Freedom’s Safest Place | Venezuela (NRA Ad)

Liberal heartache: Socialists take a beating in Venezuela's election...

It's time for Maduro to declare a trumped up emergency.

Via The Telegraph:

Venezuela's opposition trounced the ruling Socialists on Sunday to win the legislature for the first time in 16 years and gain a long-sought platform to challenge President Nicolas Maduro's rule of the OPEC nation.

The opposition Democratic Unity coalition won 99 seats to the Socialists' 46 in the 167-national National Assembly, the election board said, with some districts still to be counted.

Fireworks were set off in celebration in pro-opposition districts of Caracas when the results were announced, while government supporters dismantled planned victory parties.

Venezuela bans George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Marco Rubio from entering the country. Obama is still welcome?

George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Marco Rubio are persona non grata in Venezuela now. Barack Obama and Joe Biden still seem to be welcome.

U.S. citizens who travel to Venezuela now will be required to obtain visas, Maduro said, and some current and former U.S. officials will be banned from entering the country. They include former President George W Bush, former Vice President Dick Cheney, former director of central intelligence George Tenet, and Senator Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican who is running for president.
“In the past several days, we’ve detected activity and captured several Americans involved in espionage, trying to capture people,” Maduro said. “To protect our country we’re going to introduce an obligatory visa system for any American who wants to come here. They’ll have to pay in dollars what Venezuelans have to pay to go to the U.S.”
Another U.S. politician banned by Maduro, Republican Representative Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida, responded in a Twitter message: “I’ve always wanted to travel to a corrupt country that is not a free democracy. And now Castro’s lap dog won’t let me!”

Tweet of the Day: This is what a supermarket in socialist Venezuela looks like

Striking images of #EmptyShelvesInVenezuela the 4th biggest oil producer in the world. #AnaquelesVaciosEnVenezuela https://t.co/axpDSitCZt”
— elena panizza (@brainbazaar) January 6, 2015

Amusing: Venezuela forced to import light crude oil.

Venezuela claims to have the largest oil reserves in the world.



Miami Herald:

It turns out that Venezuela’s own production of light crudes has plummeted since the late President Hugo Chávez took office in 1999, and the country desperately needs light crudes to blend with its Orinoco Basin extra heavy crude oils. Without such a blend, the Orinoco Basin’s extra heavy crude is too dense to be transported through pipelines to Venezuelan ports and exported abroad.

Venezuela’s oil production, which accounts for 95 percent of the country’s export earnings, should be used in world classrooms as a textbook case of what happens when a populist government starts distributing a country’s wealth in cash subsidies, without investing in maintenance and innovation. Much like happened with Cuba’s once flourishing sugar industry, Venezuela’s Chávez-inspired populism has destroyed the goose that laid the golden eggs.

Socialism fail: Heavily subsidized Venezuelan food often ends up in Columbia...

What happens when you heavily subsidize food and make it almost free? People buy it and sell it in a nearby country for a profit. So, Socialism is actually promoting Capitalism? 

Attention Venezuelan shoppers: Please proceed to the supermarket checkout for fingerprinting.
That could be a reality if a plan announced earlier this week by the country's president, Nicolas Maduro, goes into effect.
The purpose? Combating shortages caused by rampant smuggling of subsidized food in Venezuela across the border into neighboring Colombia. Maduro says the system would stop people from buying too much of a single item.
According to the BBC, up to 40 percent of subsidized goods from Venezuela are smuggled into Colombia.
"The amount of staples smuggled to Colombia would be enough to load the shelves of our supermarkets," Gen. Efrain Velasco Lugo, a military spokesman, told El Universal newspaper.

Video: Marco Rubio destroys Tom Harkin's fawning love of Cuban, Venezuelan communists

Excellent...

Update: The Socialist Paradise Of Venezuela Has Major Issues...

Liberals fail to recognize Socialism is a bad plan. They just think it isn't being implemented well. The latest country to poorly implement Socialism is Venezuela.

