Thanks to your generous support, the New York City-based People’s Rights Fund has been able publicize the great work of Karl Marx and dictators Kim Jong-Il, Hugo Chavez and Saddam Hussein. Don’t remember writing that check? If you paid federal taxes after 1997, some of your money went to Tides, a San Francisco-based clearinghouse that collects and distributes about $251 million every year to hundreds of leftwing organizations. Much of the money flowing into Tides comes from wealthy benefactors who use Tides as a clearinghouse — a way to help finance left-liberal organizations without leaving any fingerprints. But...

Easter was on March 31st this year. So was Cesar Chavez Day. ... Everyone has their priorities.

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - Holding a Bible in her arms at the start of Holy Week, seamstress Maria Munoz waited patiently to visit the tomb of the man she considers another savior of humanity. The 64-year-old said she had already turned her humble one-bedroom house into a shrine devoted to the late President Hugo Chavez, complete with busts, photos and coffee mugs bearing his image. Now, she said, her brother-in-law was looking for a larger house to display six boxes' worth of Chavez relics that her family has collected throughout his political career.

Ed Driscol notes that Google has a predictable manner of observing Easter. Ironic, since whatever else you could say about Cesar Chavez he was a devout Catholic: “While two billion Christians around the world celebrate Easter Sunday on this 31st day of March, Google is using its famous ‘Doodle’ search logo art to mark the birth of left-wing labor leader,” Twitchy.com notes, adding that “Google’s Easter insult sparks Twitter backlash, mockery,” as well it should.  The timing of latest in-your-face politically correct homepage is oddly appropriate. As Dennis Prager has written, “You cannot understand the Left if you do not...

One suggests some basis for hope, another writes about oppression by Chavistas and the third pursues the same theme.El Presidente for Life, THugo Chávez, died on or before March 5, 2013. He may have died in Cuba, in Venezuela or perhaps elsewhere. There has been much speculation but nobody who knows for sure seems to be talking. In any event he is almost certainly dead now, a good thing -- or at least I hope it is good -- for Venezuela. Before proceeding further, here are some points that should be kept in mind about Venezuela: 1. Venezuela has a...

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...