Free Republic

Venezuela's opposition leader Henrique Capriles has called off a rally to demand a recount of Sunday's disputed presidential election. Rival Nicolas Maduro was declared to have won the poll, and earlier said he would not allow the opposition rally. He accused the opposition of trying to stage a coup after clashes on Monday left seven people dead. Mr. Capriles said the government was responsible for the violence as it sought to avoid a recount. He had called for a march on the National Electoral Council in the capital, Caracas, on Wednesday, and for peaceful protests around the country. "We are...

In an amazing snub, Barack Obama, who sent an official delegation to Venezuela for tyrannical socialist dictator, Hugo Chavez’s funeral, won’t send one to Great Britain’s Margaret Thatcher’s...

Venezuela concluded its first post-Hugo Chavez presidential election, and it turned out closer than anyone thought. The result, though, was about what most expected, which is that Chavez’ hand-picked successor Nicolas Maduro will run the country for the next six years — probably. His opponent, Henrique Capriles Radonski, demanded a recount, claiming that electoral fraud had taken place:CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO Hugo Chavez’s handpicked successor won a narrow victory in Venezuela’s presidential vote, but his opponent slammed the results as illegitimate and demanded a recount.Nicolas Maduro secured 50.7% of votes in Sunday’s poll while opposition candidate Henrique Capriles...

Decomposed Chavez body may be too dead to go on eternal display After Hugo Chavez's death last week, government officials revealed that the late Venezuelan leader's body would be embalmed and displayed "for eternity." Just like Han Solo, but with less chance of him waking up again. However, the grisly plans may now not happen at all. According to Russian and German scientists who are experts in the field of embalming (what a job), his body is now a bit too gross and decomposed. "They tell us it’s very difficult because the process should have started earlier," said acting President...

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...

Our left-wing media's somber, mourning coverage of Venezuelan despot Hugo Chavez once again demonstrates the double standard journalists reserve for dictators. Seven years ago, the left's greatest South American hate object, Augusto Pinochet, passed away. Never mind how he used free-market reforms to modernize Chile. Never mind that after 15 years of rule, he allowed a national plebiscite to vote against him, and he stepped down peacefully. The left-wing outrage pulsed on the front pages. The Washington Post headline for Pinochet in 2006 was "A Dictator's Dark Legacy." Reporters Monte Reel and J.Y. Smith stated his government "murdered and tortured...

Wibailoutpeople.org was one of the few website which still posted the SEIU announcement detailing the “celebration and procession” for the deceased Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez. Hugo Chávez in Porto Alegre, Brazil. Jan/26/2003 photo Victor Soares A memorial vigil was held Wednesday at the Venezuelan consulate in Manhattan, but the union march is raising eyebrows. “Bring candles will walk to the statue of the Liberator Simon Bolivar in Central Park.” – instructions included in the hispanic announcement which reached out to Fidel Castro supporters as well. NEW YORK CITY A Celebration and Procession for our Comrade Hugo Chávez Fri., March 8...

The minister for France's overseas territories lamented the death of Hugo Chavez on Saturday, saying the world "needs more dictators" like him after attending the late Venezuelan leader's funeral a day earlier. Victorin Lurel described Chavez as a cross between French General Charles de Gaulle and reforming left-winger Léon Blum, who served three times as French prime minister. “De Gaulle because he profoundly changed his country’s institutions, and Blum because he fought relentlessly against injustice,” he told RTL radio. “I’ll be criticised for saying this, but the world needs more dictators like Hugo Chavez, if it’s a dictator that he...

A wonderful human being has passed. What do I do when I am angry, happy, or sad? I write. Back in 2004, shortly after my son, Casey, was killed in Iraq, a grief counselor advised me to write a letter to my son in a journal every night. I filled up three journals in the terrible months after his death. I often wrote at his grave and those journals did help me deal with the unspeakable loss. Today, I write from a great well of sadness, but not just for me, for the world. My dear friend in peace and...

Most Americans continue to loath Hugh Chavez for the oppressive, authoritarian tyrant that he was. The late dictator debased individual liberty and basic human freedom, to say nothing of the billions of dollars he openly embezzled from his own people. The country Venezuela is unquestionably better off now that he’s deceased, of course, but Texas Senator Ted Cruz took the significance of his death a step further. During a recent speaking engagement, Cruz said -- among other things -- that he hoped thugs like Fidel and Raul Castro will soon meet their maker . . . and the oppressed people...