Via Daily Beast:

“I want to get out of here. I want to leave this country as soon as possible and never come back.”
The text from my friend Luis surprised me. A lawyer by training, he got his masters in urban planning from an elite Manhattan university, and had returned to Venezuela full of hope. He was hired by a local NGO working on poverty abatement issues. But now, he’s fed up.
“Nothing works. There are lines to buy everything. Prices have gone through the roof. You can’t go out at night for fear of getting shot. If you want to get married, finding a place to live is impossible. The country has become unlivable.”
Luis’s story is a depressingly common one on the streets of Venezuela’s major urban centers. The nation’s young people are tired of enduring one of the world’s highest inflation rates, highest murder rates, scarcity of basic staples like toilet paper, and the near certainty that things are going to get worse before they get better. A few days ago, the Associated Press reported on Venezuelans camping on the sidewalk to get information about emigrating to Ireland.
Keep on reading…

Venezuela’s Socialist President: “We will expropriate whatever needs to be expropriated,”

He should appropriate some toilet paper because Venezuelans still don't have any...

Via ElUniversal:

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro set Monday, February 12, as deadline for companies to abide by the Law on Costs and Fair Prices.
“We will expropriate whatever needs to be expropriated,” Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro cautioned in reference to the new Law of Costs and Fair Prices.
Concomitantly, the president urged private companies to comply with the new law. His statements came during the commemoration of the coup attempt of February 4, 1992.
The Venezuelan president threatened to take “the most radical measures to protect our people’s economy.”
“I make an appeal to the country economic sectors, for work and self-regulation of commodities and prices. You have time until next Monday; otherwise, I will take the most radical measures,” Maduro specified.
“I am determined to make an economic revolution. Nobody, nothing will stop me!” he said.

Socialism Fail: Lights go out in Venezuela again...

This the second major power outage in 4 months. You would think a country with as much oil as Venezuela could keep the electricity on. That isn't true. The government is so incompetent, you can't even buy toilet paper in Venezuela any more. This is what happens when your leader is a former community organizer bus driver. Of course, socialists never accept responsibility for their failures. The blame a Tea Party right-wing plan.

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuela's second massive power outage of the year plunged much of the nation into darkness on Monday night, prompting renewed talk of sabotage from President Nicolas Maduro's government and cries of incompetence from its foes.
Power went off in Caracas and other cities around the country soon after 8 p.m. local time (0030 GMT), to the intense annoyance of residents and commuters.
"I feel so frustrated, angry and impotent," said sales adviser Aneudys Acosta, 29, trudging through the rain along a street in the capital after having to leave the disrupted underground transport system.
"I live far away and here I am stuck under the rain. Something's going wrong that they're not sorting out. The government needs a Plan B. This is just not normal."
Monday's outage appeared similar to a massive September 5 blackout that was one of the worst in the South American OPEC member's history.

Maduro, a 50-year-old former bus driver[...]

"I have no doubt that today's electricity sabotage is part of the right-wing's plan," Cabello said on Twitter.

Venezuela’s socialist government starts arresting businessmen...

Barack Obama is most envious...

Nov 14 (Reuters) – Venezuela’s socialist government has arrested more than 100 “bourgeois” businessmen in a crackdown on alleged price-gouging at hundreds of shops and companies since the weekend, President Nicolas Maduro said on Thursday.
“They are barbaric, these capitalist parasites!” Maduro thundered in the latest of his lengthy daily speeches. “We have more than 100 of the bourgeoisie behind bars at the moment.”
The successor to the late Hugo Chavez also said his government was preparing a law to limit Venezuelan businesses’ profits to between 15 percent and 30 percent.
Officials say unscrupulous companies have been hiking prices of electronics and other goods more than 1,000 percent. Critics say failed socialist economic policies and restricted access to foreign currency are behind Venezuela’s runaway inflation.
“Goodyear has to lower its prices even more, 15 percent is not enough, the inspectors have go there straightaway,” Maduro said in his evening address, sending officials to check local operations of the U.S.-based tire manufacturer.

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.

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!”

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.

