Lefty Magazine The Nation: Hugo Chavez “Wasn’t Authoritarian Enough”…

Seriously?

Via The Nation:

. . . Chavez was a strongman: he packed the courts, hounded the corporate media, legislated by decree and pretty much did away with any system of institutional checks and balances. But I’ll be perverse and argue that the biggest problem Venezuela faced during his rule was not that Chavez was authoritarian, but that he wasn’t authoritarian enough. It wasn’t too much control that was the problem but too little.

On second thought, then, perhaps more authoritarianism wouldn’t have been a good thing. True, it might have created a stronger, more efficient state that could have kept crime and corruption in check. But it also would have co-opted the grassroots into the state, creating something that probably would have looked like the PRI after the Mexican Revolution.

Unlikely: Acting Venezuelan President thinks spirit of Hugo Chavez may be responsible for Latin American Pope

 I am guessing Hugo Chavez is now somewhere south of Jesus location where the smell of sulfur hangs heavy in the air.

(Reuters) – Late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez’s influence may have stretched into the afterlife and 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 Church on Wednesday, the first non-European pope in nearly 1,300 years.

“He (Chavez) may also call a constitutional assembly in Heaven at any moment to change the (Catholic) church on Earth so the people, the pure people of Christ, may govern the world,” Maduro added of his mentor.

Stupid: Venezuela will set up a formal inquiry to find out if Hugo Chavez cancer was poisoning by his enemies abroad

 I hope Hugo Chavez is smelling sulfur now...

(Reuters) – Venezuela will set up a formal inquiry into suspicions that the late President Hugo Chavez’s cancer was the result of poisoning by his enemies abroad, the government said.

The accusation has been derided by critics of the government, who view it as a typical Chavez-style conspiracy theory intended to feed fears of “imperialist” threats to Venezuela’s socialist system and distract people from daily problems.

Still, acting President Nicolas Maduro vowed to push through a serious investigation into the claim, which was first raised by Chavez himself after he was diagnosed with the disease in 2011.

“We will seek the truth,” Maduro told regional TV network Telesur late on Monday. “We have the intuition that our commander Chavez was poisoned by dark forces that wanted him out of the way.”

Foreign scientists will be invited to join a government commission, the OPEC nation’s acting leader said.

Rev. Jesse Jackson: Hugo Chavez had a lot in common with our founding fathers or something...

Our founding fathers would have shot Chavez as a tyrant...

Via WFB:

Jesse Jackson Sr. defended the legacy of deceased Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Friday, saying that U.S. presidents owned slaves and democracies “evolve” and “mature” in an interview with CNN.

“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?” Wolf Blitzer asked Jackson.
“Well, you know, democracies mature,” Jackson replied. “Our first 15 presidents owned people. They owned slaves. Democracies mature.”

U.N. Human Rights Council honors Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez

Are they serious?

(CNSNews.com) – The U.N. Human Rights Council was criticized Wednesday for holding a minute of silence to honor Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a decision that again illustrated the tension between the body’s actions and its professed commitment to upholding human rights around the world.

Chavez, who died Tuesday, was frequently criticized for human rights violations at home, while in the international arena he consistently supported some of the world’s most controversial regimes, including Iran, Syria and Libya under the late Muammar Gaddafi.

Nonetheless when the U.N. General Assembly in New York voted by secret ballot last fall for new members of the Geneva-based Human Rights Council (HRC), Venezuela won a seat, receiving more votes than the United States or two other nations in the Western group, Germany and Ireland.

In Geneva on Wednesday that support was again evident as a delegate from Cuba – a HRC stalwart although not currently a member due to term limits – led tributes for “Commandante Chavez.”

Keep on reading…

You can see a current list of U.N. Human Rights Council members here. This council has little to do with human rights.

Citgo flies flag at half mast out of respect for President Hugo Chavez

With so many gas choices, I will drive by Citgo.

HOUSTON (KHOU) — Venezuelan-owned oil refiner Citgo flew the flags outside its Houston offices at half staff on Wednesday out of respect for President Hugo Chavez.
Chavez died of cancer Tuesday at 58 years of age.

