Deranged Chavez Plans to Stay in Office Until 2031

Considering he'll probably soon be dead, this ought to be quite a feat.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez sang, danced and said he intends to stay in power for two more decades as he celebrated his 57th birthday looking ahead to months of cancer treatment.

Chavez rallied a crowd of cheering supporters from the balcony of the presidential palace on Thursday, waving a large Venezuelan flag and briefly wrapping himself in it. He said he expects to lose his hair soon as a result of chemotherapy and that a long process of treatment lies ahead.

"This is going to be various months all of this year, but I'm going to continue in charge of my government functions," Chavez said.

He mixed serious statements about his upcoming treatment with the ecstatic rallying cries of a leader already in pre-campaign mode ahead of elections to be held in late 2012.

"Next year, we will win the presidential elections once again! Strength, unity!" Chavez said. Setting a goal he has never before reached, he said: "We're going for 10 million votes next year!"

The crowd chanted: "Oh, no! Chavez won't go!"

Chavez sang and danced briefly with one his daughters on the balcony while a band below played folk music. He saluted to the crowd and blew kisses, standing next to three grandchildren.

His supporters sang while sparkling candles burned atop a giant birthday cake.

"I invite you all to celebrate my 77th," Chavez said. "I had said I'd leave in 2021. Well, I'm not going away in 2021 or anything. Maybe in 2031."

Heartbreaking: 'Best Friend' Chomsky Turns on Hugo Chavez

When you've lost "renowned scholar" Noam Chomsky, you know things are bleak. First he admits he has cancer, and now his socialist pals are turning on him. Poor Hugo.

Hugo Chávez has long considered Noam Chomsky one of his best friends in the west. He has basked in the renowned scholar's praise for Venezuela's socialist revolution and echoed his denunciations of US imperialism.

Venezuela's president, who has revealed that he has had surgery in Cuba to remove a cancerous tumour, turned one of Chomsky's books into an overnight bestseller after brandishing it during a UN speech. He hosted Chomsky in Caracas with smiles and pomp. Earlier this year Chávez even suggested Washington make Chomsky the US ambassador to Venezuela.

The president may be about to have second thoughts about that, because his favourite intellectual has now turned his guns on Chávez.

Speaking to the Observer last week, Chomsky has accused the socialist leader of amassing too much power and of making an "assault" on Venezuela's democracy.

"Concentration of executive power, unless it's very temporary and for specific circumstances, such as fighting world war two, is an assault on democracy. You can debate whether [Venezuela's] circumstances require it: internal circumstances and the external threat of attack, that's a legitimate debate. But my own judgment in that debate is that it does not."

Chomsky, a linguistics professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, spoke on the eve of publishing an open letter (see below) that accuses Venezuela's authorities of "cruelty" in the case of a jailed judge.

The self-described libertarian socialist says the plight of María Lourdes Afiuni is a "glaring exception" in a time of worldwide cries for freedom. He urges Chávez to release her in "a gesture of clemency" for the sake of justice and human rights.

Chomsky reveals he has lobbied Venezuela's government behind the scenes since late last year after being approached by the Carr centre for human rights policy at Harvard University. Afiuni earned Chávez's ire in December 2009 by freeing Eligio Cedeño, a prominent banker facing corruption charges. Cedeño promptly fled the country.

In a televised broadcast the president, who had taken a close interest in the case, called the judge a criminal and demanded she be jailed for 30 years. "That judge has to pay for what she has done."

Afiuni, 47, a single mother with cancer, spent just over a year in jail, where she was assaulted by other prisoners. In January, authorities softened her confinement to house arrest pending trial for corruption, which she denies.

"Judge Afiuni has suffered enough," states Chomsky's letter. "She has been subject to acts of violence and humiliations to undermine her human dignity. I am convinced that she must be set free."

On the upside for the ailing dictator, it appears his good buddy Bill Ayers is still in his camp.

'My Comandante Doesn't Have Cancer. It’s Not True'

These delusional souls sound like the South American version of Obama zombies.

As Hugo Chávez graces the big screen in a rowdy city center bar in Caracas, Santiago Valledare stands up and salutes, with no hint of irony.

After a completely uncharacteristic three-week silence, his president is about to announce that he has received treatment for a tumor while in Cuba. After watching the president’s subdued statement, Valledare stands firm: “My Comandante doesn't have cancer. It’s not true,” he says, still standing. “He is the best president we have ever had.... [He is] a strong man. He is not ill.”

Think you know Latin America? Take our geography quiz.

