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	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; Hugo Chavez</title>
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		<title>The Chavez Revolution Is Over</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/the-chavez-revolution-is-over/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-chavez-revolution-is-over</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/the-chavez-revolution-is-over/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 17 Dec 2014 05:50:43 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Cuba]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hugo Chavez]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Nicolas Maduro]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Revolution]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Socialism]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=247440</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Venezuela is going down.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Part-MVD-Mvd6654303-1-1-01.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-247443" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Part-MVD-Mvd6654303-1-1-01-450x330.jpg" alt="Part-MVD-Mvd6654303-1-1-0" width="342" height="251" /></a>Officers chant “Chavez Lives” at their &#8220;Studies of the Thoughts of the Supreme Commander Hugo Chavez&#8221; classes. But Supreme Commander Chavez was killed by Cuban medicine and his regime and philosophy are on their last legs as the Venezuelan people have turned against his successor.</p>
<p>When Cuban medicine let Chavez die, it also raised a tombstone for the Castro regime. Chavez gave away 100,000 barrels a day to Castro keeping the Communist regime afloat. In return Cuban secret police, organizers and teachers helped keep the Supreme Commander in power. But Hugo Chavez is dead and his successor, Nicolas Maduro, is wildly unpopular. Venezuela has turned into Cuba with food shortages and soldiers in the street and no one wants to live like Cuba.</p>
<p>Not even the Cubans do.</p>
<p>The cult of Chavez portrays him as a holy figure to Venezuela’s poor and to its military officers who are the last firewall of a collapsing government which needs soldiers and street thugs to protect Maduro. But the revolution is collapsing faster than the next wave of officers can be indoctrinated with chants of “Chavez Lives”. This inevitable failure of Socialism is being unintentionally sped up by Saudi Arabia.</p>
<p>The Saudi campaign against American fracking has dumped cheap oil on the market hurting Russia, Iran and Venezuela; all of which rely heavily on energy exports.</p>
<p>Chavez had screamed against capitalism in fiery speeches while building his Socialist revolution around oil exports and financial credit. Now Maduro is stuck with a $5 billion bill and no way to pay it. The former bus driver and community organizer vowed that he would make oil $100 a barrel. Not only does he have no way of doing that outside his own miserable price controlled country, but oil is headed for $50 a barrel and Maduro is stuck denouncing credit rating companies for ranking Venezuela below African countries with Ebola. African countries with Ebola however have lower debt and a financial plan that doesn’t involve delivering a speech denouncing the CIA every hour on the hour.</p>
<p>Maduro and his Cuban handlers know that a debt default is coming. There are basic shortages all over the country of everything from milk to toilet paper. A debt default will make Venezuela’s deeply dysfunctional economy in which no one can buy a new car and people fly out of the country to get dollars to buy basic products on the black market even worse.</p>
<p>But Maduro can’t cut off Cuba’s oil without being overthrown. He can’t trim the ranks of the country’s massive bureaucracy because they represent his last remaining bastion of support. His attempts at central planning have failed miserably, but introducing free market reforms would be an admission that Chavez was wrong and that the revolution is over. All Maduro can do is fight the inevitable overthrow.</p>
<p>Indoctrinating the military is one way of doing it. Forced redistribution of flat screen televisions from electronics stores by the military is another. It’s no longer a matter of winning elections, even rigged ones, it’s about maintaining a radical base willing to fight to prevent the return of freedom.</p>
<p>Chavez won the loyalty of slum dwellers by giving them everything from government supermarkets to government clinics, but the supermarkets are low on food and the clinics are low on Cuban doctors. Maduro’s approval rating fell from a bare majority to barely a quarter of the population. Identification with the United Socialist Party of Venezuela has fallen to 16 percent of the population; a significant comedown from a party that recently claimed a quarter of the population as members.</p>
<p>Members of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela smell blood in the water and are fighting to throw Maduro into the water to salvage the cult of Chavez by using the former bus driver as the scapegoat. Those Marxist groups that didn’t join the USPV are readying their own street protests to exploit the opportunity. If both the populist right and left fully go out into the streets, Maduro won’t survive.</p>
<p>Maduro still commands the street thugs of the UBCh (Units of Battle Hugo Chavez) and the Chavista generals are doing their best to indoctrinate officers with the cult of Chavez, but just as in the last days of the USSR, everything will be determined by the willingness of the soldiers in the street to shoot.</p>
<p>The big question mark is how far will Castro go to protect his 100,000 barrels of oil a day? Normally the United States might have served as a check on Cuban intervention, but Obama is highly unlikely to interfere over anything short of total genocide. Opposition sources have estimated that there are thousands of Cuban troops in the country and unknown numbers of agents of influence. And with a Latin American map of governments dominated by Marxists linked to Cuba in Brazil, Chile, Nicaragua, Uruguay and a mini-Chavez in charge of Bolivia, there won’t be much local opposition.</p>
<p>And yet the current system is economically unsustainable.</p>
<p>Venezuela took over the job of subsidizing and organizing the Latin American left when the USSR ceased to exist and Cuba could no longer afford to play puppetmaster without funding from the Kremlin. Now it’s too deep in debt and its oil is worth too little, there are too many angry people in the streets and too little food in the stores. Under Cuban guidance, Maduro has tried to impose a radical system that even his own bosses in Havana have been slowly backing away from. The only way he can stay with it is by killing enough of his people and establishing a full dictatorship under the gun.</p>
<p>That’s what Cuba wants him to do, but the transition from a populist regime that promised to give everything to everyone using oil money to a dictatorship in which party members gorge themselves while the rest of the country goes hungry isn’t going well.</p>
<p>Chavez might have made it work, but Maduro’s populism is a weak echo of his old boss. Where Chavez seemed powerful, Maduro only seems paranoid. His attempts to pick a fight with America, his constant conspiracy theories and his claims of supernatural phenomena involving Chavez only make him seem unstable. Havana wanted a weak dim Venezuelan leader with few ideas of his own to carry out their agenda, but now many of the Chavistas want another Chavez. And they’ll have to fight the Cuban puppeteers who have been running their country into the ground to get him.</p>
<p>Meanwhile the street protests of the right will rise again and the street protests of the left will come. And whatever happens, Venezuela’s credit will be shot and its generous economic projections based on high oil prices will collapse leading to a major crisis.</p>
<p>Maduro’s reliance on the military to do everything from breaking up protests to handing out flat screen televisions has become a liability. Hugo Chavez came out of the military and attempted to organize a coup with fellow officers. The military is still the likeliest force to end up running the country once the chaos becomes too much for the Maduro regime and its rivals to manage.</p>
<p>Indoctrinating officers with the &#8220;Studies of the Thoughts of the Supreme Commander Hugo Chavez&#8221; is among other things a final gamble that the next military dictator will be a man of the left.</p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>.</b></p>
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		<title>A Latin American Leftist&#8217;s Second Thoughts</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/lloyd-billingsley/a-latin-american-leftists-second-thoughts/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=a-latin-american-leftists-second-thoughts</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 04 Jun 2014 04:40:09 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Lloyd Billingsley]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[economics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Eduardo Galeano]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hugo Chavez]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Latin America]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[manifesto]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[renounce]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[wrong]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=233265</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Eduardo Galeano disavows his leftist-beloved manifesto. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/6a00d8341c575d53ef0148c7f2992c970c.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-233266" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/6a00d8341c575d53ef0148c7f2992c970c.jpg" alt="6a00d8341c575d53ef0148c7f2992c970c" width="297" height="292" /></a>“This brilliant text has set a new standard for historical scholarship of Latin America,” reads the <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Open-Veins-Latin-America-Centuries/dp/184668742X"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Amazon description of Eduardo Galeano’s <i>The Open Veins of Latin America</i></span></a>, the book Venezuelan leftist Hugo Chavez presented to U.S. President Barack Obama in 2009. “It is also an outstanding political economy, a social and cultural narrative of the highest quality, and perhaps the finest description of primitive capital accumulation since Marx.”</p>
<p>Published in 1971, <i>The Open Veins of Latin America</i> was a bestseller and has become a keystone of the left-wing canon on American college campuses. Trouble is, the book’s 73-year-old Uruguayan author now considers the book’s rhetoric “extremely leaden” and concedes that back in the day he didn’t know much about economics or the way the world works.</p>
<p>“I know it took real courage — even gallantry — for Galeano to publicly correct himself,” wrote exiled Cuban journalist <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/article/379158/idiots-lose-their-religion-carlos-alberto-montaner"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Carlos Alberto Montaner in <i>National Review</i></span></a>. “It’s not easy to admit when you are wrong. And it is even more difficult when you are a hero to so many, as Galeano has been.”</p>
<p>In 1996 Montaner teamed with Peruvian author Alvaro Vargas Llosa and Colombian journalist Plinio Apuleyo Mendoza on <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Guide-Perfect-Latin-American-Idiot/dp/156833236X"><span style="color: #0433ff;"><i>Guide to the Perfect Latin American Idiot</i></span></a>. One chapter, “The Idiot’s Bible,” Montaner says,</p>
<blockquote><p>“was devoted to explaining what Galeano himself now confirms: that the author knew very little about economics, and what little he thought he knew was totally wrong.”</p></blockquote>
<p>The authors’ summary of Galeano’s book, “We’re poor; it’s their fault” even showed up in a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/24/books/eduardo-galeano-disavows-his-book-the-open-veins.html?_r=0"><span style="color: #0433ff;"><i>New York Times</i> piece by Larry Rohter headlined “Author Changes His Mind on ’70s Manifesto: Eduardo Galeano Disavows His Book ‘The Open Veins.’”</span></a> The article noted that <i>The Caviar Left</i> author Rodrigo Constantino had blamed Galeano’s analysis for many of Latin America’s ills and said the Uruguayan “<span style="color: #272727;">should feel really guilty for the damage he caused.”</span></p>
<p style="color: #272727;">But the caviar left thought otherwise.</p>
<p>Chilean novelist Isabel Allende, who authored a foreword for <i>Open Veins</i>, told Rohter that Galeano “may have changed, and I didn’t notice it, but I don’t think so.” Michael Yates, of the leftist Monthly Review Press, told the <i>Times</i> that “the book is an entity independent of the writer and anything he might think now.” So in the style of Hillary Clinton, “what difference does it make” if the author changed his mind about his central thesis? Several professors told the <i>Times</i> that they would take account of Galeano’s views but others discount his change of mind.</p>
<p>“Rather than disavowing the book entirely,” University of Pennsylvania graduate student <a href="http://tropicsofmeta.wordpress.com/2014/05/27/much-ado-about-nothing-the-times-non-story-about-eduardo-galeanos-non-apology/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Adam Goodman wrote</span></a>, “it would seem Galeano offered a critique of it and its young author, with the benefit of hindsight and forty-plus years of experience, both lived and learned.” However, discussion of the book’s limitations, <span style="color: #424242;">“whether based on content, style, or in the framing, is admirable and potentially productive for the Latin American left.”</span></p>