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

How Obama Turned America into Venezuela Hugo Chavez's death was met with tributes from Iran, Bolivia, China and El Salvador. The Western left did not waste much time adding their withered roses to El Comandante's coffin. George Galloway called him another Spartacus. Jimmy Carter described him as a leader who fought for the "neglected and trampled." Michael Moore praised him for declaring that the oil belongs to the people. Whether or not the oil belongs to the people is a matter of some debate considering how much of it ended up in Chavez's pocket. Chavez died with an estimated net...

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.

Filed at 1:28 p.m. ET In his famous, fervent speeches of the 1960s, Malcolm X described the difference between house slaves, who lived in comfortable conditions in the master's house and loved the master, and slaves laboring in the field, who hated the master. The house slaves, he implied, were mainstream civil rights groups and leaders, who he thought were too closely aligned with whites. Now it's a term being used by activist and entertainer Harry Belafonte to describe Secretary of State Colin Powell. And Belafonte, who opposes a war on Iraq, isn't apologizing. Belafonte told The Associated Press he...

Blacks Repudiate Belafonte For Release: January 13, 2006 Contact David Almasi at: (202) 543-4110x11 or Project21@nationalcenter.org With former singing star Harry Belafonte's anti-American rhetoric apparently increasing in fervor, members of the black leadership network Project 21 call upon prominent Americans - especially those who find themselves sharing a stage with Belafonte - to disavow his anti-American radicalism and his practice of harshly attacking the character of those who disagree with his policy views. During a recent visit with Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez, Belafonte and praised the anti-American, anti-human rights Chavez regime, saying, "No matter what the greatest tyrant in the...

Condolences http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=XU7gnMSzf_c&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DXU7gnMSzf_c

Hugo Chávez is famous for nationalising farms, factories and oil rigs but his latest appropriation comes closer to body-snatching. Venezuela's socialist president has closed an exhibition of dissected cadavers in Caracas and confiscated the contents because, he says, it reflects "moral decomposition". The travelling show, Bodies Revealed, has stirred controversy in other countries for displaying 14 full-body human specimens and more than 200 organs.

Imagine if, upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt, that the Secretary of Commerce Henry Wallace was ILLEGALLY sworn in as President rather than Vice President Harry Truman simply because Roosevelt had designated Wallace as his successor. Of course, such an action would have been universally protested because it was clearly UNCONSTITUTIONAL. However, that is pretty much what just happened in Venezuela. The Venezuelan constitution states that upon the death or the exit from office of the President that the Speaker of the National Assembly, NOT the Vice President, becomes president. However, because Hugo Chavez designated his big, lumbering,...

Events this week showed that in the pantheon of heroes for America’s liberal elite Hugo Chavez was a pathetic D-lister. The Venezuelan buffoon never amassed even a teeeeeenzy fraction of Fidel Castro’s U.S. celebrity, tycoon and politician fan-base. OK, so Sean Penn, Oliver Stone, Michael Moore, Joe Kennedy, Rep. Jose Serrano all expressed admiration for Chavez upon his passing. Big deal! Listing Fidel Castro's A-list celebrity, tycoon and politician fan-base would waste half of Townhall’s bandwith, on something easily found here. The Republican National Committee scolded Democratic Rep. Serrano for his affectionate tweet to the dead Chavez. Good for them....

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...

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...

What? Do even Latin American caudillos die? Apparently, according to the latest and last medical bulletin on the health (or lack thereof) of Hugo Chavez, perpetually re-electable president of Venezuela. No doubt many Venezuelans are grieving at the news that he has proven mortal. It ought to be quite a wake or celebration, depending on which Venezuelans are observing the occasion. No doubt those of both persuasions will be sincere, as many Russians mourned the death of their generalissimo when Stalin left this vale of tears he had done so much to make even tearier. While others breathed a (very)...

Rep. Greg Meeks will head up a U.S. delegation attending the funeral Friday of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, a decision by President Barack Obama that is drawing attention because of the congressman’s previous ties to Chávez. … Former Massachusetts Democratic Rep. Bill Delahunt is also part of the U.S. funeral delegation. Like Meeks, Delahunt drew criticism in 2005 for meeting the Venezuelan dictator to discuss a deal for discounted heating oil to help low-income residents of Massachusetts. …

"One of the most important reasons for studying history is that virtually every stupid idea that is in vogue today has been tried before and proved disastrous before, time and again." --Dr. Thomas SowellThe Berlin Wall was demolished by joyful Europeans throwing off the chains of collectivism nearly a quarter century ago. The Soviet Union, its fraudulent promise of a "workers' paradise" long since proved a bitter delusion, fell soon after. But the idea that government control over the economy can improve the lives of ordinary people, particularly the poor, does not die. Hugo Chavez clawed his way to total...