Citgo confirmed with KHOU 11 News that its flags, including the U.S. flag, would be lowered for the late president. The company said it would release a statement later in the day.

Chave’z funeral will be held Friday in Caracas in an event that promises to draw leaders from all over Latin America and the world. Already, the presidents of Argentina, Uruguay and Bolivia have arrived for the ceremony.

Grieving multitudes greeted the body as it left the hospital, Reuters reported. His daughter, Maria Gabriela Chavez, and mother, Elena Frias de Chavez, were among those who emerged from the hospital where Chavez died on Tuesday. Seven days of mourning have been declared in Venezuela, and all school was suspended for the week.

Sad: Hugo Chavez replacement wastes no time polishing his radical credentials

Perhaps Venezuela can find a socialist to run their country who is willing to moderate his hate of America. Let's send them Obama. 

Via CNS News:

[V]enezuela’s constitution now requires a new election within 30 days, and Capriles will almost certainly face the man Chavez named as heir to his “Bolivarian revolution,” Vice President Nicolas Maduro.

Maduro has wasted no time polishing his radical credentials, taking time out despite the gravity of Chavez’ situation this week to expel a U.S. Air Force attache accused of trying to destabilize Venezuela, and to allege a conspiracy by “the historical enemies of the country” to attack Chavez’ health.

The regime he has effectively been running also responded harshly to the Obama administration’s expression of “sympathy” for the ailing Chavez.

“The Bolivarian Government rejects the Pharisee attitude of those historical enemies of Hugo Chavez,” it said in a communique released on Monday. “They have always lavished hatred to him, insults and despise and they try now to use his health situation as an excuse to destabilize the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.”

The communique ended, “Long live Chavez!”

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez assumes room temperature...

Sean Penn hardest hit...

Via WaPo:

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who went from a young conspiratorial soldier who dreamed of revolution to the fiery anti-U.S. leader of one of the world’s great oil powers, died March 5 in Caracas of complications from an unspecified cancer in his pelvic area.

He was 58 and had been president since 1999, longer than any other democratically elected leader in the Americas. Vice President Nicolas Maduro announced the death.

Apparently, Demo Rep. Jose E. Serrano was hit hard too...

Hugo Chavez was a leader that understood the needs of the poor. He was committed to empowering the powerless.R.I.P. Mr. President.
— Jose E. Serrano (@RepJoseSerrano) March 5, 2013

Senior aides claim Hugo Chavez is still above the ground...

When the term  "battling for his life" is used, I am guessing the end is near.

(Reuters) – Senior aides and relatives of Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez countered on Friday a crescendo of rumors that the socialist president may be dead from cancer, saying he was still battling for his life.

“There he is, continuing his fight, his battle, and we are sure of victory!” his older brother Adan Chavez, the governor of Barinas state, told cheering supporters.

Speculation about Chavez, 58, hit fever pitch this week, fed in part by assertions from Panama’s former ambassador to the Organization of American States (OAS), Guillermo Cochez, that the Venezuelan leader had died.

“The launching of absurd and bizarre rumors by the right wing simply discredits them and isolates them further from the people,” Chavez’s son-in-law Jorge Arreaza, who is also the country’s science minister, said on Twitter.

Apart from one set of photos showing Chavez lying in a hospital bed, he has not been seen nor heard from in public since December 11 cancer surgery in Cuba, his fourth such operation.

Today's feel Good Story: Hugo Chavez on Life Support...

Stoke the fire in Hell. Hugo Chavez may be inbound soon...

Via Mail Online:

Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez is in an induced coma being kept alive by life support following complications during cancer surgery, it was claimed today.

Sources at the hospital in Cuba where he is being treated told a Spanish newspaper he was showing 'very weak' vital signs, adding that doctors could decide to switch off the machines 'at any moment'.

With rumours swirling that Chavez had taken a turn for the worse, Venezuela's Vice President Nicolas Maduro said the ailing president's condition remains 'delicate' three weeks after his cancer surgery.

