Chavez Cuts Off Cheap Oil, Useful Idiot Joe Kennedy Hardest Hit

No longer useful

Communist thug Hugo Chavez has announced plans to cut off "charitable" contributions of cheap home heating oil to poor U.S. households and none other than useful idiot Joe Kennedy is suffering the brunt.

Citgo Petroleum Corp., the U.S. refiner owned by the Venezuelan government, will suspend charitable contributions of home heating oil to poor U.S. households -- a sign that falling oil prices may hamstring Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, whose administration has used an oil windfall to win voters' loyalty at home and allies abroad.

In a surprise announcement, former U.S. Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy II said Venezuela would stop deliveries to his Boston-based nonprofit, Citizens' Energy, which last winter received $100 million of fuel that was distributed throughout the Northeast. Mr. Kennedy said Citgo cited falling oil prices and the world economic crisis for forcing the company "to re-evaluate all of its social programs." Neither Citgo nor the Venezuelan government had any comment.

Chavez, good friend of new Huffington Post blogger Bill Ayers, has his priorities, mainly propping up the failed Communist state of Cuba.

The move raises questions about whether Mr. Chavez can afford to continue his oil-fueled largess. Venezuela gives cut-priced fuel to many Latin American nations and sends some 100,000 barrels a day of oil and oil products to Cuba in exchange, in part, for the services of 30,000 Cuban doctors, nurses, dentists, and sports trainers. In 2007, Cuba valued total Venezuelan aid at $7.8 billion. Some analysts say Venezuela is now as big a donor to cash-strapped Cuba as the U.S.S.R. was back in the Cold War.

Kennedy, the useful idiot, refuses to give up.

At a press conference yesterday, Kennedy said Citizens Energy likely will be forced to cut about 20 percent of its heating oil distribution in Massachusetts and halt the program altogether in other states unless it can persuade Citgo to change its mind or can raise money elsewhere to buy oil and fund grants. In addition, he said Citizens would have to lay off 20 staffers.

Kennedy said he has repeatedly reached out to the Venezuelan government, which owns Citgo, in an effort to persuade the company to resume oil donations. He also urged people to write to Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. Citgo is the US distribution arm of Venezuela's state oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela, which Chávez indirectly controls.

"We are doing everything we can," Kennedy said. "We're not ready to give up."

Kennedy is being met with little sympathy from patriotic Americans.

"Maybe now, instead of acting as propaganda tool of socialist dictator Hugo Chávez, Joe Kennedy can focus on simply helping those who couldn't afford to question the real cost behind his heating oil," said Barney Keller, spokesman for the Massachusetts Republican Party.

Massholes Heart Chavez

Every year it's the same two useful idiots, Joe Kennedy and William Delahunt, sucking up to dictator Hugo Chavez. They accord him more respect than they do their own president.

They have no shame.

What this is really about is advancing Chavez's U.S. agenda, a big part of which is to blame U.S. oil companies for high oil prices.

High oil prices do squeeze the poor. But oil companies do not control them. Dictators such as Chavez do. Eighty percent of the world's oil is held by inefficient state oil companies. Venezuela is one of the worst, producing its oil with scab labor since a 2003 strike, and it has also confiscated at least $1 billion in U.S. oil assets since then. Some industry analysts estimate that Chavez adds as much as a third of the cost to world oil prices. No wonder he wants someone else, like Big Oil, blamed.

Now he's got a willing dupe. Besides browbeating oil companies, Kennedy also brought in politicians shilling for Chavez as well.

Massachusetts Rep. Bill Delahunt denounced Big Oil's "record profits" and condemned the companies for not participating in Kennedy's politically loaded program. This comes on the heels of his refusal to vote in Congress for more domestic oil or natural gas production, which could bring down energy costs for all.

Oil companies, in fact, give far more to charity than Kennedy's $25 million program. In 2006, Chevron gave $90.8 million. British Petroleum gave $106.7 million. Exxon Mobil gave $138.6 million.

It goes to show that Kennedy's cheap oil program is a plan to really advance Chavez's influence in this country. What a scam.

Via Instapundit.

Connie Mack Rips Useful Idiot Joe Kennedy

Florida GOP Rep. Connie Mack hammers the pathetic Joe Kennedy for his shameless pandering to Communist thug Hugo Chavez.

A Florida congressman ripped into former Rep. Joe Kennedy for airing television commercials promoting his Citizens Energy Corp. that heap praise on Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, "a sworn enemy of the United States."

In the ad, Kennedy, founder and president of Citizens Energy Corp., a nonprofit energy company, lauds Venezuela and Citgo, a Houston-based oil company owned by the Chavez government, for contributing heating oil to low income senior citizens.

"I am Joe Kennedy. Help is on the way. Heating oil at 40 percent off from our friends in Venezuela at Citgo," Kennedy says in the commercial.

In a letter dated Monday, Rep. Connie Mack wrote to Kennedy: "Venezuela's Communist President Hugo Chavez is a sworn enemy of the United States. That is why there is absolutely no excuse for you to be praising him in television commercials and media interviews for any reason whatsoever."

Mack's letter continues: "While you have gone out of your way to publicly praise Hugo Chavez, he's gone out of his way to crush the hopes and dreams of the Venezuelan people and to destabilize freedom, democracy, and the United States interests throughout the Western Hemisphere."

Mack said the partnership is not providing discount oil, but allowing Chavez a venue to "exploit his apologists in the name of public relations. Sadly, you have chosen to actively participate in his charade, even as he continues to attack the United States, our leaders, and freedom-loving people everywhere."

Previously:

Joe Kennedy Pimps for Chavez

Venezuelans Get a Taste of Communism