<p><span style="color: #000000;">Andy Baker, political scientist at the University of Colorado at Boulder and author of <i>The Market and the Masses in Latin America</i>, weighed in with a <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2014/06/02/latin-americans-are-embracing-globalization-and-their-former-colonial-masters/"><span style="color: #0433ff;"><i>Washington Post</i> blog</span></a>. Baker noted that “</span>Latin America is the region that spawned dependency theory, which was the neo-Marxist body of scholarly thought that informed Galeano’s critique of international trade.” But despite Galeano, data shows that many Latin Americans are favorable toward international trade, multinational corporations, and the United States. “The most pro-American countries,” says Baker, “are those most victimized by U.S. military forays,” the Dominican Republic and El Salvador, for example.</p>
<p>When it comes to their economic ills, Baker explains, Latin Americans do not blame Spain, the IMF, Warren Buffett “or even the U.S. military, as Galeano did in his previous life.” Instead “voters in Latin America exact retribution against governments that oversee sluggish economies, and the ham-fisted attempts by Chávez’s successor, Nicolás Maduro, to continue blaming Venezuela’s downward spiral on the United States are increasingly falling on deaf ears.” So for the University of Colorado political scientist, “Galeano’s decision to recant his old work in the face of a new reality and new evidence on globalization was intellectually brave and admirable. As it turns out, Latin American citizens were way ahead of him.”</p>
<p><span style="color: #212121;">So were authors such as Carlos Alberto Montaner and Alvaro Vargas Llosa, author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Liberty-Latin-America-Hundred-Oppression/dp/0374185743"><span style="color: #0433ff;"><i>Liberty for Latin America: How to Undo Five Hundred Years of State Oppression</i></span></a></span>. So was Hernando De Soto, author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Other-Path-Hernando-Soto/dp/0465016103"><span style="color: #0433ff;"><i>The Other Path: The Economic Answer to Terrorism</i></span></a>. American professors willing to reconsider Galeano’s <i>Open Veins</i> should open their courses to works like this.</p>
<p>President Obama has not responded to Eduardo Galeano’s critique of the book Hugo Chavez gave him in 2009. Like Galeano, Obama shows little knowledge of economic classics such as F.A. Hayek’s <i>The Road to Serfdom</i>.  Obama already believed that the United States was essentially a colonial looter but unlike Galeano the president shows the inability to change his mind based on facts and history.</p>
<p>To publicly correct oneself, as Carlos Alberto Montaner noted, takes “real courage – even gallantry.” The President of the United States just doesn’t have it.</p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
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		<title>Author of Bible of the Latin American Anti-American Left Disavows Own Book</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/author-of-bible-of-the-latin-american-anti-american-left-disavows-own-book/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=author-of-bible-of-the-latin-american-anti-american-left-disavows-own-book</link>
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		<pubDate>Sun, 25 May 2014 02:41:05 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hugo Chavez]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=226202</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Mr. Galeano acknowledged that the left sometimes “commits grave errors” ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/original-1.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-226203" alt="original (1)" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/original-1.jpg" width="371" height="288" /></a></p>
<p>The left is reacting with <a href="http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/05/24/books/eduardo-galeano-disavows-his-book-the-open-veins.html?smid=fb-share&amp;_r=0&amp;referrer">predictable grace and decency</a> to Eduardo Galeano’s willingness to question his own work.</p>
<blockquote><p>For more than 40 years, Eduardo Galeano’s “The Open Veins of Latin America” has been the canonical anti-colonialist, anti-capitalist and anti-American text in that region. Hugo Chávez, Venezuela’s populist president, even put a copy of the book, which he had called “a monument in our Latin American history,” in President Obama’s hands the first time they met. But now Mr. Galeano, a 73-year-old Uruguayan writer, has disavowed the book, saying that he was not qualified to tackle the subject and that it was badly written.</p>
<p>“The Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent” was written at the dawn of the 1970s, a decade when much of Latin America was governed by repressive right-wing military dictatorships supported by the United States. In this 300-page cri de coeur, Mr. Galeano argued that the riches that first attracted European colonizers, like gold and sugar, gave rise to a system of exploitation that led inexorably to “the contemporary structure of plunder” that he held responsible for Latin America’s chronic poverty and underdevelopment.</p></blockquote>
<p>So how is the left taking it?</p>
<blockquote><p>Michael Yates, the editorial director of Monthly Review Press, Mr. Galeano’s American publisher, dismissed the entire discussion. “Please! The book is an entity independent of the writer and anything he might think now.”</p></blockquote>
<p>Forget the fact that the book is an expression of the author&#8217;s views about the world. Let&#8217;s pretend that its views can exist entirely apart from those of its author.</p>
<blockquote><p>Mr. Yates said Mr. Galeano might simply be following in the tracks of the novelist John Dos Passos, a radical as a young man “who became a conservative when he got older.” On Spanish- and Portuguese-language websites, others have suggested that Mr. Galeano, who in recent years has had both a heart attack and cancer, might simply be off his game intellectually.</p></blockquote>
<p>That&#8217;s certainly classy. Galeano admits that he wasn&#8217;t qualified to write the book, so the response is to claim that he&#8217;s too old to be qualified to admit that.</p>
<p>Or as Le Razon put it, &#8220;It is unfortunate that senescence leads people to deny their own actions, and stop them thinking about the consequences of our thoughts and anticolonial practices.&#8221;</p>
<blockquote><p>In his remarks in Brazil, Mr. Galeano acknowledged that the left sometimes “commits grave errors” when it is in power.</p></blockquote>
<p>Heresy! The anti-colonial Bolivarian revolution never makes mistakes.</p>
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		<title>New York Times Gives Space to Venezuelan Tyrant Rationing Food, Beating Protesters to Promote Himself</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/new-york-times-gives-space-to-venezuelan-tyrant-rationing-food-beating-protesters-to-promote-himself/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=new-york-times-gives-space-to-venezuelan-tyrant-rationing-food-beating-protesters-to-promote-himself</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 03 Apr 2014 17:32:21 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hugo Chavez]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[New York Times]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Nicolas Maduro]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Venezuela]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=222634</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Amnesty International has received dozens of accounts of torture]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Genesis-Carmona-3164631.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-222635" alt="Genesis-Carmona-3164631" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Genesis-Carmona-3164631-450x299.jpg" width="450" height="299" /></a></p>
<p>Can the Kim Jong-Un editorial praising himself for revolutionizing the North Korean tourism industry be far behind?</p>
<p>Venezuela, a country currently rationing food, many of whose stores are under military occupation, is not doing well under its insane leader Nicolas Maduro.</p>
<p>Maduro constantly accuses everyone, including the United States, of conspiring against him. He claimed that former dictator Hugo Chavez appeared to him in the form of a small bird. And then later on the wall of a subway. He threatened those who wouldn&#8217;t vote for him with an ancient curse. And he sent in soldiers to forcibly discount electronics.</p>
<p>So the <a href="http://freebeacon.com/national-security/nicolas-maduro-fact-check/">New York Times thought it would be a good idea to provide </a>space to some PR flack for him to claim that he reduced poverty.</p>
<blockquote><p>Maduro wrote in the Times that “now is a time for dialogue and diplomacy” in Venezuela and called for mediated talks to end two months of protests against his administration.</p></blockquote>
<p>Yes, it&#8217;s the perfect time. <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-04-01/amnesty-reports-dozens-of-venezuela-torture-accounts.html">Even Amnesty International agrees</a>.</p>
<blockquote><p>Amnesty International has received dozens of accounts of torture allegedly carried out by government security forces in Venezuela since protests that have left at least 37 dead broke out in February.</p>
<p>The Human Rights Center at the Andres Bello Catholic University in Caracas is aware of 30 cases of torture or bad treatment in Venezuela since protests started&#8230;</p>
<p>“There are two cases that involved electric shocks, two cases that involved pepper gas and another two cases where they were doused with gasoline,” she said.</p></blockquote>
<p>This is how far into the gutter the New York Times has crawled&#8230;</p>
<blockquote><p>Maduro cited United Nations and World Bank data to argue that his government, as well his predecessor Hugo Chavez, had reduced income inequality and poverty in Venezuela.</p>
<p>While both of those measures have decreased since Chavez was first elected president in 1998, Maduro did not mention that Chavez himself acquired great personal wealth during his 14-year rule.</p>
<p>Chavez’s family now reportedly owns 17 country estates totaling more than 100,000 acres in the western state of Barinas, as well as assets of $550 million stored in various international bank accounts. Residents in the same region wait as long as three hours for basic provisions at grocery stores.</p>
<p>National Assembly Speaker Diosdado Cabello, a close confidant of Chavez and member of Maduro’s United Socialist Party, has allegedly amassed “a private fortune” through corruption and ties to regional drug traffickers. The Miami Herald reported accusations last week that Cabello received at least $50 million in bribes to overlook lucrative public contracts that were overpriced, according to a recent lawsuit.</p>
<p>About 90 percent of the country’s public hospitals lack vital supplies due to government-imposed dollar shortages and price caps. The government was forced to suspend organ donations, transplants, and non-emergency surgeries.</p></blockquote>
<p>And <a href="http://freebeacon.com/national-security/catholic-church-accuses-nicolas-maduro-of-brutally-repressing-protesters/">here&#8217;s a message from the Venezuelan church</a> that you won&#8217;t find in the New York Times which prefers to print the press releases of tyrants.</p>
<blockquote><p>Monsignor Diego Padron, leader of Venezuela’s conference of bishops, said Maduro was further implementing “the fatherland plan” of former longtime strongman Hugo Chavez:</p>
<p>“Within it they are hiding the promotion of a totalitarian-style system of government, putting in doubt its democratic credentials,” he said, reading a church communiqué.</p></blockquote>
<p>Another thing Obama has in common with Chavez.</p>
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		<title>Only 7,000 Jews Still Left in Socialist Venezuela</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/only-7000-jews-still-left-in-socialist-venezuela/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=only-7000-jews-still-left-in-socialist-venezuela</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 25 Mar 2014 13:29:45 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hugo Chavez]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[left-wing anti-semitism]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=221808</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[It's not just Venezuelan Jews who are leaving.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/download.jpg"><img class="alignnone  wp-image-221811" alt="download" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/download.jpg" width="348" height="231" /></a></p>
<p>Bill de Blasio&#8217;s <a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/bill-de-blasio-and-the-jews/">Sandinistas wiped out the Jewish community </a>of Nicaragua and it looks like Chavez <a href="http://israelmatzav.blogspot.com/2014/03/venezuelas-jews-adopting-plan-b.html">will have ended up achieving the same</a> result in Venezuela.</p>
<p>Chavez <a href="http://www.commentarymagazine.com/article/hugo-chavezs-jewish-problem/">engaged in anti-Semitic antics,</a> h<a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/venezuelan-jews-recall-hugo-chavezs-anti-semitic-climate-of-hate/">is thugs raided </a>and <a href="http://www.eluniversal.com/2009/02/09/en_pol_esp_police-woman-led-att_09A2219723">vandalized synagogues</a>,</p>
