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Dan from Squirrel Hill's Blog Hugo Chavez was an incompetent, communist dictator, who wreaked havoc on Venezuela’s ability to produce goods and services Last year, Hugo Chavez, the President of Venezuela, died.How do I know that Chavez was a dictator?Because only a dictator would use the military to seize food from private owners.How do I know that Chavez was incompetent?Because only a complete incompetent could create a shortage of gasoline in a country that has some of the world’s biggest oil reserves.How do I know that Chavez was a communist?Because only a communist would label toilet paper as a “luxury.”Hugo Chavez...

Moonbat demigod Nelson Mandela’s collectivist legacy continues to unfold in what was once a prosperous and relatively civilized country: The Economic Freedom Fighters have stuck to their guns for the nationalisation of mines and expropriation of land without compensation. Party leader Julius Malema on Saturday unveiled the organisation’s elections manifesto at Mehlareng Stadium in Tembisa, east of Johannesburg. “We want to do away with colonial patterns of ownership in South Africa,” he said. That means if a white person owns it, the government is going to take it, just like in Zimbabwe, which has been reduced to basket case status...

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The protesters in Venezuela do not seek anything extraordinary: They demand to be secure in their homes and their persons, they demand an end to current shortages of staple foods and other goods in the country, and they demand the right to free speech. That these things should be considered a challenge to the Maduro regime is what is extraordinary, along with the regime’s brutal response to the protests — both speak to the character of the current Venezuelan government. If honoring such basic human decencies requires a regime change in Caracas, that is more a reflection on the current...

Unarmed citizens in Ukraine taking sniper fire from their own government. Sadly, they aren't allowed to own guns like we are. And people here wonder why we value our Second Amendment? (Taken from Guns Across America on facebook)

Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro has invited US President Barack Obama to join him in talks aimed at resolving the problems between the two countries. Mr Maduro said the meeting would help "put the truth out on the table". He has accused US conservatives and media organisations of plotting to overthrow his government.

The Federal Communications Commission announced Friday that it was putting on hold a controversial study of American newsrooms, after complaints from Republican lawmakers and media groups that the project was too intrusive. FCC spokeswoman Shannon Gilson said Chairman Tom Wheeler agreed with critics that some of the study's proposed questions for reporters and news directors "overstepped the bounds of what is required."

Despite 100 years of historical evidence that communism leads to food shortages, genocide, and police states, the Oklahoma Communist Party, in a recently publicized ad, has promised the exact opposite... No where in the ad are mentions of the atrocities that took place in the Soviet Union or China in the 20th Century, nor the human rights violations that still take place in North Korea and Cuba to this day. Instead, all the readers see are smiling faces, just so happy that communism has finally taken over the US... And, for whatever reason, the picture saying that racism will end...

I don’ t look at food the same way most Americans do. I grew up on my grandparents’ small farm in the village. Everything we ate came from our garden and our livestock—fresh vegetables in season, canned vegetables in winter and spring, goat and cow’ s milk, butter, goat cheese, eggs, smoked meat, lardy bacon, fatty sausages in natural casings, and eggs. We ate to live; we did not live to eat. Food was for nourishment, not for entertainment, gorging buffets, or for bourgeois socializing. From time to time, adults ate better meals with family and friends at weddings, baptisms,...

President’s Day: University textbook claims Reagan was sexist, Conservatives view people as incapable of ‘charity,’ ‘lazy’ February 16, 2014 by Charlie Kirk University of South Carolina textbook has one student whistleblower outraged over its accusations that President Ronald Reagan was sexist and conservatives view people as incapable of “charity” and “lazy.” The textbook, obtained by Turning Points USA Founder Charlie Kirk, was authored by Karen K. Kirst-Ashman and used for the three credit course “Introduction to Social Work Profession and Social Welfare.”

Is communism making a comeback? On its face, the question seems more than a little absurd. The Berlin Wall came down over 24 years ago. We are more than 22 years removed from the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. All that remains are the Stalinist museum pieces of North Korea and Cuba, the former an isolated country known mainly for its absurd dictator and starving population, the latter a beautiful island stuck in a 1950s time warp due to backwards economic and social policies. Even China, the one major power still ruled by...