Hugo Chávez was carried through the streets of Caracas on Wednesday As the Venezuela flag-draped his coffin. Chavez’s state funeral was scheduled for Friday, but Nicolás Maduro, has said that Hugo Chávez’s embalmed body will be permanently displayed in a glass crystal casket so “his people will always have him.” He also said his body would later to moved from the military museum to his final burial site. The Museum of the Revolution, near the presidential palace where Chávez ruled for 14 years. Chávez cultivated a cult of personality and a loyal band of followers throughout Latin America due in...

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.

Acting Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro says Hugo Chavez’s body to be permanently displayed.

Ahmadinejad: Chavez Will Return With Jesus and 12th Imam A day after his death, Hugo Chavez is already being touted as a martyr and a messiah by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who equated the now deceased Venezuelan leader to Jesus and Shiite Islam’s 12th imam Wednesday, saying, “I have no doubt that he will return, along with the righteous Jesus and the perfect human.” Ahmadinejad also reiterated claims made by Venezuelan Vice President Nicolas Maduro that Chavez died of a “suspect illness” but didn’t go as far as Maduro had in equating Chavez’s death to that of late Palestinian Liberation...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Hugo Chavez is room temperature. I know that. The smell of sulfur is everywhere, and, yes, we have the sound bites. The media in this country is extremely sad. It's hilarious to listen to this. We have story here from USA Today, and the way they headline the story is this: "'Who Will Take Care Of Us?' Poor Say After Chávez Dies." There's an object lesson here about where this country is headed. We've joked often about the similarities between Hugo Chavez and Obama, but they're really somewhat serious here. A 27-year-old housewife is quoted in the...

Signaling that Russia hopes to maintain warm ties with Venezuela after Hugo Chavez's death, President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday called for the two countries to follow a path toward even stronger ties and praised the late president as “a close friend of Russia.” Putin has sent a telegram to Caracas expressing his “deepest condolences” to Vice President Nicolas Madura and the Venezuelan people, the Kremlin said. “Vladimir Putin praised the Venezuelan leader's personal efforts to lay a solid foundation for a Russian-Venezuelan partnership that has developed strong political ties and led to large-scale humanitarian and development projects,” the Kremlin said...

Wow, re: Hugo Chavez @RobLowe comes off as a ranting Free Republci poster https://twitter.com/RobLowe/status/309132305723703296 …

Dead at 58, Hugo Chávez leaves behind a country in far worse condition than it was when he became president, its future clouded by rivals for succession in a constitutional crisis of his Bolivarian party’s making and an economy in chaos. His skillful rhetoric, which filled supporters with utopian dreams, was used to justify the methodical destruction of Venezuela’s democratic institutions and the free market. Shortly after coming to office, he rewrote the constitution to his liking and aggressively set out to rig elections and stifle adversaries in the legislative branch and the courts. Unable to brook criticism, he turned...

If there's one thing that's good in California, it's that there are no or very few Citgo gas stations out here. Citgo is the Venezuelan-owned oil company who decided to fly the American flag at half-staff in Houston, Texas to mourning the death of Hugo Chavez. Yes, our flag is being flown at half-staff to mourn the loss of a socialist dictator.

AFP - US filmmaker and long-time Hugo Chavez supporter Oliver Stone hailed the late Venezuelan leader as a "great hero" on Tuesday, saying he will "live forever in history." Actor and activist Sean Penn, another Hollywood friend to Chavez, also paid tribute saying the world's poor had lost a "champion" and America had also lost "a friend it never knew it had."

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...

The death of U.S.-bashing Venez­uelan strongman Hugo Chavez could put his pal Joseph Kennedy II’s Hub-based heating-oil-for-the-poor program out in the cold, energy experts said. With Chavez’s death from cancer yesterday, his successors must 
decide whether to continue state-run Citgo’s oil giveaways — including its agreement with Kennedy’s nonprofit Citizens Energy, which for years has given oil to the needy thanks in large part to Chavez’s largesse. “If the Citgo program goes away, Joe’s program goes away,” said Mark Wolfe of the National Energy Assistance Directors’ Association. “Venez­uela, under a different government, I’m sure they would re-evaluate all charitable givings...