Other so-called Chavistas in the bar share similar sentiments. Nearby, workers paint a wall, having just watched the same 15-minute appearance. "This is a lie.... I don't know why he said it but it's not true," insists Luis, as he takes a break to discuss the news with colleagues.

To his supporters, Chávez is a larger than life figure, someone whose defhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifiance of the US and preaching of social justice has transformed Venezuelan society. But his socialist revolution has been built around his popularity and personality, and there is no one on the horizon who could take his place, which could mean another radical political shift for Venezuela if his illness proves serious.

“For Chavistas it is very tough to accept that their supreme leader is no longer the strongman,” suggests Michael Shifter, president of the Inter-American Dialogue. “His human frailties have been exposed. For his avid followers there is no one else, only Chávez.”

Pathetic.

Time for a reality check.

Hugo Chavez Admits He Has Cancerous Tumor

What a shame. On the upside, he's receiving medical care in the worker's paradise, so expect him to expire by the end of July.

President Hugo Chavez acknowledged Thursday night that he had a cancerous tumor.

He made the admission in a late-night speech, his first since falling ill 21 days ago.

Chavez was last in Venezuela on June 6 when he left for a three-country tour of Ecuador, Brazil and Cuba. On what was to be the last day of the trip, June 10, he fell ill during a meeting in Cuba and was operated on for a pelvic abscess.

He gave a radio address two days later, but hasn’t been back to his home country in three weeks.

The Venezuelan and Cuban governments this week released photographs and videos of a visibly slimmer Chavez chatting happily with Castro. The video showed him reading a current copy of the Cuban newspaper Juventud Rebelde, giving the production the feel of a proof-of-life video used in kidnappings.

His absence has underscored the personality-driven nature of his administration, which has failed to inform the populace about the president’s condition other than to assure that he’ll be back soon.

If we actually had a real president the opposition in Venezuela would be prepared to overthrow the Chavez dictatorship. Who knows if Obama is even aware what's going on down there.

Chavez Hits the Red Carpet, Blows Kisses To Obama

So nice to see another of the Hollywood elite kissing the fat tush of Venezuelan thug Hugo Chavez.

Hugo Chavez stole the show at the Venice Film Festival, where he walked the red carpet with director Oliver Stone for the premiere of the documentary "South of the Border."

Hundreds of admirers, some chanting "president, president," gathered outside of the for the leader's arrival. A few held up Venezuelan flags and a banner in Spanish that read "Welcome, president."

Chavez threw a flower into the crowd and touched his heart, and at one point took a photographer's camera to snap a picture himself. Security outside the Casino was tightened in advance of his arrival with military police checking bags

The leftist leader is getting a chance to hob-knob with the Hollywood elite as the central focus of Stone's film "South of the Border" — a look at what Stone calls the "truth" about Chavez's role in the sweeping changes in South America.

Chavez has been an outspoken critic of U.S. policy and often made headlines for likening President George W. Bush to the devil. The film, which is a series of interviews and clips from U.S. media reports, tells the story of Venezuela's so-called "peaceful revolution" since Chavez came to power in 1998. Chavez is portrayed as a hero of the people who refuses to be bullied, Reuters reported.

Stone says the U.S. media — including FOX News — and the government have demonized Chavez and other leftist South American leaders.

"You can't get a fair hearing for Chavez. It's an outrageous caricature they've drawn of him in the Western press," said Stone told Variety.

Yes, such a pity he hasn't been able to shut down our media as he's largely done to any opposition media in Venezuela. I guess Stone will do a sequel covering that.

Meanwhile, Stone's new buddy gushed about Barack Obama, short one Communist buddy since Van Jones departed in the dark of night over the weekend. Maybe the two can pal around and have a beer at the White House.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a fierce critic of U.S. foreign policy who once called George W. Bush "the devil," said on Monday he hoped to be able to work more closely with President Barack Obama.

The leftist 55-year-old leader added in an interview in Italy that despite the global economic crisis and signs of a slowdown in growth in Venezuela, he did not expect his country to fall into recession.

Chavez was in Venice for the world premiere of "South of the Border," director Oliver Stone's sympathetic portrait of a leader he says has championed the poor and who has been unfairly demonized by the U.S. media.

"I have no reason to call him (Obama) the devil, and I hope that I am right," Chavez told reporters in Venice.

"With Obama we can talk, we are almost from the same generation, one can't deny that Obama is different (from Bush). He's intelligent, he has good intentions and we have to help him."