Flashback Video: Obama's failing promise to end Middle East and Venezuela oil imports within 10 years

It has been about for three and a half years since Obama first made this promise. He also said something similar in his 2011 State of the Union Address. Watch this 2008 campaign video.



Let's see how President Obama is doing.

Chart via EIA:

You can see oil imports were trending down in the last years of the Bush Administration and the first year of the Obama Administration, but they headed back up in 2010. Some of this may be related to the economy, but we have to consider Administration policies. Bush was drilling friendly. President Obama issued a ban on much new drilling. His strategy was to dump billions of our taxpayer dollars into green energy and electric cars. After the bankruptcy of Solyndra (and others) and poor Chevy Volt sales, this has proven to be a failed strategy so far. President Obama had an opportunity to recover by approving the Keystone Pipeline from Canada. This pipeline would have supplied up to 590,000 barrels per day of Canadian oil to the U.S. Instead of opting for Canadian oil, President Obama has opted to keep buying oil from his Arab buddies and despots like Hugo Chavez. Here is a great video explaining Obama's insanity on the Keystone Pipeline.

Massive protests against socialism in Venezuela

Here is a story the MSM is trying to ignore.

From NewsBusters:

Imagine if the Congress passed a law mandating that all school students in America be indoctrinated in socialism? Yeah, I know that is precisely the type of indoctrination that is already going on in many classrooms but the reaction to such a law actually spelling this out would cause demonstrations that would dwarf even those currently going on at the tea parties in opposition to ObamaCare. Well, this is precisely what is currently happening in Venezuela where the Hugo Chavez controlled National Assembly recently passed just such a law.

As a result, many previously apathetic Venezuelans are pouring into the streets to protest against this proposed indoctrination of their children. Now it's personal.

You can see the scope of these protests in this video. The commentary is in Spanish.

Obama is restoring relations with despots

President Obama has decided to restore diplomatic relations with the despotic leaders of Syria and Venezuela.
The AP reported:

President Barack Obama plans to return an ambassador to Syria, filling a post that has been vacant for four years and marking an acceleration of Washington's engagement with the Arab world, the White House said on Wednesday.

Presidential spokesman Robert Gibbs said Obama's decision was aimed at fulfilling his promise to show more U.S. engagement in the Arab world and not a response to any explicit policy change on Syria's part.

He cited a series of meetings between Syrian and U.S. officials since Obama took office.

"This strongly reflects the administration's recognition of the role Syria plays, and the hope of the role that the Syrian government can play constructively, to promote peace and stability in the region," Gibbs said.

Aljazeera reported:

The United States and Venezuela are to reinstate ambassadors to Caracas and Washington, setting aside a diplomatic spat that soured ties last year.

The two nations expelled each other's envoys last September in a dispute involving allegations by Bolivia, a close ally of Venezuela, that Washington was meddling in its internal affairs.

The normalisation of diplomatic ties "will take place in the coming days, and as soon as the ambassadors have resumed their functions we will move forward to a more fluid communication," Nicolas Maduro, the Venezuelan foreign minister, said on Wednesday.

Obama shakes Hugo Chavez's hand and laughs it up

President Obama has decided to ignore Hugo Chavez political oppression, support for FARC terrorists, antisemitism and past statements calling President Bush "the devil" and the U.S. imperial and racist. President Obama pledged to be equal partners with Latin American dictators; includng Chavez, Castro and Ortega. According to breitbart.com,

PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad (AP) - President Barack Obama extended a friendly hand to America's hemispheric neighbors on Saturday at a summit in the Caribbean where he offered a new beginning for U.S.-Cuba relations and sought out Venezuela's fiery, leftist president for a quick grip and grin.

"We have at times been disengaged, and at times we sought to dictate our terms," Obama said to loud applause. "But I pledge to you that we seek an equal partnership. There is no senior partner and junior partner in our relations."

In case anyone has forgotten. Chavez calls Bush 'the devil' in his speech at the UN G.A.


Chavez is big "buddies" with Iranian leader Ahmadinejad.