<blockquote><p>As parents and school buses delivered children to Colegio Hebraica, a Jewish grade school in Caracas, 25 secret police commandos in combat gear and face masks burst into the main building. Scores of preschoolers were locked in the school as panicked parents tried to retrieve them. The children were eventually freed, but the raid went on.</p></blockquote>
<p>The sustained harassment complete with the collapse of the country have borne fruit.</p>
<blockquote><p>Over the last 15 years, from the time Chavez came to power and in the year since Nicolas Maduro has ruled the country, the Venezuelan Jewish community has shrunk by more than half. It is now estimated at about 7,000, down from a high of 25,000 in the 1990s. Many of those who left were community leaders.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s not just Venezuelan Jews who are leaving. Hundreds of thousands of middle- and upper-class Venezuelans have relocated in recent years, swelling the size of expat communities in places like Miami, Panama, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic and Colombia.</p>
<p>They left after Venezuelan secret police raided a Jewish club in 2007, and after the local synagogue was ransacked by unidentified thugs two years later.</p>
<p>They left after President Hugo Chavez expelled Israel&#8217;s ambassador to Caracas, and when he called on Venezuela&#8217;s Jews to condemn Israel for its actions in Gaza in 2009.</p>
<p>They left when Caracas claimed the ignoble title of most dangerous city in the world, and when inflation hit double digits, food shortages took hold and the country&#8217;s murder rate reached 79 per 100,000 people.</p>
<p>Interested in keeping as low a profile as possible, leaders of Jewish institutions in Venezuela declined to be interviewed by JTA for this story.</p>
<p>Sandra Iglicki, who left Venezuela for South Florida a decade ago but still goes back often, says it&#8217;s also been emotionally difficult to leave a country that for decades was good to Jews, serving as an anti-Semitism-free refuge for European Jewish families who fled the Nazis.</p>
<p>In Miami, the last few weeks have been particularly fraught for Venezuelan expats, filled with anxious phone calls to relatives back home and endless agitation on social media.</p>
<p>With state media in Venezuela blacking out news of the massive demonstrations, the expats have occupied the peculiar position of funneling news to relatives back home in Caracas about what&#8217;s happening in Venezuela, often via Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Offline, there have been large demonstrations in Miami against the Maduro government, which is blamed for Venezuela&#8217;s tailspin.</p></blockquote>
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		<title>Socialist Dictatorship in Venezuela Blocks Twitter to Fight Protests</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/socialist-dictatorship-in-venezuela-blocks-twitter-to-fight-protests/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=socialist-dictatorship-in-venezuela-blocks-twitter-to-fight-protests</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/socialist-dictatorship-in-venezuela-blocks-twitter-to-fight-protests/#respond</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 16 Feb 2014 02:09:18 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hugo Chavez]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[President Nicolas Maduro]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Twitter]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[venezuala]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=218928</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[This is why government regulation of the internet is so dangerous.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/country5.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-218929" alt="country5" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/country5-248x350.jpg" width="248" height="350" /></a></p>
<p>Considering how much Chavez/Maduro intimidated or co-opted the media, the<a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/02/14/twitter-image-blocking-venezuela/5497219/"> next step is to fight student flash protests</a>. The plan didn&#8217;t work too well in Egypt and trying to selectively block Twitter images seems like a doomed strategy.</p>
<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/sean2-400x278.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-218930" alt="sean2-400x278" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/sean2-400x278.jpg" width="400" height="278" /></a></p>
<p>Venezuela, like Turkey, is trying to target the internet because its protest energies are coming from students and younger people who are major social media users. (<a href="http://babalublog.com/2014/02/15/where-have-all-the-flower-children-gone-regarding-venezuela-crickets/">photos from Babalu Blog</a>)</p>
<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/sean4.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-218931" alt="DIEZ DETENIDOS, 3 DE ELLOS MENORES, EN ESCARAMUZAS ENTRE ESTUDIANTES Y POLICÍA" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/sean4-450x312.jpg" width="450" height="312" /></a></p>
<blockquote><p>Twitter said Friday that Venezuela had blocked images on its service following an anti-government protest that turned bloody, and it offered a workaround for users who want to get tweets via text message on their cellphones.</p>
<p>Hacktivists, meanwhile, defaced and knocked various government websites offline, organizing and choreographing online denial-of-service attacks that flood sites with traffic, making them temporarily unreachable.</p>
<p>Twitter spokesman Nu Wexler said Friday via email in response to an Associated Press query that &#8220;Twitter images are currently blocked in Venezuela.&#8221; He included the text of a tweet the company sent explaining the workaround, but did not respond to follow-up questions.</p>
<p>Users told the AP that it appeared the blockage had ended by Friday morning. They said it was most intense Thursday, the day after two students were killed by gunfire that appeared to come from government supporters.</p>
<p>Venezuela&#8217;s main telecommunications company, CANTV, is government-run and handles the overwhelming majority of Internet traffic. Video and still images that circulated via Twitter after the killings purported to show police and pro-government activists shooting at protesters. The images&#8217; authenticity could not be confirmed.</p>
<p>Media coverage of the protests was limited inside Venezuela, where the socialist government dominates the airwaves. Even international media faced harassment as police smashed and confiscated cameras.</p>
<p>Venezuela&#8217;s government also suspended broadcasting inside the country on Wednesday night of the regional news channel NTN24, claiming it was trying to incite citizens to overthrow the government.</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/sean6.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-218932" alt="sean6" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/sean6-450x253.jpg" width="450" height="253" /></a></p>
<p>This is why FCC overreach and government regulation of the internet can be so dangerous. It takes one foot in the door and then another and then there&#8217;s the emergency power to prevent violence by censoring &#8220;extremist&#8221; content.</p>
<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/country6.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-218934" alt="country6" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/country6-450x300.jpg" width="450" height="300" /></a></p>
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		<title>Oliver Stone to Make Movie About Socialist Dictator Who Returns from the Dead in Bird Form</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/oliver-stone-to-make-movie-about-socialist-dictator-who-returns-from-the-dead-in-bird-form/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=oliver-stone-to-make-movie-about-socialist-dictator-who-returns-from-the-dead-in-bird-form</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/oliver-stone-to-make-movie-about-socialist-dictator-who-returns-from-the-dead-in-bird-form/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 25 Dec 2013 16:22:44 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hugo Chavez]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Nicolas Maduro]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Oliver Stone]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Venezuela]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=213864</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Oliver Stone combines his two favorite hobbies; Communism and cocaine.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/meme-del-pajarito-de-nicolas-maduro-4.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-205832" alt="meme-del-pajarito-de-nicolas-maduro-4" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/meme-del-pajarito-de-nicolas-maduro-4-450x287.jpg" width="450" height="287" /></a></p>
<p>At <a href="http://weaselzippers.us/?p=165461">least that&#8217;s the movie he would make if current</a> Venezuelan tyrant Nicolas Maduro has anything to say about it. And it&#8217;s the movie that Hugo Chavez deserves.</p>
<p>A movie that depicts Chavez&#8217;s return in bird form to Maduro, as described by Maduro, using top quality special effects. Also scenes of Chavez appearing on a subway wall and in a pile of cocaine being snorted by Maduro.</p>
<p>A movie that shows the ghost of Chavez launching the ancient Indian curse that Maduro warned would befall those who don&#8217;t vote for him. And the climax would pan up from Maduro sleeping in Chavez&#8217;s mausoleum while Chavez voters gleefully loot TV sets from electronics stores.</p>
<p>Instead Oliver Stone will probably just paste together some interviews with Hugo Chavez, scenes of him trying to make his own cars and cellphones, with attacks on George W. Bush and nobody will watch it except the same 15 aging hippies who go to all his movies and then leave muttering that he sold out to the banks because he won&#8217;t make a movie celebrating Stalin.</p>
<blockquote><p>“Oliver Stone is preparing a very lovely film about our commander-in-chief Hugo Chávez,” Maduro announced last week in an official state event following the director’s visit to the troubled state.</p>
<p>Venezuelan state TV described the visit as friendly and Stone as an award-winning director with “good relations with Venezuela,” publishing a slideshow and video of the meeting between the director and world leader.</p></blockquote>
<p>Maduro really is insane if he thinks he&#8217;s a world leader. But at least Oliver Stone is the one major country that Maduro&#8217;s insane antics have yet to alienate.</p>
<blockquote><p>Major Venezuelan newspaper El Nacional reports that the nation’s Minister of Communications and Information Delcy Rodríguez confirmed the upcoming film on her Twitter account, and that the government is excited about the project because of Stone’s previously “very affable” depiction of Chávez in the documentary South of the Border</p></blockquote>
<p>Sure. It let Oliver Stone combine his two favorite hobbies; Communism and cocaine.</p>
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		<title>Venezuela&#8217;s Insane Dictator Reinvents Self as Communist Santa Claus</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/venezuelas-insane-dictator-reinvents-self-as-communist-santa-claus/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=venezuelas-insane-dictator-reinvents-self-as-communist-santa-claus</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/venezuelas-insane-dictator-reinvents-self-as-communist-santa-claus/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 06 Dec 2013 21:32:26 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[definition of socialism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hugo Chavez]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[President Nicolas Maduro]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Venezuela]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=212587</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[ He's seizing goods and dictating a price.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/NicolasMaduroSantaClaus.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-212588" alt="NicolasMaduroSantaClaus" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/NicolasMaduroSantaClaus-450x299.jpg" width="450" height="299" /></a></p>
<p>It&#8217;s almost reasonable. Santa Claus is famous for giving free stuff. Maduro is famous for wrecking the country while promising free stuff. And the left-wing dictator&#8217;s supernatural credentials are bolstered by visions of Hugo Chavez appearing to him in bird form and forcibly cutting electronics prices by taking over stores.</p>
<p>The problem is that you can only give away free stuff once. Then it goes off the market. That&#8217;s why used cars in Venezuela cost more than the new cars that aren&#8217;t available at government prices.</p>
<p>But<a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2013/12/05/Venezuelan-President-Releases-Anti-Capitalist-Christmas-Carol-Praising-Himself"> that isn&#8217;t stopping Maduro from </a>promoting his Socialist spirit.</p>
<p><iframe width="540" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/7NxhM1WUijU?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
<blockquote><p>Having nationalized a large number of domestic and international businesses, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has moved on to nationalizing Christmas. The socialist government of Venezuela released an official Youtube Christmas carol this week urging businesses to lower the prices of goods and celebrating Maduro.</p>