The President of Venezuela's dependence on Cuban healthcare obviously failed him, because Hugo Chávez is dead. In a July 16, 2011 New York Times article entitled "Chávez Puts His Trust in Castro for Care," Michael Shifter, president of the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington, was quoted as saying "For Chávez, questions of trust, political loyalty and control trump all other considerations. Fidel is one of the few people in which Chávez has utter faith and trust. He is prepared to entrust his health to Fidel, even if he could get better treatment elsewhere." Notwithstanding Chávez's "utter faith and trust" in Fidel...

One of the most damning verdicts on the late Hugo Chavez's leadership of Venezuela came from a doctor who made a name for himself by claiming to have inside knowledge of the cancer that eventually killed the president. .Dr Jose Rafael Marquina, a Venezuelan based in Miami, repeatedly predicted that Mr Chavez's illness would prove terminal, providing detailed accounts of what he said was the president's course of treatment.His statements were given extensive coverage by the opposition media in Venezuela, eager to fill the vacuum left by the lack of official information about Mr Chavez's condition.But whatever the truth of...

Sean Penn on the Death of Hugo Chavez: "I Lost a Friend" Despite his criticisms of the United States, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez did have supporters in Hollywood, including Sean Penn, who mourned Chavez's death Tuesday. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez dead at 58 "Today the people of the United States lost a friend it never knew it had," Penn said in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter. "And poor people around the world lost a champion. I lost a friend I was blessed to have. My thoughts are with the family of President Chavez and the people of Venezuela." Chavez,...

Statement From Former U.S. President Jimmy Carteron the Death 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.  Although we have...

Doing this piece gave me pause. I don't KNOW where Chavez went after his death, and I'm not interested in decisively casting judgement on the matter.That said, he was a BAD guy, he abused the power bestowed upon him, and his life was not a force for good in the world.That has to count for something...

Jose Serrano is a Democratic congressman who represents the South Bronx of New York City (the 15th District). He is also an imbecile. Upon hearing the news of the death of Hugo Chavez, the tyrannical "President" of Venezuela, Serrano could not hold back his thoughts and emotions. He quickly went to twitter and posted this comment: Making certain that no one would misunderstand his sadness, Serrano released an official statement entitled “Chavez Changed the Conversation In Latin America” on his government website. Serrano explained, in part: “I met President Chavez in 2005 when he came to my district at my...

CARACAS, Venezuela — President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela died Tuesday afternoon after a long battle with cancer, the government announced, leaving behind a bitterly divided nation in the grip of a political crisis that grew more acute as he languished for weeks, silent and out of sight in hospitals in Havana and Caracas.

President Hugo Chavez Has Died

Guillermo Cochez Panamanian politician says the president of Venezuela is deceased Contact with CNN Chile's former ambassador said that since last December 30 President Chavez declared brain dead in Cuba, with which he returned to Venezuela in that state, and therefore it could not be visited by the various leaders who have visited, questioned and denied as the last picture that was published between Chavez and his daughters.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez returned home to Venezuela early Monday after more than two months of medical treatment in Cuba following cancer surgery.Chavez’s return was announced in a series of message on his Twitter account, saying “we will continue our treatment here.”“We’ve arrived once again in our Venezuelan homeland. Thank you, my God!!” the first of the three messages said.

Translated by IASW Physicians caring for Hugo Chávez in Havana have notified his family, the Castro brothers, and the main chavista leaders that their patient will no longer be able to return to his functions as president of Venezuela. This is according to sources in direct contact with his medical team, who also indicate that Chávez has lost his voice completely as a result of medical treatment. His vocal cords have endured permanent damage making recuperation highly unlikely. Speechless and unable to move from the bed in which he has spent the last two months, our sources tell us the...

Economics: Venezuela has devalued its currency, joining Iran, Argentina and others whose wars on math brought the same result. Some call this a "restorative." It's not. It's what happens when big government hits a wall. Venezuela's monster 47% devaluation from 4.3 to 6.3 bolivars to the dollar, reportedly ordered by President Hugo Chavez from his hospital bed in Cuba, marks the reckoning for his regime's big-spending ways in Venezuela's low-growth economy. It was about as predictable as a crash from a runaway train, given his mad-lunatic war on economics — his lethal combination of welfare spending, destruction of the private...