I guess building a "nuclear village" with Iran can be a topic of discussion.

'I Want To Be Your Friend'

Considering Barack Obama is friends with all sorts of miscreants, why not add one more to the stable? Besides, they both count Bill Ayers as a friend. Who knows, if Hugo plays his cards right, he'll be invited over for hots dogs next Saturday.

Venezuela and the United States moved to end a bitter diplomatic spat that entangled both countries last year, signaling a thaw in Washington's relationship with one of its fiercest opponents in South America.

Patrick Duddy, the U.S. ambassador to Venezuela who was expelled by President Hugo Chavez last year, is expected to return to Caracas, while Bernardo Alvarez, who was serving as Venezuela's envoy to Washington when the quarrel erupted, will return to his post.

The administration of President Barack Obama has expressed its desire to improve relations, "and we're willing to move forward," Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro said in an official statement Wednesday.

"It's a clear attempt to improve the relations between both countries," said Michael Shifter, a vice president at Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington-based think tank. "It's a logical step."

The bad blood between Chavez and Washington reached a boiling point last September, when the fiery former paratrooper expelled Duddy "in solidarity" with Bolivia, which had told a top U.S. diplomat in La Paz to leave for allegedly supporting separatists in the Andean nation's eastern provinces. Bolivia has yet to re-establish diplomatic ties with the U.S.

Chavez had often accused the Bush administration of plotting against him, repeatedly called the former U.S. president a "donkey" and famously referred to him as "the devil" at the United Nation's General Assembly in 2006.

Bush administration officials had often charged that the Venezuelan government had abetted, if not aided, Colombian terrorist groups, and said Chavez was growing increasingly authoritarian at home.

Since coming to power in January, President Obama has sought to improve relations with Venezuela, a top oil exporter to the U.S. A turning point in the U.S.-Venezuela relationship came in April, when Obama and Chavez shook hands and smiled in Trinidad and Tobago during a regional heads-of-state gathering. During their encounter, Chavez said to Obama, "I want to be your friend."

The statement was seen as a major change in the Venezuelan leader, who usually deploys anti-U.S. rhetoric for political gain and to defend his socialist-inspired policies.

Since coming to power a decade ago, Chavez has spearheaded a wave of leftist leaders in the region who are openly critical of Washington, including Bolivia's Evo Morales.

Now he's got a leftist leader in Washington who's openly critical of the United States. They should get along swimmingly.

Meanwhile, Barack's new pal is lining up with the psychopathic "president" of Iran.

Today Mr Ahmadinejad struck back and accused the US President of following his predecessor's lead.

"Mr Obama made a mistake to say those things. Our question is why he fell into this trap, and said things that previously (former President) Bush used to say," Mr Ahmadinejad said, according to the semi-official Fars news agency.

Hugo Chavez, the President of Venezuela who is an ally of Mr Ahmadinejad, added: "People are in the streets, some are dead, they have snipers, and behind this is the CIA, the imperial hand of European countries and the United States."

Sounds like a guy we want to have a relationship with, no?

Obama Warmly Greets Comrade Chavez

Give my best to Comrade Ayers

They seem like old pals. Later they sat around a campfire and reminisced about Che Guevara.

President Obama shook hands with Venezuela's Hugo Chavez on Friday at the opening of the Summit of the Americas being held this weekend in Trinidad and Tobago.

It wasn't immediately clear Friday evening what words were exchanged between the two leaders, but photos released by the Venezuelan government show Obama clasping Chavez's hand and smiling broadly.

Earlier Friday, Dan Restrepo, the president's top Western Hemisphere adviser on the National Security Council, had told FOX News Obama might cross paths with Chavez.

"A chance encounter if it occurs," Restrepo said, in describing such a meeting. "Let's put the animosities behind us. Let's not have old arguments.

"Let's not have tired ideological arguments. Let's get down to figuring out how we can advance things that are in our national interest. Things that matter to the United States that should matter to Venezuela. Putting the arguments and ideologies of the past aside and working on pragmatic solutions to real problems that face our countries today," he said.

Why have any ideological arguments when you're basically on the same page?

Meanwhile, as Obama shares a bro-shake with the thug Chavez, opposition leaders in Venezuela are in hiding and being jailed.

The mayor of Venezuela's second largest city is missing, apparently the latest casualty of a crackdown on opposition by President Hugo Chavez that observers are calling outright persecution.

Manuel Rosales ran against Chavez for president in 2006 and lost, but last year he was elected mayor of the port city of Maracaibo, home to over 3 million people.