<p>The carol, clumsily titled &#8220;Knock Knock&#8211; Who Is It? People Of Peace, Lower Those Prices, Nicolás Is Here,&#8221; is designed to excite people about President Maduro&#8217;s new decree powers and his crusade to lower the prices of goods to bankrupt the middle class after calling for state-sponsored looting of stores. The title is meant to play on the President&#8217;s name&#8211;giving something like the effect of &#8220;Saint Nick is here!&#8221; without actually calling him Venezuela&#8217;s new Santa Claus&#8211;and it delivers on the heavy-handed, North Korea style government propaganda.</p>
<p>&#8220;Justice for the people/who have always governed,&#8221; sing the chorus, praising Maduro&#8217;s &#8220;success&#8221; at lowering the prices of goods (most notably this week, cars).</p></blockquote>
<p>Maduro isn&#8217;t lowering prices of course. He&#8217;s seizing goods and dictating a price. At which point those goods become impossible to buy resulting in shortages for everything from cars to toilet paper.</p>
<p>That&#8217;s the problem with Communist Santa. The only thing he really delivers is poverty.</p>
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		<title>Socialist President of Venezuela Guarantees Everyone a Plasma Television</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/socialist-president-of-venezuela-guarantees-everyone-a-plasma-television/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=socialist-president-of-venezuela-guarantees-everyone-a-plasma-television</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/socialist-president-of-venezuela-guarantees-everyone-a-plasma-television/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 15 Nov 2013 18:57:59 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hugo Chavez]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[President Nicolas Maduro]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Socialism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Venezuela]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=210817</guid>
		<description><![CDATA["We must ensure that all Venezuelans have a plasma TV ," the President said.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/2013-11-09T212912Z_2_CBRE9A81BQB00_RTROPTP_2_CNEWS-US-VENEZUELA-ECONOMY1.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-210818" alt="2013-11-09T212912Z_2_CBRE9A81BQB00_RTROPTP_2_CNEWS-US-VENEZUELA-ECONOMY" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/2013-11-09T212912Z_2_CBRE9A81BQB00_RTROPTP_2_CNEWS-US-VENEZUELA-ECONOMY1.jpg" width="450" height="300" /></a></p>
<p>President Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela is out of touch with reality even by Socialist standards. Not only would his economic plans make even Paul Krugman wince, but he claims to be receiving messages from dead Venezuelan Socialist overlord Hugo Chavez in the form of a small bird <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/insane-socialist-president-of-venezuela-claims-hugo-chavez-face-appeared-on-subway-wall/">and a stain on a subway wall</a>.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s hard to know whether Maduro, who had taken to sleeping in Chavez&#8217;s mausoleum, i<a href="http://www.iprofesional.com/notas/174532-Maduro-Vamos-a-garantizar-que-el-pueblo-tenga-televisores-de-plasma">s in more desperate need of an economist or a psychiatrist</a>.</p>
<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/BZF523cCMAA-9RA.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-210819" alt="BZF523cCMAA-9RA" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/BZF523cCMAA-9RA-450x338.jpg" width="450" height="338" /></a></p>
<p>After sending the army to occupy and loot electronics stores, he&#8217;s <a href="http://twitchy.com/2013/11/15/hugo-chavezs-successor-promises-a-plasma-television-for-everyone-in-venezuela/?utm_source=autotweet&amp;utm_medium=twitter&amp;utm_campaign=twitter">forcing them to sell plasma televisions at the price </a>that he thinks is fair. This is a problem because of runaway inflation and wacky economic policies.</p>
<blockquote><p>Boleíta, a neighborhood of warehouses, workshops and unattractive buildings in eastern Caracas since last Friday has became ground zero for the &#8220;economic war&#8221;, says Venezuela&#8217;s Nicolas Maduro .</p>
<p>The evening of that day, he gave the green light to start an operation  to lower inflation. The first objective of this &#8221; economic offensive &#8221; was Daka , a chain of appliance stores with five locations across the country, one in Boleíta . Its goods were confiscated and immediately put on sale with discounts of 50 % to 70 % from its original price of sale.</p>
<p>The following Monday the maneuver was repeated in all home appliance stores at the edge of the main avenue of Boleíta.</p>
<p>After the occupation of one of these establishments, Army Gen. Herbert Garcia Plaza, head of the newly created Superior Body for Popular Economics, delivered a speech of victory that was televised . In it, he remembered that he too had been a poor boy who got frustrated without a television.</p>
<p>These experiences inspired him , he said, to support the measures of &#8220;inspection&#8221; of businesses ordered by Maduro. &#8221; We must ensure that all Venezuelans have a plasma TV ,&#8221; said the president.</p>
<p>When the Venezuelan president ordered the live auction of Daka inventories and other stores, the first reaction came from frenzied shoppers by the hundreds who gathered that night in front of the stores.</p>
<p>In locations inside and Upata , Los Teques, Puerto La Cruz and Ciudad Ojeda , there were serious public disorders.</p>
<p>The leaders of the crowd blackmailed shopkeepers so that anyone could enter to sack. Others drew up shopping lists and numbers written on their skin indicating the order of arrival.</p>
<p>General García Plaza harangued, &#8220;Nobody criticizes camping for days in capitalist countries to purchase high-tech equipment,&#8221; referring to the Apple fans vigil for the last iPhone launch .</p>
<p>Fifteen years of expropriations , unfinished industrial projects and, above all , of distortions favorable to corruption and speculation, caused by a control system of foreign exchange managed by the State , emasculated the productive apparatus of Venezuela.</p>
<p>The country imports more than half of what it consumes . The revolutionary government continues to print local currency but increasingly falls short of hard currency to pay for imports.</p>
<p>The forced discount shopping and seizure was made without search warrants . Although the sale of appliances not subject to the local law of consumer protection, Maduro proceeded to the confiscation and auction for the greater good.</p>
<p>Every night of the week; Maduro launched on radio and TV accusations against the merchants : &#8220;Parasites&#8221; , &#8220;viruses&#8221; , &#8220;bloodsuckers&#8221; and  &#8220;termites of evil.&#8221;</p>
<p>On national television , the president also told of how he sent police officers to arrest another store manager. The store owner is now ruined or imprisoned , he takes refuge in hiding or exile , raising serious questions about how appliance stores will replenish their inventory.</p></blockquote>
<p>They won&#8217;t, of course. Certainly not LGs. That just means the home appliance market will collaps<a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/price-controls-make-venezuela-the-only-country-in-the-world-where-used-cars-cost-more-than-new/">e into &#8220;used&#8221; sales the way that Venezuela&#8217;s automobile industry did</a>, turning Venezuelan used cars into hot commodities. Shortages will follow<a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/venezuela-nationalizes-toilet-paper-factory-to-cope-with-toilet-paper-shortage/">, just like with toilet paper, a</a>nd Maduro will nationalize more stuff and try to build local industries, like he did with an attempt at constructing a local car using Iranian technology.</p>
<p>But Maduro is priming his base of stupid government class thieves for elections&#8230; like Obama did. We&#8217;re talking about people who don&#8217;t understand that if you do this, there will be no more TV&#8217;s. They just know that they want free stuff now and the &#8220;rich people&#8221; are keeping it away from them.</p>
<p>Maduro, like Obama, is trashing the economy to further take over everything, destroy the Middle Class and build another defunct Socialist state with 1,000 government employees to one worker.</p>
<p>Maduro can&#8217;t guarantee a Plasma TV for all. No matter how many stores he takes over. Just like Obama can&#8217;t guarantee health care for all.</p>
<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Obama-Chavez-809_0.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-210820" alt="TRINIDAD-AMERICAS-SUMMIT-CHAVEZ-OBAMA" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Obama-Chavez-809_0.jpg" width="450" height="342" /></a></p>
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		<title>Hugo Chavez Successor: Loot the Stores!</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/david-paulin/hugo-chavez-successors-economic-war-on-retailers/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=hugo-chavez-successors-economic-war-on-retailers</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/david-paulin/hugo-chavez-successors-economic-war-on-retailers/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 14 Nov 2013 04:05:21 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[David Paulin]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Economy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hugo Chavez]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[price controls]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[retailers]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Socialism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Venezuela]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=210592</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Venezuela takes bread-and-circuses socialism to new heights.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Maduro.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-210593" alt="Maduro" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Maduro-450x280.jpg" width="315" height="196" /></a>Hugo Chávez must be rolling over in his grave &#8212; convulsed with laughter. Bread-and-circuses socialism has hit new heights in Venezuela as Chávez&#8217;s hand-picked successor Nicolás Maduro ordered the <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/venezuela-toughen-price-controls-set-profits-20848739">military occupation </a>of electronic chain stores – and forced them to offer &#8220;fair prices.” Prices had been rising, but not anymore.</p>
<p>Under President Chávez, bread-and-circuses populism also was the rage: nationwide stores were set up to sell food at below-market prices – an effort that, ironically, led to food shortages. Now, Maduro is taking Venezuela&#8217;s entitlement culture a step further &#8212; putting government-set prices on things like plasma television sets, refrigerators, and washing machines.</p>
<p>Venezuelans are overjoyed.</p>
<p>Since Saturday, thousands have been mobbing electronic stores to get a bargain. Prices are so low that even anti-government opponents have joined the mob that&#8217;s enjoying the temporary fruits of Chávez so-called &#8220;21st Century socialism.&#8221; A number of store managers and owners have been arrested, accused by Maduro of illegal price gouging, speculating, and unfair lending. &#8220;We&#8217;re doing this for the good of the nation,&#8221; <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/09/miami-herald-jim-wyss-venezuela-detained">said Maduro</a>. “Let nothing remain in stock …We&#8217;re going to comb the whole nation in the next few days. This robbery of the people has to stop.&#8221;</p>
<p>Critics called it &#8220;state sponsored looting.&#8221; Store shelves were cleaned out. But Maduro, who faces make-or-break municipal elections in a month amid a deteriorating economy, vented his fury at Venezuela&#8217;s allegedly unscrupulous retailers – the &#8220;parasitic bourgeoisie” as he called them, and lumped them together with Yankee imperialists and his political opposition.</p>
<p>It was right out of Chavez playbook, but taken to new heights – or lows. Bread-and-circuses populism, to be sure, has existed in Venezuela long before Hugo Chavez, along with ample amounts of authoritarianism, statism, and corruption.</p>
<p>The chaos among bargain hunters – caught on the YouTube clip below &#8212; continued through Monday; and so the government sent out thousands of members of its security forces and civilian militia to ensure crowd control at electronics shops – those not already cleaned out or, in some cases, looted by shoppers who didn&#8217;t want to pay even the government&#8217;s dirt-cheap prices. Next on Maduro&#8217;s hit list are clothing stores and automobile dealerships.</p>
<p><iframe width="610" height="343" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/3D4Zktt_dCE?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
<p>Venezuela is an oil-rich yet impoverished country. But it wasn&#8217;t always poor. During the 1970s, it was dubbed “Saudi Venezuela” as oil prices soared and petro-dollars trickled down to most everybody. Those days are long gone &#8211; yet many Venezuelans persist in their belief that oil wealth ought to make them rich; and so they&#8217;re quick to accept Maduro&#8217;s conspiracy theories about why consumer goods are unaffordable. To them, dirt-cheap electronics and appliances are part of their birthright by virtue of their oil wealth.</p>
<p>Venezuela&#8217;s rising prices and food shortages reflect the economic realities of Venezuela’s command-and-control economy – a 54 percent inflation rate and shortages of dollars caused by draconian currency exchange controls.</p>