New York's Democrat governor Andrew Cuomo recently told listeners of WCNY radio that "extreme conservatives" who are "pro-life, pro-assault weapons, anti-gay" have "no place" in New York State because "that's not who New Yorkers are." Cuomo later tried to cushion the impact of his words by claiming they were aimed solely at "extreme conservatives" among state politicians, and not at New York's mass public. Even if true -- and WCNY's transcript of Cuomo's blast makes that claim dubious -- one wonders what New Yorkers with the "wrong" policy opinions are supposed to do when they have no politicians to support....

George Zimmerman on Monday accused President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder of making a “scapegoat” of him but that he does not know why they would do so. In an interview with CNN’s Chris Cuomo, Zimmerman said he believes that in his trial for the killing of Florida teen Trayvon Martin he faced a “miscarriage of justice,” and he described himself as a “scapegoat.” “A scapegoat for [what]?” Cuomo asked. “The government, the president, the attorney general,” responded Zimmerman, who was acquitted in the trial. “I don’t know what they’re thinking or why they’re thinking it, all I...

If you thought that the Left's arguments in favor of wealth-redistribution were factless and short-sighted, you haven't read "The One Rich Guy," a new comic published on the Daily Kos today. It has everything a liberal could want: a stereotypical, evil rich man with a top hat and monocle, people making fun of capitalism, and no logical explanation as to why any of this might happen and no solutions. And, of course, it relies heavily on the fallacy that if someone is rich, why, he must be stealing from everyone else! Gird your loins. The comic is called "The Modern...

Why communism didn’t have its own Nuremberg? translation: fb.com/SayNOtocommunismThe Nazis were trialed during the Nuremberg Trials, while communism, the most criminal system in the history of human kind still remains with impunity. Who is to be blamed? The Soviets? The Americans? Or maybe Western media and universities, dominated by leftist thinking? Prof. Andrzej Nowak replies to these and other questions.The efforts of realising the communist ideology ended up with annihilation of at least 100 million people/IstockphotoTony Judt, an American historian and a disappointed intellectual who died short time ago noticed in his last book (which was written as conversations run...

Why dwell on a single national tragedy? When people consider the worst that could happen to their country, they think of totalitarianism. Given communism’s failure, that fate no longer seems likely. If Indonesia were to boil over, its citizens would hardly turn to North Korea as a model; the governments in Madrid or Athens are not citing Lenin as the answer to their euro travails. The real danger is inadvertently becoming the Argentina of the 21st century. Slipping casually into steady decline would not be hard. Extremism is not a necessary ingredient, at least not much of it: weak institutions,...

Secretary of State John Kerry is joining officials from the United Nations, Organization of American States and European Union in condemning “senseless violence” in Venezuela. “The United States is deeply concerned by rising tensions and violence surrounding this week's protests in Venezuela,” Kerry said in a statement. “Our condolences go to the families of those killed as a result of this tragic violence.” “We are particularly alarmed by reports that the Venezuelan government has arrested or detained scores of anti-government protestors and issued an arrest warrant for opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez. These actions have a chilling effect on citizens' rights...

Union Suffers Big Loss at Tennessee VW Plant Volkswagen workers rejected the UAW by a vote of 712 to 626. Neal E. Boudette Updated Feb. 14, 2014 11:44 p.m. ET The United Auto Workers union suffered a crushing defeat Friday, falling short in an election in which it seemed to have a clear path to organizing workers at Volkswagen AG VOW3.XE +1.10% 's plant in Chattanooga, Tenn. The setback is a bitter defeat because the union had the cooperation of Volkswagen management and the aid of Germany's powerful IG Metall union, yet it failed to win a majority among the...

Hannah Arendt coined the term “the banality of evil” to describe the galling normalcy of Nazi mass-murderer Adolf Eichmann. Covering his trial in Jerusalem, she described Eichmann as less a cartoonish villain than a dull, remorseless, paper-pushing functionary just “doing his job.” The phrase “banality of evil” was instantly controversial, largely because it was misunderstood. Arendt was not trying to minimize Nazism’s evil but to capture its enormity. The staggering moral horror of the Holocaust was that it made complicity “normal.” Liquidating the Jews was not just the stuff of mobs and demagogues but of bureaucracies and bureaucrats. Now consider...