Liberal Heartache: Hugo Chavez is suffering more complications

Left-wing Hollywood hardest hit...

(Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is suffering more complications linked to a respiratory infection that hit him after his fourth cancer operation in Cuba, his vice president said in a somber broadcast on Sunday.

Vice President Nicolas Maduro flew to Cuba to visit Chavez in the hospital as supporters' fears grew for the ailing 58-year-old socialist leader, who has not been seen in public nor heard from in three weeks.

Chavez had already suffered unexpected bleeding caused by the six-hour operation on December 11 for an undisclosed form of cancer in his pelvic area. Officials said doctors then had to fight a respiratory infection.

Hugo Chavez cancer surgery has complications...

I am unable to find any sympathy...

Havana, Cuba (CNN) -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is recovering after facing complications during cancer surgery this week, officials said.

"This process of recuperation ... will require a prudent time, as a result of the complexity of the surgical procedure, and also because of complications that came up in the surgery, when bleeding presented itself, requiring the adoption of corrective measures to permit its proper control," Information Minister Ernesto Villegas said in a televised address Thursday afternoon.

Vice President Nicolas Maduro said doctors had acted quickly to control the unexpected bleeding.

Speaking at a rally in northern Venezuela on Thursday evening, Maduro said Chavez's recuperation had "evolved from stable to favorable" but did not provide details about his long-term prognosis.

Totally cancer free Hugo Chavez headed back to Cuba for more cancer treatments...

When his cancer became a hot topic three months before this years election, Hugo Chavez declared himself cancer free.

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Monday declared himself fully recovered from cancer and ready to return to the streets for his re-election campaign ahead of an October vote. "Free, free, totally free," an ebullient Chavez told reporters when asked if he was free of the disease that struck a year ago.

Now that the election is over, the cancer seems to have returned. Let's hope it kills him soon.

CARACAS, Venezuela – The newly re-elected Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez will head back for another round of treatment to combat pelvic cancer that has plagued the world leaders for almost two years. Chávez has asked his country's legislature Tuesday for permission to travel to Cuba for more medical treatment after spending much of the past 18 months fighting cancer. The Tuesday request says Chávez has needed "various sessions of hyperbaric oxygenation" and physical therapy to continue "consolidating the process of strengthening health." The request doesn't provide more details about the treatment.

Cuba and Venezuela most pleased with Barack Obama's re-election...

I wonder if Hugo Chavez did a happy dance? 

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — From Caracas to Havana to La Paz, President Barack Obama’s re-election victory was welcomed with a sigh of relief by many on Latin America’s left, though others cautioned that the U.S. leader had not made the region a priority during his crisis-buffeted first term and was unlikely to do so in a second.
In Cuba, state-run news website CubaSi called the outcome a victory for the lesser of two evils, saying: “U.S. elections: the worst one did not win.”

“The news of Barack Obama’s triumph in yesterday’s general elections in the United States was received with some relief and without great optimism,” CubaSi wrote.

On the streets of Caracas, some said they worried that a win by Republican Mitt Romney would have brought a much harder line against leftist leaders such as their own President Hugo Chavez, and that they hoped another four-year term for Obama would bring relatively peaceful U.S.-Latin American ties.

“The other guy would have cut off relations with Venezuela,” said Cesar Echezuria, a street vendor selling newspapers emblazoned with front-page photos of Obama celebrating. “It would have been a disaster for Venezuela if Obama had lost.”

Keep on reading…

Shocker: Hugo Chavez wins re-election

Exit polls showed his opponent was winning. Election fraud anyone?

Via ABC News:

President Hugo Chávez has retained power in Venezuela, after defeating opponent Henrique Capriles, by a comfortable victory of 900,000 votes.

Chávez, the longest serving president in Latin America, has been re-elected for the third time. His new term will be from 2013 to 2019. He was first elected to power in 1998.