<p>Dollars, of course, are needed to import goods, but they&#8217;re hard to come by. On the currency <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/americas/venezuela/131110/venezuelas-military-siezes-electronics-chain-slashes">black market</a>, a greenback sells for nearly 10 times the official rate. Mismanagement and currency controls are blamed for the shortages of basic goods, including toilet paper and cooking oil.</p>
<p>Venezuela&#8217;s slide into mob rule has been brewing for years. Earlier into President Chávez&#8217;s first term, 14 years ago, he had suggested that people who rob could be excused; they were only hungry and poor, after all. And then there were a number of instances of <a href="http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/1999/1999-April/006778.html">squatters</a> occupying empty apartment buildings, with tacit government approval. The concept of private property, the cornerstone of a vibrant economy, was whittled way little by little – from squatters taking over apartment complexes to Chávez&#8217;s nationalizations of large swaths of the economy, after declaring himself a socialist.</p>
<p>With Venezuela&#8217;s economy in a tail spin, the government has become increasingly paranoid, as underscored by the recent detention of Miami Herald Jim Wyss whom the National Guard and military intelligence held for three days. His crime: asking questions about chronic food shortages and upcoming municipal elections. He was released on Saturday as Venezuela drifted into mob rule.</p>
<p>What&#8217;s next for Venezuela? Cuba at one point had an answer on how to rev up its cash-strapped economy: <a href="http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/cuba/drugs.htm">drug trafficking</a>. Those days appear <a href="http://bigcarnival.blogspot.com/2010_12_01_archive.html">to be over </a>thanks to the Reagan administration&#8217;s vigilance; but drug trafficking has also been a source of revenue for Venezuela, enriching Venezuelan narco-generals, high-ranking officials, and in particular Lebanese-born businessman<a href="http://www.insightcrime.org/personalities-venezuela/walid-makled"> Walid Makled</a>, who ultimately had a falling out with the Chávez administration and is now in a Venezuelan prison.</p>
<p>Venezuela&#8217;s government has never demonstrated a great interest in stopping drug trafficking within its border; and so the recent destruction of 13 civilian airplanes, allegedly for drug smuggling, suggest that corrupt Venezuelan military men and officials may be waging a turf war for control of Venezuela&#8217;s drug trade; the country is a transshipment point for Colombian cocaine. Reports <a href="http://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/ainsafety/2013-11-11/conflicting-details-emerge-downing-hawker-venezuela">vary</a> as to whether the planes were shot down on destroyed on the ground after being forced down; and that includes the fate of a Mexican business jet whose recent destruction has drawn <a href="http://www.ndtv.com/article/world/venezuela-shoots-down-mexican-aircraft-442713">protests </a>from Mexico&#8217;s government. Venezuela claimed the Hawker 25 was loaded with cocaine.</p>
<p>In the go-go days of high oil prices, Venezuela was considered a beacon of democracy for the region. Caracas was a charming place &#8212; the &#8220;city of red roofs.&#8221; Venezuela&#8217;s long decline has accelerated under socialism and anti-Americanism. The worst is yet to come; or as Venezuelan economist Jose Guerra <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/americas/venezuela/131110/venezuelas-military-siezes-electronics-chain-slashes">said</a> in a tweet: “Food today, hunger tomorrow.&#8221;</p>
<p><iframe width="610" height="343" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/9DPyw9iu_qM?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>.   </b></p>
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		<title>Insane Socialist President of Venezuela Claims Hugo Chavez Face Appeared on Subway Wall</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/insane-socialist-president-of-venezuela-claims-hugo-chavez-face-appeared-on-subway-wall/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=insane-socialist-president-of-venezuela-claims-hugo-chavez-face-appeared-on-subway-wall</link>
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		<pubDate>Sun, 03 Nov 2013 16:04:32 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[cult of personality]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hugo Chavez]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[President Nicolas Maduro]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Venezuela]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=209378</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[ "Chavez is everywhere, we are Chavez, you are Chavez," ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div id="attachment_209379" style="width: 460px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/13110chavez-face-640a.photoblog600.jpg"><img class="size-medium wp-image-209379" alt="He's not laughing with you" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/13110chavez-face-640a.photoblog600-450x307.jpg" width="450" height="307" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">He&#8217;s not laughing with you</p></div>
<p>It&#8217;s official.</p>
<p>Nicholas Maduro isn&#8217;t crazy like a fox. He&#8217;s just crazy.</p>
<p>Maduro, Chavez&#8217;s successor, had previously claimed that Chavez had appeared to him in the form of a small bird, threatened those who wouldn&#8217;t vote for him with an ancient curse, and has slept in Chavez&#8217;s mausoleum.</p>
<p><a href="http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/11/01/21274281-does-new-photo-show-hugo-chavez-apparition-venezuelas-president-thinks-so?lite">So this was the natural next step</a>&#8230; in the cult of personality which has taken on clear religious overtones.</p>
<blockquote><p>Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said an image of his political idol and predecessor Hugo Chavez had appeared miraculously in the wall of an underground construction site.</p>
<p>Since his death from cancer earlier this year, socialist leader Chavez has taken on mythical proportions for supporters. Maduro has spoken of seeing his former mentor&#8217;s spirit several times, including in the shape of a bird.</p>
<p>In the latest incident, Maduro said Chavez&#8217;s face briefly appeared to workers building a subway line in Caracas in the middle of the night.</p>
<p>&#8220;My hair stands on end just telling you about it,&#8221; Maduro said on state TV late on Wednesday, showing a photo of a white-plaster wall with marks that appear like eyes and a nose.</p>
<p>&#8220;Who is that face? That gaze is the gaze of the fatherland that is everywhere around us, including in inexplicable phenomena,&#8221; added Maduro, who won an April election to replace Chavez after his 14-year presidency.</p>
<p>&#8220;Just as it appeared, so it disappeared. So you see, what you say is right, Chavez is everywhere, we are Chavez, you are Chavez,&#8221; Maduro said during an event on live TV.</p></blockquote>
<p>We are the Chavezes we have been waiting for.</p>
<p>If you want a preview of what will happen when Obama&#8217;s policies completely collapse, the way Chavez&#8217;s have, and his successor is forced to muddle along with his cult of personality, you could do worse than watch the Socialist meltdown in Venezuela.</p>
<p>At this rate, Venezuela will give up on modern industry and just turn to Chavez voodoo to make the crops come in.</p>
<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/article-hugo-1031.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-209380" alt="article-hugo-1031" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/article-hugo-1031-450x299.jpg" width="450" height="299" /></a></p>
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		<title>Chavez Still Destroying Venezuela&#8217;s Economy From Beyond the Grave</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/chavez-still-destroying-venezuelas-economy-from-beyond-the-grave/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=chavez-still-destroying-venezuelas-economy-from-beyond-the-grave</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/chavez-still-destroying-venezuelas-economy-from-beyond-the-grave/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 06 Jul 2013 13:23:36 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hugo Chavez]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Venezuela]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=195711</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The bet on gold that former Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez made in the final years of his life is collapsing at the wrong time for his country.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/2012_01_31_ap_venezuela-gold_z.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-195712" alt="2012_01_31_ap_venezuela-gold_z" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/2012_01_31_ap_venezuela-gold_z-281x350.jpg" width="281" height="350" /></a></p>
<p>I forget which phase of Hugo Chavez&#8217;s Bolivarian revolution Venezuela is supposed to be in. The silver or the gold one. Or maybe tin. At any rate, the golden part of it <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-04/chavez-s-70-gold-bet-unravels-on-reserves-plunge-andes-credit.html">has worked out about as well as the rest of it</a>.</p>
<blockquote><p>The bet on gold that former Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez made in the final years of his life is collapsing at the wrong time for his country.</p>
<p>Chavez, who argued that Venezuela should move away from the “dictatorship of the dollar,” stockpiled more than 70 percent of Venezuela’s foreign reserves in gold by 2012, the highest percentage among all emerging-market countries and more than 50 times that held by neighbors Colombia and Brazil, according to the World Gold Council.</p>
<p>After rewarding Venezuela with a rally of almost 400 percent in the past decade, gold has tumbled 25 percent this year, pushing the central bank’s reserves to an eight-month low and compromising the government’s ability to repay foreign bondholders. The yield on Venezuela’s dollar-denominated debt has risen 62 basis points, or 0.62 percentage point, to 11.84 percent in the past month, compared with an average increase of 57 basis points for other countries in Latin America.</p>
<p>“Venezuela’s reserves have taken a big hit,” Francisco Rodriguez, an economist at Bank of America Corp., said by phone from New York. If current gold price levels continue, “then you will see an increase in perception that Venezuela’s capacity to pay is weakening.”</p></blockquote>
<p>You have to give Chavez some credit. He picked the perfect time to exit the stage. Right before his Socialist house of cards came crashing down.</p>
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		<title>Socialist Venezuela Raids Toilet Paper and Diaper Hoarders</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/socialist-venezuela-raids-toilet-paper-and-diaper-hoarders/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=socialist-venezuela-raids-toilet-paper-and-diaper-hoarders</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/socialist-venezuela-raids-toilet-paper-and-diaper-hoarders/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 02 Jun 2013 05:08:05 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hugo Chavez]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[President Nicolas Maduro]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Socialism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Venezuela]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=191750</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The existence of a black market in diapers and toilet paper is a sign of just how badly the economy is failing.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/socialist-toilet-paper-450x229.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-191751" alt="socialist-toilet-paper-450x229" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/socialist-toilet-paper-450x229.jpg" width="450" height="229" /></a></p>
<p>History. No one learns from it.</p>
<p>Venezuela&#8217;s Socialist price caps took toilet paper off the market because it was no longer worth producing. So the government organized an emergency import <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/socialism-causes-toilet-paper-shortage-in-venezuela/">of 50 million rolls of toilet paper</a>. That doesn&#8217;t solve the problem. Not unless you nationalize toilet paper production. And once you nationalize toilet paper, you might as well nationalize everything.</p>
<p>Meanwhile Venezuela is falling back on the villains of all Socialist regimes,<a href="http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/05/30/venezuela-police-seize-2500-rolls-toilet-paper-in-overnight-raid/?intcmp=trending"> hoarders and black marketeers</a>.</p>
<blockquote><p>Police in Venezuela say they have seized nearly 2,500 rolls of toilet paper in an overnight raid of a clandestine warehouse storing scarce goods.</p>
<p>The Thursday announcement on Twitter said that the officers raiding the garage in western Caracas also seized about 400 diapers and 7,000 liters of fruit juice.</p>
<p>Police chief Luis Karabin told Venezuelan news agency AVN that police, acting on a telephone tip, found &#8220;merchandise that we know is scarce on the shelves and doesn&#8217;t reach the people.&#8221;</p></blockquote>
<p>It obvious reaches the people. It doesn&#8217;t however reach the people at the prices mandated by the regime. The existence of a black market in diapers and toilet paper is a sign of just how badly the economy is failing.</p>
