Free Republic

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. …

While much of the world has focused on the ongoing crisis in Ukraine, opposition forces in Venezuela continue to battle the brutal regime of Nicolas Maduro. While opposition forces battle for their basic human rights, the world, and in particular the government of the United States has remained largely silent. In February of this year, opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez was arrested by government officials on charges of "inciting unrest" for leading, at the time, peaceful protests against the policies of Nicolas Maduro and his ruling United Socialist Party. Despite the overriding belief that he was being held illegally, few world...

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro have signed a strategic partnership agreement. -snip- Since 2022, Russia has already signed strategic partnership pacts with China, North Korea and Iran. -snip- During his visit to Moscow, Maduro is also due to attend commemorative events around the 80th anniversary of the victory of the Soviet Union and its allies over Nazi Germany, including a military parade on Friday.

Gunmen ambushed a convoy carrying Honduras' top prosecutor, but neither he nor his bodyguards were harmed, police said Sunday. Police spokesman Orlin Cerrato said Attorney General Luis Alberto Rubi was riding on a northern highway when assailants opened fire Saturday night. Cerrato said no one was hurt. One car was damaged. He did not give a motive for the attack or say whether it was related to Honduras' four-month political crisis. But he speculated the attack could be an attempt to "provoke unease in the country." After the June coup, it was Rubi who filed criminal charges against ousted President...

A first-pass run at the life and times of the left's latest version of George Floyd, repatriated illegal alien Kilmar Abrego Garcia, flown to his native El Salvador and imprisoned as an MS-13 gang member, leaves one marveling at how the radical left sure knows how to pick 'em. After all, the guy is a composite of every detested stereotypes about migrants -- illegal border crosser, ignored his final deportation order, identified in police reports as an MS-13 gang member accepted by two judges, crazy high-speed driver endangering others, suspected human trafficker, (with a mysterious dropping of those charges by...

The Trump administration is slapping sanctions on Venezuela’s new Vice President Tareck El Aissami and accusing him of playing a major role in international drug trafficking. (snip) The U.S. is also sanctioning Samark Bello, a wealthy businessman connected to El Aissami who has held significant business interests in the U.S. The U.S. says Bello provided assistance or support to El Aissami’s trafficking activities.

Venezuela’s Tarek El-Aissami The Americas Report | Oct 03, 2008  By Nicole Ferrand [...] Mr. El - Aissami is a Venezuelan national of Syrian descent who, before becoming Minster of Interior and Justice, occupied the position of Deputy Interior Minister for Public Security. His father, Carlos Aissami, is the head of the Venezuelan branch of the Iraqi Baath political party. Before the invasion of Iraq, he held a press conference in which he described himself as a Taliban and called Osama Bin Laden, "the great Mujahedeen, Sheik Osama bin Laden." Tarek's great-uncle Shibli el-Aissami was a prominent ideologist and...

Barack Obama will no doubt be chronicled, among other things, as the first anti-American president. No wonder; he’s the product of an educational system that has become increasingly radical and anti-American with each passing decade, and his mother was a stereotypical leftist anthropologist with a passion for the Third World. The pattern is unmistakable. As Luis Fleischman notes, Obama wanted to make deals with our enemies, Iran being the most dramatic example. But just look at Latin America: The Obama Administration tried to avoid confrontations with anyone it wanted to make a “historic deal” with. Most of these “historic deals”...

@elonmusk: Those who know, please reply to this post listing all the evil things that NED has done. It’s a long list. https://x.com/elonmusk/statu After that merciless arm-twisting, I have no choice but to recap my National Endowment for Democracy bashes going back to shortly after it was launched in 1983. In a November 29, 1985 piece in the Oakland Tribune, I hailed NED as “one of the newest, most prestigious boondoggles on the Potomac.” But there were plenty of scoffers early on: “NED has been called many things—an International Political Action Committee, the Taxpayer Funding of Foreign Elections Program, and...

There's a persistent truism out there that while Jimmy Carter was an execrable president, he was nevertheless a great ex-president. It's balderdash. He may have done some worthy deeds around the eradication of disease and the building of homes for the homeless. But he was every bit as bad an ex-president as he was a sitting president. It wasn't just his nasty, irritable personality, as described by newsman and AT contributor Peter Chowka here, and former U.S. diplomat Lewis Amselem from firsthand experience as bystanders in random events. It was in his meddling political involvement abroad. Amselem described in his...