Shortly after his victory was announced by Venezuela's National Electoral Council at 10:15pm local time, fireworks went off in several Caracas neighborhoods. Thousands of Chávez supporters in red shirts headed towards the Presidential Palace in Caracas to watch the socialist leader speak.

"The candidate of the right and his campaign team have just announced that they have recognized our victory," Chávez told an ecstatic crowd. "And that is a very important step towards the construction of peace and coexistence in Venezuela," added the president, whose politics have deeply polarized Venezuelan society.

Exit Polls Show Hugo Chavez Losing...

The report Hugo Chavez is losing is too good to check. Barack Obama is hardest hit...

Despite the express prohibition of the Venezuelan electoral law to publish polls, apparently the opposition leader would get 51.3 percent of the votes, while the incumbent candidate would get the 48.06 percent of the ballots.
 

Variance director, Rafael Delgado, explained to Caracol Radio that the exit polls survey was conducted in the Capital District and the states of Zulia, Lara, Aragua, Miranda, Carabobo and Anzoategui.

 

Confirmed these data, today's presidential election would end thirteen years of the Chavez government, ushering in a new political landscape in Venezuela and elsewhere in the region.

Moonbat Sean Penn is campaigning for Hugo Chavez

Sean Penn should permanently move to Venezuela where he can live in a Marxist paradise.

CARACAS (Reuters) – U.S. actor Sean Penn joined President Hugo Chavez at an election rally in Venezuela on Sunday, bringing a dash of Hollywood to the campaign as he rode with him atop a truck past cheering supporters.

Penn is a friend of Chavez, who hopes to win a new six-year term on October 7. The campaign has turned into the toughest fight of the president’s political career.

“Thank you very much for visiting us again, dear friend,” Chavez said after introducing Penn to the big crowd in the central city of Valencia. “We’re all Americans, from the north, the center, the south. Long live the American continent!”

Penn, in a white shirt and sunglasses and accompanied by Argentine producer Fernando Sulichin, waved from the stage, fist-bumped and hugged Chavez, but did not address the rally.

Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez claims he is cancer free...

This is the second time Hugo Chavez has declared himself cured of prostate cancer. He lied last time and there is an election coming up...

CARACAS (Reuters) — Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez declared himself fully recovered from cancer on Monday, three months before an election in which he is seeking another six-year term.

“Free, free, totally free,” he told reporters when asked if he was free of the disease that struck a year ago.

The 57-year-old socialist leader was first diagnosed with cancer in the pelvic region in mid-2011. He wrongly declared himself cured at the end of that year before having a recurrence of the disease in February.

But after repeated cycles of treatment in Cuba and Venezuela, Chavez is once again declaring himself fully fit at a crucial time when his health is the main wild card before the October 7 presidential vote.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez begs Jesus to give him more time because he has "things left to do"

Being a petty dictator takes time. He undoubted still has political opponents to crush. Let's hope his prayers go unanswered.

Via BBC:

The President told Venezuelans he was returning to Cuba for more treatment after an emotional plea for his life at an Easter mass.

Tearful plea

Speaking through tears in his hometown of Barinas, he asked Jesus to give him more time because he had "things left to do".

"Give me your crown, Christ, give it to me, I will bleed, give me your cross, a hundred crosses, but give me life, because I still have things left to do for the (Venezuelan) people and for the homeland," he said during Thursday night's mass.

He later said it had been "a spontaneous, sentimental thing" brought about by the presence of his family next to him at the mass.

Feel Good Story: Venezuela's Hugo Chavez says his cancer is likely back

Karma...

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) -- President Hugo Chavez has raised serious doubts about whether he'll have the stamina for a successful re-election bid, revealing that he needs to return to Cuba to have a lesion removed that is probably malignant.

Chavez told Venezuelans on Tuesday that doctors in Cuba had over the weekend found a two-centimeter (less than an inch) lesion in the same place where they removed a cancerous tumor last year.

The socialist president, who hopes to extend his 13 years in power with another six-year term in the Oct. 7 elections, said the probability is high that the lesion is malignant and that he will likely need radiation therapy.