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		<title>Venezuelan Socialist Paradise: &#8220;We Depend Completely on the Dollar&#8221;</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/venezuelan-socialist-paradise-we-depend-completely-on-the-dollar/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=venezuelan-socialist-paradise-we-depend-completely-on-the-dollar</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 22 May 2013 13:32:19 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hugo Chavez]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Venezuela]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=189939</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[“The only way your savings are really savings is by turning them into dollars. If you have them as bolivars, they will devalue so utterly fast that there’s just no point.”]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/66380524_017472712.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-189945" alt="_66380524_017472712" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/66380524_017472712-450x253.jpg" width="450" height="253" /></a></p>
<p>There are two Venezuelas. One is the Socialist thugocracy of Chavez&#8217;s cronies that attracts lefties like Sean Penn. And there is the real Venezuela, which despite its massive oil deposits, is a failed state where <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/maligned-dollar-flourishes-in-venezuela/2013/05/16/7ce637fc-bdbc-11e2-b537-ab47f0325f7c_story.html">everyone is waiting to ride out the coming economic collapse</a>.</p>
<blockquote><p>Black-market dealers operating on the thriving underground market sell greenbacks at more than four times the official, government-set rate of 6.3 bolivars to the dollar. And the price they’re getting these days — 28 per dollar — is more than three times what it was just eight months ago.</p>
<p>Because the bolivar is artificially overvalued and practically worthless outside Venezuela, everyone here is desperate for dollars, from auto-part importers to supermarkets to ordinary Venezuelans planning to travel abroad. Even government officials and the politically connected businessmen who have made fortunes off the free-spending state search out and trade in dollars.</p></blockquote>
<p>Chavez&#8217;s attempts at controlling every aspect of the economy, drew most of the country into the black market economy where the only way to get fair value is to sell illegally and trade in dollars.</p>
<blockquote><p>“We depend completely on the dollar,” said one black-market dollar dealer who asked that he be identified only by his first name, Fernando, for fear of winding up in jail. “Buying dollars is practically the national sport.”</p>
<p>Hundreds of state-run companies are moribund, and private industry has been paralyzed by state interventions. Rolling blackouts leave much of the country in the dark. Crime is so rampant that Venezuela is more violent than many countries at war, crimping investment. Hamstrung by byzantine currency controls and a dearth of dollars, foreign companies — among the few employers to create jobs here — struggle to repatriate profits.</p></blockquote>
<p>Meanwhile the domestic currency and the official economy with it are headed off a cliff.</p>
<blockquote><p>And then there’s inflation, driven by profligate spending, coupled with an economy starved for dollars. It hit 4.3 percent in April, about equal to the annual inflation rate for some of Venezuela’s neighbors, and could easily top 30 percent for the year.</p></blockquote>
<p>It&#8217;s said that Socialists can lose money running a casino. They can also lose money selling oil.</p>
<blockquote><p>Oil production fell sharply during Chavez’s 14 years in power. Aside from exports to the United States and China, much of the oil pumped here is practically given away to Venezuelan motorists or traded at subsidized prices to Cuba or other countries.</p>
<p>On the store shelves, it means that one out of every five products consumers need is now missing, according to Central Bank data. Lately, consumers have been particularly irritated about one vital but scarce product, toilet paper, the commerce minister blamed on “excessive demand” generated by the media.</p>
<p>Maria Sanchez, who runs a truck dealership, said her business is unable to plan for the future.</p>
<p>“It’s been months since I had trucks, because of the dollar problem,” she said. “And I have to pay my workers. If this keeps up, I’ll have to let go of people and close dealerships.”</p>
<p>Venezuelans facing such challenges — as well as those simply trying to prop up the value of their earnings — search out dollars on the black market.</p>
<p>“The only way your savings are really savings is by turning them into dollars,” said Fernando, the black-market dealer. “If you have them as bolivars, they will devalue so utterly fast that there’s just no point.”</p></blockquote>
<p>But what happens when Obama does to America, what Chavez did to Venezuela?</p>
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		<title>Socialism Causes Toilet Paper Shortage in Venezuela</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/socialism-causes-toilet-paper-shortage-in-venezuela/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=socialism-causes-toilet-paper-shortage-in-venezuela</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/socialism-causes-toilet-paper-shortage-in-venezuela/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 17 May 2013 03:48:33 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hugo Chavez]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Socialism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Venezuela]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=189747</guid>
		<description><![CDATA["The revolution will bring the country the equivalent of 50 million rolls of toilet paper," Fleming told a state news agency.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/socialist-toilet-paper.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-189748" alt="socialist toilet paper" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/socialist-toilet-paper-450x229.jpg" width="450" height="229" /></a></p>
<p>Chavez died and reportedly <a href="http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2013/04/03/venezuela-ruling-party-candidate-said-little-bird-told-him-hell-become/">returned to his successor</a> as a little bird. Sadly the Socialist leader did not, while in bird form, warn Maduro, that the country <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/05/so-venezuela-has-a-toilet-paper-shortage-dont-laugh-seriously/275940/">would shortly run out of toilet paper due to his insane Bolivarian</a> revolution&#8217;s attempts to control every aspect of the economy.</p>
<blockquote><p>Venezuela is now suffering from a government-induced toilet paper shortage. The situation has become politically dire enough that the government has promised to import 50 million rolls to calm shoppers.</p>
<p>For those familiar with the Bolivarian Republic&#8217;s less-than-sterling economic record of late, this won&#8217;t come as a surprise. The country, while relatively wealthy by developing-world standards, has been suffering through a chronic shortfall of everything from groceries to asthma inhalers, resulting in desperate lines of shoppers and a healthy black market trade in kitchen staples like flour.</p>
<p>While the government prefers to blame shadowy political enemies for the shortages &#8212; according to the AP, Commerce Secretary Alejandro Fleming said the toilet paper crisis was the result of &#8220;excessive demand&#8221; sparked by &#8220;a media campaign that has been generated to disrupt the country&#8221; &#8212; the explanation is much more straightforward.</p>
<p>In 2003, then President Hugo Chavez slammed currency controls into place to prevent money from fleeing the country while government seized land and corporate assets. Those rules have made it harder to buy imports. Meanwhile, price caps meant to make basic staples affordable to the poor are so low that, for many products, they don&#8217;t pay for the cost of production.</p>
<p>Nobody&#8217;s going to make toilet paper if they&#8217;ll lose money selling it.</p>
<p>&#8220;The revolution will bring the country the equivalent of 50 million rolls of toilet paper,&#8221; Fleming told a state news agency. It would be much easier to let the free market do it instead.</p></blockquote>
<p>Yes, but this will be gloriously revolutionary toilet paper. And perhaps Chavez will even return in the form of a red roll of Bolivarian toilet paper.</p>
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		<title>Chavez&#8217;s Vicious Legacy Lives On</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/chavezs-vicious-legacy-lives-on/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=chavezs-vicious-legacy-lives-on</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 16 Apr 2013 04:49:33 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Arnold Ahlert]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Election]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Henrique Capriles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hugo Chavez]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Nicolas Maduro]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Venezuela]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=185892</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[But a weakened successor gives some hope for the future of Venezuela. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/chavezs-vicious-legacy-lives-on/gty_maduro_win_wg/" rel="attachment wp-att-185915"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-185915" title="GTY_Maduro_Win_wg" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/GTY_Maduro_Win_wg-450x334.jpg" alt="" width="270" height="200" /></a>Nicolas Maduro, Hugo Chavez&#8217;s hand-picked successor, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/15/world/americas/venezuelans-vote-for-successor-to-chavez.html">won</a> the presidential election in Venezuela to serve out the remainder of the deceased leader&#8217;s last six-year presidential term. The margin of victory was surprisingly thin. Maduro received 50.7 percent of the vote in Sunday&#8217;s election, versus 49.1 percent for Henrique Capriles, a state governor who offered a strong challenge to Chavez last October. Capriles has challenged the results, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-22153667">rejecting</a> the outcome as &#8220;illegitimate,&#8221; and claiming that more than 3,000 incidents occurring at the polls need to be investigated. Maduro insisted otherwise. “We have a just, legal, constitutional and popular electoral victory,” he said, further contending that his victory demonstrates Hugo Chavez &#8220;continues to be invincible, that he continues to win battles.&#8221;</p>
<p>Tibisay Lucena, the head of the National Electoral Council echoed Maduro&#8217;s contentions. “These are the irreversible results that the Venezuelan people have decided with this electoral process,” she said during her announcement of the vote totals on national television late Sunday. Yet Capriles remained defiant. &#8220;We are not going to recognize a result until each vote of Venezuelans is counted,&#8221; he warned. &#8220;This struggle has not ended.&#8221; Maduro was apparently willing to allow a recount to proceed. &#8220;Let 100 percent of the ballot boxes be opened&#8230;We&#8217;re going to do it; we have no fear,&#8221; he promised.</p>
<p>A recount is certainly possible. The nation&#8217;s voting system is <a href="http://apnews.myway.com/article/20130415/DA5LR1B80.html">completely digital</a>, and each vote generates a paper receipt as well. Yet it remains to be seen if the National Electoral Council will allow a recount to take place. One Council official, who disfavors the current government, called on authorities to conduct a recount by hand. Yet other officials contend the election went smoothly, and that there was <a href="http://rt.com/news/venezuela-presidential-election-results-853/">no evidence</a> of irregularities in a process overseen by nearly 200 international observers. In spite of the ill will, both candidates urged their followers to remain peaceful.</p>
<p>After maintaining a double-digit lead in polls taken as recently as two weeks ago, Maduro squeaked by with a margin of just 234,935 votes out of 14.8 million cast. Turnout was heavy at 78 percent. Analysts have characterized the margin of victory for Maduro as a disaster, given that he was the standard-bearer for Chavez and his so-called Bolivarian Revolution. Chavez himself defeated Capriles by a margin of 11 points in the October election, and in his last presidential address to the nation before his death in March, he <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/apr/15/nicolas-maduro-wins-venezuela-election">urged</a> his followers to cast their ballots for Maduro if he failed to recover from his bout with cancer.</p>
<p>Maduro&#8217;s slim margin of victory was not lost on National Assembly President Diosdado Cabello. &#8220;The results oblige us to make a profound self-criticism,&#8221; tweeted the man considered to be Maduro&#8217;s main rival inside their United Socialist Party (PSUV). “It&#8217;s contradictory that some among the poor vote for those who always exploit them,&#8221; he later added. &#8220;Let&#8217;s turn over every stone to find our faults, but we cannot put the fatherland or the legacy of our commander (Chavez) in danger.&#8221;</p>
<p>Many Chavistas, used to the comfortable margins that carried Hugo Chavez to his victories, were also <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/15/us-venezuela-election-idUSBRE93C0B120130415">shocked</a> by Maduro&#8217;s narrow win. &#8220;On one hand, we&#8217;re happy, but the result is not exactly what we had expected,&#8221; said computer technician Gregory Belfort. &#8220;It means there are a lot of people out there who support Chavez but didn&#8217;t vote for Maduro, which is valid.&#8221;</p>