BETHLEHEM, West Bank: Venezuelan flags and portraits of President Hugo Chavez have been flying high during protests in the West Bank against Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip. The Venezuelan president’s decision on January 6 to expel Israel’s ambassador from Caracas – the only country apart from Mauritania to take such a step – has made the left-wing South American leader a hero to Palestinians. Hamas has welcomed Chavez’s “courageous decision,” while Hassan Nasrallah, head of Lebanon’s Hezbollah group, urged Arab states to follow the Venezuelan president’s example. Chavez on Saturday accused Israel of being the “murder arm” of the...

The “Bolivarian Revolution” of Venezuela is celebrating the 25th anniversary of its rise to power. On February 2, 1999 — 25 years ago — I was a naive 11-year-old, devoid of any political thought. Today, just as the socialists celebrate a quarter of a century in power, I am barely starting anew, having been finally able to flee from socialism with my brother, who is under my care due to his mental condition. As they celebrate, cheer, rejoice — I am here, having left everything behind: my home, remaining family, neighbors, and friends, carrying nothing but three pieces of luggage;...

The president of voting machine company Smartmatic, Roger Piñate, has been indicted by a federal grand jury on bribery and money-laundering charges in order to get election contracts in the Philippines. Smartmatic was founded in 2000, and its voting machines have been used in elections in Venezuela and the Philippines. According to the Miami Herald, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez chose Smartmatic to replace the country’s previous machines in 2004.

In the 2000s, former President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela bet his country’s economic future on a rising China, securing tens of billions of dollars in investments and loans-for-oil deals. It paid off at first. China voraciously consumed Venezuelan oil and financed infrastructure projects from a high-speed railway to power plants. The 2010s brought a reckoning. Oil prices fell, and growth in Chinese oil demand slowed along with its economy. Venezuela’s oil export revenues plummeted, from more than $73 billion in 2011 to $22 billion in 2016. Misrule by Mr. Chavez and his handpicked successor, Nicolás Maduro, and myriad other domestic...

At least four statues of Hugo Chavez, president of Venezuela from 1999 to 2013, were toppled across the country as citizens took to the streets on July 29 to protest the result of the election

Looks like Lucy pulled the football away again.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro likely lost the recent elections in his country because no one believes the official result. He was declared the winner after reports of the usual shenanigans, which included police forces barring people from entering polling locations. The State Department voiced its concern about the legitimacy of the results because they were fugazi. The sun is down and there’s an all-out battle on the streets of Caracas right now#VenezuelaLibre 🇻🇪 pic.twitter.com/I7TnSvlCH3— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) July 30, 2024Full-scale battle taking place on the streets of Caracas right now!#VenezuelaLibre 🇻🇪Via @EmmaRincon pic.twitter.com/xNTbKL8PkU— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) July 30, 2024What’s left...

Venezuela's outsized role in U.S. politics is poised to grow further after autocrat Nicolás Maduro was declared the winner in a presidential election widely condemned as fraudulent. Why it matters: Nearly 8 million Venezuelans have fled the crisis-stricken nation over the last decade. Maduro's re-election and the ensuing political unrest could exacerbate the refugee crisis in the final months before the U.S. election. Zoom in: Illegal border crossings have plunged since President Biden issued an executive order cracking down on asylum. But polling suggests the border remains one of Vice President Kamala Harris' top vulnerabilities — and Republicans have made...

And now, a barrio revolt is unfolding ... An old truism in politics is that if the win is big enough, the other guy can't steal it. Venezuela's latest election just put paid to that nonsense. Any filthy tyrant, especially a socialist with a lot to hide and a will to entrench himself in permanent power, can steal an election ... right in front of his voters' faces. And in the case of Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela, be perfectly confident that he'll always get away with it. The opposition will be told to accept the result and go prepare for...

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov reaffirmed his government’s support for the administration of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, expressing during a visit to Caracas on February 20 Moscow's commitment to strategic cooperation in numerous sectors...