After Chavez vowed on national TV to throw Rosales in jail, the government filed corruption charges against the 56-year-old mayor. Two weeks ago, Rosales dropped out of sight. Supporters say he is hiding — from an enemy who now has the power to crush all opposition.

The same power Comrade Obama desperately seeks.

Chavez One Step Closer To Being El Presidente For Life

Venezuela's national assembly has approved a constitutional amendment to remove limits on how many times President Hugo Chavez can serve.

It now moves to a referendum to be voted on by the people of Venezuela.

The same thing is being proposed in this country by congressman Jose Serrano. He introduces this bill to repeal the term limit on presidents quite often. I don't think it will go any further this time then it has in the past, but with the Democrats in power you just never can tell.

Is Nancy Pelosi actively assisting the enemies of America?

After reading these stories at Atlas and over at Gateway Pundit it sure seems so. Now I don't have any high profile secret sources or contacts with anybody inside the Beltway or even an inside track to the guy who screens the letters to the editors at our local newspaper, so I can't really add anything to the story. All I can do it point it out and direct you to go read the information. I don't ascribe to black helicopter conspiracy theories or Big Brother monitoring my every move, but the circumstantial evidence presented sure doesn't paint a very good picture of Madame Pelosi and her Democratic allies in congress.
When I wrote about Nancy's maneuvering and changing the House rules to prevent the vote on the Colombian Free Trade agreement I said at the time that Chavez would benefit the most from this move and that this was something we would have expected from Chavez but not the United States House of Representatives and apparently the South American press think the same.
So at a time when our congress critters are investigating everything from steroids in baseball to videotaping football games I wonder what the chances would be of anybody even bothering to question the speaker publicly on the floor of the house? Not much since politicians of all stripes when it comes down to it cover each others backsides better then Cling Wrap on a grapefruit.
Go read for yourself and see if you don't at least feel a slight tremble that somebody this high up in our government could be willing to put you and your loved ones on a target list just to score political points

Fidel Reads to Hugo

Cuba's President Fidel Castro (R) reads a book during a meeting with his Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chavez in Havana October 12, 2007. Ailing leader Castro, who has not appeared in public since July last year, met on Saturday for more than four hours with Chavez, Cuban state television said.

He's wearing the same tracksuit from his last appearance.

Naturally, he reads Hugo a bedtime story about Che.

Cuba released two photographs of Fidel Castro on Sunday in which the ailing leader looked alert as he stood and chatted with visiting Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

The pictures, published by the official Juventud Rebelde newspaper, show a gaunt Castro, but with good facial color, in the red, white and blue track suit top that has become his new garb since taking off his olive green uniform and temporarily ceding power to his brother Raul Castro over 14 months ago.

Castro, 81, has undergone at least three major operations in 14 months for undisclosed intestinal problems.

The jacket, in addition to sporting the Cuban colors, has CASTRO, with a Cuban shield below, emblazoned on the left side.

Holding a book about guerrilla fighter Ernesto "Che" Guevara, Castro is shown in the first photograph sitting and chatting with Chavez. In the second picture, Castro and Chavez are standing and shaking hands.

Notice any similarity in the outfits?

There Hugo Again

In a shocking development, Communist thug and leftwing media darling Hugo Chávez has decided to do what dictators normally do.

Make himself president for life.

His admirers at the New York Times swoon.

Chávez to Propose Removing His Term Limits

CARACAS, Venezuela, Aug. 14 — President Hugo Chávez will unveil a project to change the Constitution on Wednesday that is expected to allow him to be re-elected indefinitely, a move that would enhance his authority to accelerate a socialist-inspired transformation of Venezuelan society.

The removal of term limits for Mr. Chávez, which is at the heart of the proposal, is expected to be accompanied by measures circumscribing the authority of elected governors and mayors, who would be prevented from staying in power indefinitely, according to versions of the project leaked in recent weeks.

Willian Lara, the communications minister, said Mr. Chávez would announce the project before the National Assembly, where all 167 lawmakers support the president. Supporters of Mr. Chávez, who was re-elected last year with some 60 percent of the vote, also control the Supreme Court, the entire federal bureaucracy, public oil and infrastructure companies and every state government but two.

The aim of the overhaul is “to guarantee to the people the largest amount of happiness possible,” Mr. Lara said at a news conference on Tuesday.

So happy are the people, they'll do anything to flee the country.

Read the rest, if you feel like vomiting.

Cindy Sheehan, Danny Glover, and Jeff Spicoli were unavailable for comment.