<p>American political scientist Javier Corrales, an expert in Venezuelan affairs at Amherst College in Massachusetts, was much less optimistic. &#8220;This is the most delicate moment in the history of &#8216;Chavismo&#8217; since 2002,&#8221; he warned. &#8220;With these results, the opposition might not concede easily, and Maduro will have a hard time demonstrating to the top leadership of Chavismo that he is a formidable leader.&#8221; The election results may also generate resistance among the current ruling alliance, consisting of military officers, oil company executives and armed barrio leaders, whose uneasy coalition had been largely held together by the force of Chavez&#8217;s dynamic personality and his vise-like control of government. Even supporters concede that Maduro lacks Chavez&#8217;s political instincts and charisma, raising many questions about the future of the nation.</p>
<p>It is a nation beset by monumental problems. Despite a spending binge initiated by Chavez prior to his 2012 victory, powering a 5.6 percent economic growth rate, many economists expect that number to tumble to less than 2 percent in 2013. Inflation remains at 20 percent, and Venezuelans face chronic power outages, deteriorating infrastructure, and ongoing shortages of food staples, medicine and other supplies.</p>
<p>In addition, the nation has a $30 billion fiscal deficit, equal to about 10 percent of the country&#8217;s gross domestic product. Many factories are operating well below capacity because strict currency controls imposed by Chavez&#8211;to prevent the capital flight that occurred when he initiated a government confiscation of numerous businesses and properties&#8211;make it hard for them to pay for supplies. Business leaders further contend the inability to extend credit lines with foreign suppliers has put many companies on the verge of bankruptcy. Venezuela also remains one of the most dangerous nations in the world, with sky-high murder and kidnapping rates.</p>
<p>Capriles&#8217; election campaign centered on such government incompetence. During rallies, he read lists of government projects that remained unfinished and asked people what products remained in short supply. Maduro attempted to blame all of Venezuela&#8217;s problems on sabotage by the far right, and outside forces engaged in a &#8220;dirty war&#8221; against him. &#8220;There is an international operation to attack Venezuelan democracy,&#8221; he claimed. &#8220;I will show no weakness against those who meddle with this country&#8217;s sovereignty.&#8221; Maduros also promised his countrymen that he would maintain Chavez&#8217;s legacy of socialism, continuing to shower the nation&#8217;s poor with government largesse, even as the long-term effects of such spending have yet to be realized.</p>
<p>They may be realized soon. Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), one of the nation&#8217;s chief sources of revenue, has seen its output decline by <a href="http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/money/2013/03/06/chavezs-death-could-bring-further-turmoil-to-oil-industry/">almost half</a> since 2000, and Capriles supporters contend Chavez plundered much of the $1 trillion it amassed during his 14 year rule. In March, PDVSA <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-22/pdvsa-sales-fall-on-price-slide-asset-sale-universal-reports.html">reported</a> a 3 percent decline in annual sales and a 40 percent increase in debt to service providers. Furthermore, without massive loans from China, <a href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/03/07/hugo_s_banker_china_venezuela?page=full&amp;wp_login_redirect=0">totaling</a> at least $40 billion from 2008 to 2012, PDVSA would likely be insolvent. Complicating matters even further, the bolivar, Venezuela&#8217;s currency, is currently selling at one-third the official exchange rate relative to the U.S. dollar, despite two devaluations initiated by Maduro this year.</p>
<p>Yet Maduro remains undeterred by the reality that his nation is running out of other people&#8217;s money to spend. He vowed to expand Chavez&#8217;s &#8220;21st Century&#8221; socialist model even further, promising to raise the minimum wage by 30-40 percent, and maintain ties with Cuba, another economic basket case that receives oil donations from Venezuela to prop up its own failing economy. Thus, it was no surprise that Maduro was congratulated on his victory by Cuban leader Raul Castro. He was also congratulated by Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose nation has big oil investments in Venezuela.</p>
<p>As for the people themselves, the prevailing sentiment from Maduro supporters was best expressed by Reynaldo Ramos, a  60-year-old construction worker, and Maria Velasquez, 48, who works in a soup kitchen outside Caracas. Ramos said he &#8220;voted for Chavez&#8221; before correcting himself. &#8220;We must always vote for Chavez because he always does what&#8217;s best for the people and we&#8217;re going to continue on this path,&#8221; he said. Velasquez was even more direct. She voted for Chavez&#8217;s protege &#8220;because that is what my comandante ordered.&#8221;</p>
<p>Maduro&#8217;s relationship with the United States remains a question mark. During the campaign he mimicked his predecessors&#8217;s contempt, accusing American diplomats of trying to kill him, blaming America for causing Chavez&#8217;s cancer, and undermining relations between the two nations. Yet former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, in Caracas as a representative of the Organization of American States (OAS), claimed Maduro wants to alter the equation. “He said, ‘We want to improve the relationship with the U.S., regularize the relationship,’” Richardson revealed.</p>
<p>Maduro is scheduled to be sworn in April 19, serving until January 2019 to complete the six-year term that Chavez began in January. On Sunday, his supporters took to the streets in celebration, even as Capriles&#8217; supporters remained in shocked disbelief that their man had lost. Capriles himself expressed their sentiment. &#8220;The biggest loser today is you,&#8221; he said, directly addressing Maduro on camera. &#8220;The people don&#8217;t love you.&#8221;</p>
<p>Considering the economic calamity that Venezuelans&#8217; love for Hugo Chavez has given them, that&#8217;s a good thing.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </strong><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank"><strong>Click here</strong></a><strong>.  </strong></p>
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		<title>Preserve Your Dictator! (An Infomercial)</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/oleg-atbashian/preserve-your-dictator-an-infomercial/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=preserve-your-dictator-an-infomercial</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 20 Mar 2013 04:25:27 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Oleg Atbashian]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[coffin]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Communism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dictator]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hugo Chavez]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[preservation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Socialism]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=182138</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The loss of a tyrant leaves a tremendous hole in our lives -- DictatorSaver is here to help. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/oleg-atbashian/preserve-your-dictator-an-infomercial/dictator_saver_fist/" rel="attachment wp-att-182141"><img class=" wp-image-182141 alignleft" title="Dictator_Saver_Fist" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Dictator_Saver_Fist.jpg" alt="" width="280" height="279" /></a>Dictators &#8211; be they of the left, center-left, or centrist variety &#8211; are <a href="http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/atlas-obscura-s-guide-to-communist-mummies" target="_blank">a very important part of everyone&#8217;s lives</a>. They unconditionally share with us other people&#8217;s wealth even when we don&#8217;t ask for it &#8211; and all they want in return is our approval and total compliance. Whether we are at home, at work, or relaxing with friends, our beloved dictator is always kindly watching our every step, protecting us from our own bad choices and unhealthy urges.</p>
<p>But there inevitably comes a time to say &#8220;good-bye.&#8221; The loss of a tyrant leaves a tremendous hole in our lives and the grief can be overwhelming. After the shock wears off, we are faced with the dilemma of what to do with the remains. Many heart-broken subjects can&#8217;t stand the thought of having dear leader cremated or buried like a mere human.</p>
<p>Thankfully, today&#8217;s technology gives us several comforting alternatives, ranging from vacuum sealing to freeze-dry preservation. Although they are no longer living, despots can perpetually remain in our presence, and can even be displayed to groups of awestruck school children or added to the bus tour circuit for hard-currency foreign visitors.</p>
<p>If your favorite dictator has passed on to the &#8220;Rainbow Bridge to Utopia,&#8221; or you are preparing for his untimely death in advance, you may want to consider these options.</p>
<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/oleg-atbashian/preserve-your-dictator-an-infomercial/dictator2/" rel="attachment wp-att-182143"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-182143" title="dictator2" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/dictator2.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="267" /></a></p>
<p>Vacuum sealing is relatively inexpensive and can be performed in any presidential palace setting. Modern wonders, such as the DictatorSaver 2000 Vacuum Sealer, which can preserve up to twelve dear leaders in rapid succession in case of multiple consecutive coups d&#8217;etat, has the speed, affordability, and ease of operation that makes it a favorite for many developing countries.</p>
<p>However, if your leader had been trying to save your struggling economy for over a decade and is worth over a billion dollars as a result, you may want to go with a more expensive freeze-drying option. The most reliable freeze-drying dictator-preserving provider is Perpetual Dictator Inc., a socially conscious company with branches in many humanitarian disaster areas designated for Western aid by the United Nations.</p>
<p>&#8220;At Perpetual Dictator, we know that the loss of a dearly loved national leader can be a difficult experience,&#8221; says CEO Vladlen Marlenov. &#8220;Through the use of new techniques in freeze-dry technology, we can offer a &#8216;Loving and Lasting&#8217; alternative to vacuum sealing or traditional taxidermy and mummification. It allows us to preserve any deceased leader, regardless of the cause of death, without any alteration in appearance and in any position &#8211; from a peaceful repose to giving a passionate speech to waving a saber on top of a freeze-dried stallion.&#8221;</p>
<p>Experienced professionals at Perpetual Dictator can create a durable memorial that preserves your favorite authoritarian in a natural state for generations to come, allowing the forlorn subjects to see, touch, and cuddle their tyrants &#8211; and, in a sense, &#8220;never have to let go.&#8221; Best of all, your dictator gets to keep his or her actual, physical body. This is in sharp contrast to the conventional method of taxidermy, in which only the outer hide of the dictator typically remains, attached to a plastic form or other type of artificial mounting.</p>
<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/oleg-atbashian/preserve-your-dictator-an-infomercial/dict3-2/" rel="attachment wp-att-182145"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-182145" title="dict3" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/dict3.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="351" /></a></p>
<p>Growing up in a totalitarian dictatorship in one of the former provinces of the Soviet Union, Vladlen Marlenov learned early on not to get too attached to the country&#8217;s elderly leaders, who were prone to dying with predictable regularity.</p>
<p>His devoted customers are a different story. Autocracy lovers the world over count on Perpetual Dictator to faithfully preserve Kim, Hugo, and other beloved leaders for posterity, even if it means taking millions of dollars out of their depleted budgets.</p>
<p>This is where generous humanitarian aid comes in, provided by Western democracies out of sentimental nostalgia for a caring philosopher-king who can legislate the common good by executive order and redistribute national wealth to the masses despite the opposition from the obstructionist, filibustering reactionaries.</p>
<p>&#8220;Money is not an issue when so many poor people are devastated by the death of their dictator,&#8221; says Marlenov. &#8220;For most of them, tyranny is a way of life. This may seem a little eccentric, but preserving a dictator&#8217;s body helps them to feel better about living in squalor and misery.&#8221;</p>
<p>Marlenov&#8217;s studio is a testament to the devotion of the struggling masses to their leaders. Lifelike dictators of all sizes and colors are scattered throughout his showroom: a brooding South American general with a stuffed parrot nailed to his shoulder; a spirited African prince with a big frozen smile, a snarling Asian nationalist, and a smattering of heads of state from the former Soviet republics. Departed dictators of all persuasions spend up to one year in freeze-dry metal drums before they are painstakingly preserved and returned to their doting subjects.</p>
<p>The company also builds supersized mausoleums to customer specifications. The adjacent showroom contains a display of hand-painted papier-mâché models, from the historic Lenin Mausoleum and Chairman Mao Memorial Hall to more affordable Third-World resting places.</p>
<p>&#8220;The Lenin Mausoleum is a classic prototype and an all-time favorite,&#8221; admits Marlenov. &#8220;If you&#8217;ve got enough Western aid and want to go crazy, we can even build Red Square around it, complete with the State GUM and cobblestone pavement. And if you also order the Kremlin wall with the towers, we&#8217;ll throw in free decorative snowdrifts made of durable Styrofoam for those in tropical climates.&#8221;</p>
<p>&#8220;If you think freeze-dry preservation of your dictator is for you, please give us a call. You&#8217;ll be treated with respect and dignity you deserve.&#8221;</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank">Click here</a>.  </strong></p>
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		<title>Chavez Borrowed Money from China to Give to the Kennedy Family</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/chavez-borrowed-money-from-china-to-give-to-the-kennedy-family/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=chavez-borrowed-money-from-china-to-give-to-the-kennedy-family</link>
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		<pubDate>Sun, 10 Mar 2013 22:34:24 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hugo Chavez]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Joe Kennedy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Venezuela]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=180778</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Despite being an oil power, Venezuela ran deep into debt as the price of oil fell. Meanwhile Chavez took over the oil on "behalf of the people" and gave away sizable amounts of it to Cuba and to the Kennedy clan.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/chavez-borrowed-money-from-china-to-give-to-the-kennedy-family/070620_kennedy_hmed_4p-hmedium/" rel="attachment wp-att-180783"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-180783" title="070620_kennedy_hmed_4p.hmedium" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/070620_kennedy_hmed_4p.hmedium.jpg" alt="" width="368" height="273" /></a></p>
<p>So basically Chavez was Obama, before Obama was Obama.</p>
<p>Despite being an oil power, <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/how-obama-turned-america-into-venezuela/">Venezuela ran deep into</a> debt as the price of oil fell. Meanwhile Chavez took over the oil on &#8220;behalf of the people&#8221; and gave away sizable amounts of it to Cuba <a href="http://www.nypost.com/p/news/international/lick_kennedy_is_oil_broken_up_AWRYmkrpkrsF4Nrwx4jlZL#ixzz2NAMwgWnb">and to the Kennedy clan</a>.</p>
<blockquote><p>Perhaps no American will mourn Hugo Chavez more than Joe Kennedy.</p>
<p>For years, the eldest son of the late Robert F. Kennedy has relied on the Venezuelan strongman to prop up his charity with tens of millions of dollars in donated oil.</p>
<p>The steady flow of heating oil allowed the former congressman from Massachusetts to portray himself — and Chavez — as heroes to the poor even as Kennedy and his wife pull down more than $1 million in salary and benefits from a web of for-profit and nonprofit energy concerns.</p>
<p>Kennedy, 60, founded Citizens Energy Energy Corp. in 1979 to provide low-cost home heating oil. In the early years, the nonprofit bought crude oil from Venezuela at a special price and sold it off at market rate, using the proceeds to bring heating oil to Massachusetts. Running the charity gave Kennedy his activist credentials. He ran for Congress in 1988 and served in the House until 1999.</p>
<p>During that time, his younger brother, Michael Kennedy, ran Citizens Energy and garnered criticism for a pay package as high as $313,000, including money he got from related for-profit ventures.</p>
<p>After Joe Kennedy left Congress, he returned to run Citizens Energy. That job paid him $86,311 in 2010.</p></blockquote>
<p>For Chavez, with little familiarity with how American politics worked, helping a Kennedy move up the ladder made sense. One Kennedy had made it to the White House. Another nearly did. It wasn&#8217;t too improbable from his point of view that maybe a guy named Joe Kennedy might make it to the White House on the back of Chavez&#8217;s oil.</p>
<p>Considering Venezuela&#8217;s precarious economic situation, the oil was bound to dry up even if Chavez had stayed in power.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-25/china-bankrolling-chavez-s-re-election-bid-with-oil-loans.html"> China lent 42 billion dollars to Venezuela</a>, making up nearly half of its national debt. China isn&#8217;t pulling out, but there&#8217;s going to be less money to go around.</p>
<p>The good news for Joe Kennedy is that there will be plenty of other oil-rich countries looking to buy a Kennedy at a discount.</p>
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		<title>Venezuelan Left Rushes New Election While Immortalizing Chavez</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/venezuelan-left-rushes-new-election-while-immortalizing-chavez/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=venezuelan-left-rushes-new-election-while-immortalizing-chavez</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/venezuelan-left-rushes-new-election-while-immortalizing-chavez/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 09 Mar 2013 23:10:14 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hugo Chavez]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Venezuela]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=180691</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Chavez's last election was his weakest yet as the economic implosion of Venezuela became even clearer. Without Chavez, the left has to count on his union thug replacement, Nicholas Maduro, to beat Henrique Capriles, the man who almost beat Chavez.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/venezuelan-left-rushes-new-election-while-immortalizing-chavez/chavez-maduro-ap/" rel="attachment wp-att-180692"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-180692" title="chavez-maduro-ap" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/chavez-maduro-ap-450x298.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="298" /></a></p>
<p>Chavez&#8217;s last election was his weakest yet <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/how-obama-turned-america-into-venezuela/">as the economic implosion of Venezuela</a> became even clearer. Without Chavez, the left has to count on his union thug replacement, Nicholas Maduro, to beat Henrique Capriles, the man who almost beat Chavez.</p>
<p>Maduro is an oddball choice. He can project some of Chavez&#8217;s aggressiveness and he looks more like a traditional Latin American leader, but that last bit may actually hurt him with Chavez&#8217;s base. And it doesn&#8217;t help much that he is a member of a cult, making his Catholicism even more debatable than Chavez&#8217;s. To some of Chavez&#8217;s more anti-Semitic followers, it really doesn&#8217;t help that the Maduro name over there tends to be associated with a wealthy Jewish family whom Nicholas Maduro is related to.</p>
<p>During his swearing-in, Nicholas Maduro denounced his Jewish relatives as &#8220;part of the rancid oligarchy of this country&#8221; revealing that his family ties are clearly an issue.</p>
<p>His opponent, Henrique Capriles, will hardly be able to use that against him, considering that Capriles&#8217; mother was Jewish. The prospect of a man with paternal Jewish ties running against a man with maternal Jewish ties is probably outraging bigots already. However Capriles and Maduro are both officially Catholics and there is a sizable number of prominent Latin Americans with Jewish ancestry due the Edict of Expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1942 and the Holocaust.</p>
<p>More significantly Maduro is a weak candidate in a bad economy. Rushing the election will give Venezuelan voters less time to assess his time as acting president and advances the election while the hysterical mourning over Chavez is underway.</p>
<p>All that means the next Venezuelan election will be even uglier than the previous one. If Maduro wins, he will have a chance to run Venezuela into the ground for the next six years or turn around and beg the United States that Chavez spit on for help. If Capriles wins, then austerity is inevitable.</p>
<p>Venezuela&#8217;s economy is a mess and the election will, like most previous elections, come down purely to who benefits. It&#8217;s a tug of war between business owners and government workers, between the welfare state and the business state. It will be a starker version of the American election and due to the pile of debt that Chavez ran up and the huge number of public employees, it really will be a zero sum game.</p>
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		<title>Two Corrupt Dems Head US Delegation to Chavez Funeral</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/two-corrupt-dems-head-us-delegation-to-chavez-funeral/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=two-corrupt-dems-head-us-delegation-to-chavez-funeral</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/two-corrupt-dems-head-us-delegation-to-chavez-funeral/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 08 Mar 2013 15:18:43 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Democrats]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hugo Chavez]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Venezuela]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=180586</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A month later, Meeks, a member of the House Foreign Affairs committee, traveled to Venezuela as part of a mission to thank Chavez and other leaders for a program that provided heating oil to Americans. A year later, Tirado was indicted in Venezuela on charges of swindling and tax-evasion.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/two-corrupt-dems-head-us-delegation-to-chavez-funeral/chavez090323/" rel="attachment wp-att-180587"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-180587" title="chavez090323" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/chavez090323.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="299" /></a></p>
<p>First up, <a href="http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/12/report_rep_meeks_took_message_to_chavez_on_stanfor.php">Congressman Gregory Meeks</a>.</p>
<blockquote><p>Stanford’s entire operation was put at risk, after the president of his bank in Venezuela, Gonzalo Tirado, threatened to go rogue. After being accused of stealing from the company, Tirado filed a lawsuit and publicly suggested that Stanford might be orchestrating a fraud.</p>
<p>In order to fix the problem, Stanford turned to a close ally in Congress: Meeks. The banker asked Meeks to go to Chavez, and urge him to pursue a criminal investigation against Tirado.</p>
<p>A month later, Meeks, a member of the House Foreign Affairs committee, traveled to Venezuela as part of a mission to thank Chavez and other leaders for a program that provided heating oil to Americans. A year later, Tirado was indicted in Venezuela on charges of swindling and tax-evasion.</p>
<p>In 2008, Meeks received over $12,000 in campaign contributions from Stanford and his employees.</p></blockquote>
<p>In 2011, Meeks was listed as one of <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/global-affairs/americas/286947-obama-chooses-lawmaker-accused-of-corrupt-ties-with-chavez-to-attend-strongmans-funeral">the most corrupt members of Congres</a>s. And that makes him the perfect choice.</p>
<p>The second man is none other than <a href="http://squaringtheglobe.blogspot.com/2006/05/bitch-slapping-couple-of-cheap-hos.html">Congressman William Delahunt</a>.</p>
<blockquote><p>Money can&#8217;t buy love, unless you&#8217;re Anna Nicole Smith. But these days a little heating oil can buy friends in Washington, especially when they come as cheap as Democrat William Delahunt. Massachusetts wants bargain oil prices to help it through the winter. Venezuelan tyrant Hugo Chávez wants influence in Washington. Leave it to the Congressman from the Commonwealth and a Kennedy to close the deal.</p>
<p>Last week Venezuela announced that its U.S.-based Citgo Petroleum would sell 12 million gallons of home heating oil at a 40% discount to help the poor in Massachusetts. The deal was announced by Mr. Delahunt on the lawn of a beneficiary before Thanksgiving, with Congressman Ed Markey at his side. &#8220;This today is about people, it&#8217;s not about politics,&#8221; Mr. Delahunt said with a straight face. Massachusetts-based Citizens Energy, run by the Kennedy clan, will be one of the distributors.</p>
<p>&#8220;To Citgo, to the people of Venezuela, our debt,&#8221; the Congressman pledged. Mr. Delahunt should rightly feel a debt to the people of Venezuela, whose per-capita income is perhaps one-tenth that of Massachusetts and whose sole source of hard currency is the oil that their leader is now giving away to the second-richest state in the union. But Mr. Delahunt has no unpaid debt to Mr. Chávez. For some years now the Congressman has been lobbying hard for the Venezuelan despot, whom he paints as a misunderstood humanitarian.</p></blockquote>
<p>So now the United States will be sending two corrupt Dem Congressmen who had dubious relationships with Chavez as the American delegation to Chavez&#8217;s funeral.</p>
<p>The only question is why they decided to leave out Sean Penn.</p>
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