This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Economy

  • Montgomery County protest against illegal day labor center

    I’m a resident of Montgomery County, Maryland. You probably know Montgomery County from the incident a few years ago over smoking – they enacted and then retracted a ban on people smoking in their own homes. That’s the kind of goofballs running this haven for yuppies and hippies. They’re also blocking the expansion of facilities for Walter Reed at the Bethesda Naval Hospital installation because it will tie up their traffic. But they care about the troops – uh-uh.

    Well, yesterday there was a stand-off between MoCo residents at a Gaithersburg Day Labor Center funded with County taxpayer dollars. From the Washington Times;

    Separated by a line of police officers, the demonstrators taunted each other, often with profanity-laced insults, from across a street for several hours outside the county-owned center in Derwood beginning at around 8 a.m.

    “This trailer is in better condition than our schools,” said Brad Botwin, director of Help Save Maryland, an offshoot of the Help Save Virginia group that was formed to lobby local officials for tougher enforcement of immigration laws.

    Protesters said they are angry elected officials in Montgomery County are supporting illegal aliens and the contractors who hire them with a new laborer center.

    “I don’t want to do what I’m doing here today, but there are times when the government is corrupt,” said Ken Aldrich, operations director for the Maryland Minutemen Civil Defense Corps.

    They make a good point, actually. The hippies and yuppies in Montogery County have let the Council run slipshod over taxpayers here for years. County income taxes are astronomical yet the coouncil has blocked useful spending on infrastructure while paying for social programs like this day labor center.

    From the Washington Examiner;

    “[Governor] O’Malley has put out a list of pending budget cuts for libraries, schools, care for the elderly and hospitals, but we have money for illegal aliens?,” said Brad Botwin, director of HelpSaveMaryland.com, an anti-illegal immigration group. “How is there money for this but not other things?”

    County officials say they are not concerned about the protest plans.

    “It’s a free country,” county spokesman Patrick Lacefield said. “I think one of the things our recent report showed is that since the newest center opened there have been no incidents of any kind, which is quite in contrast with the inflammatory rhetoric that some folks, including these groups, throw out to try and scare people.”

    The county released a progress report in early July that said center staff tallied 596 daily job placements and 208 new employers using the Gaithersburg center in May.

    Botwin said the figures are unreliable because they were compiled by CASA of Maryland, an immigrant advocacy group that operates the center.

    “There’s nothing that an illegal can do that CASA thinks is wrong,” Botwin said. “There was no independent audit of these statistics.”

    Ah, so as long as the criminals who’ve come here illegally behave themselves, we’ll throw taxpayer dollars at them, huh? That’s the kind of vacant rhetoric we like to hear from our lawmakers.

    Fernando Garavito, who manages the center, said small bands of protesters routinely show up during the week.

    “That is a good thing in this country, that you have freedom of speech,” he said.

    Mr. Garavito said that although the center does not check the immigration status of the immigrants who come looking for work, they all pay taxes, like every other American.

    So even though he doesn’t check their immigration status, he knows they pay taxes? That’s a fairly ignorant thing to say. In fact here’s even more vacuous crap coming from our County Executive, as reported by WTOPnews.com;

    County Executive Isiah “Ike” Leggett supports the day-laborer center and says Montgomery County will not follow in the footsteps of Prince William and Loudoun counties. Those jurisdictions this month passed legislation against giving services to illegal immigrants.

    So this one petty little criminal hiding behind an elected office presumes to speak for the entire county? In the face of protesters to his policy from that same county?

    And of course the Left cloaks the protesters in xenophobic terms – that’s not true. Most of us aren’t anti-immigration – we are anti-illegal immigration. I don’t give a tiny rat’s ass how many jobs in this country are lost to immigrants – as long as the immigrants have a fricken visa.

    And the entire Montgomery County Council should be locked up for aiding and abetting thousands of counts of felonies. And give me a rebate on my taxes.

  • Living in the 60s; divided we fall

    OK, there was something familiar in the political climate that I couldn’t quite put my finger on – until I read this story from the Politico’s Mike Allen;

    Sen. John Edwards plans to warn later this week that the nation’s schools have become segregated by race and income, and he will propose measures to diversify both inner-city and middle-class schools.

    It feels like the 60s again, doesn’t it? Yesterday Edwards, the prettiest Democrat candidate, was talking about a “poverty tour” and today it’s busing and desegregating schools. The other candidates (and Edwards included) are all “against the war” (whatever that means today), they’re all for raising taxes “on the rich” (whoever that is these days). All of the broke-dick, big-government Liberal issues that brought on the malaise of the 70s are rearing their heads – as if history never happened.

    It doesn’t help that the media are all in on it and the old hippies who are now “journalists” play the game. Like this syncophantic piece from the Washington Post;

    “A lot of Americans think of people who are struggling as people who don’t want to work, and that’s nonsense. We need to make sure the country understands that,” the Democratic former senator from North Carolina said.

    On the second day of an eight-state tour of impoverished communities in the South and Midwest, Edwards tried to connect his presidential campaign with the legacy of King and Robert F. Kennedy and the issue they tried to publicize in the 1960s: poverty. The four-day tour will end in Prestonsburg, Ky., where Kennedy concluded a tour of Appalachia in 1968.

    So, the guy with $400 haircuts and $1/2 million dollar part-time jobs carries the mantle of King and RFK now. I can just see King and Kennedy standing at the gates of Heaven with baseball bats waiting for Edwards’ arrival – and this Perry Bacon, Junior from the Washington Post.

    “We still have two public school systems in this country,” Edwards said. “They’re not segregated just based on race. They’re segregated, to a large extent, based on economics, which has racial implications.”

    The result is, Edwards continued, “if you live in a wealthy suburban area, the odds are very high that your child will get a very good public school education. If you live in the inner city or if you live in a poor rural area, the odds of that go down dramatically. And I think there are very specific things we can do to not only improve the quality of the education in those areas but also to improve the quality of our schools at large.”

    Funny how Federal programs and robbing the American taxpayers of their earnings is always the solution – until the big-government program fails and then the answer is always more money. That’s how we ended up with a 70% tax bracket in the 70s.

    Edwards, and the Democrats as a whole, act as if there is no possiblity for economic mobility in this country. They act as if we’re born to a station in life and that’s where we remain – as if this is 18th century France. The opportunities exist – everywhere in this country. granted there are people who don’t take advantage of those opportunities, but how is it my responsibility to pay for others’ bad choices?

    If I were one of those inner-city or rural teachers, I’d be pissed at Edwards. How dare he say that those teachers aren’t interested in teaching kids until they get more Federal money? So where’s the outrage? Edwards called all of you inner-city and rural school teachers greedy, heartless capitalists. Yeah, I can just hear the howls of rage – hypocrites.

    And this “Two Americas” crap is played out. Edwards is just playing two sides against each other. Ronald Reagan brought America together, and now Edwards is trying to tear us apart like Johnson, Nixon and Carter did. We beat the Nazis and the Soviet Union when we all pulled together. How are we going to defeat Islamofacism with the Democrats pulling us apart?

  • John Edwards – one-note Charlie

    The prettiest girl in the Democrat Presidential lineup, John Edwards claims he wants to remind America about poor people, according to the Politico’s Richard Allan Greene;

    Edwards, a consistent third in the polls for the Democratic nomination, is swinging through 12 cities in eight states over three days “in order to bring attention to the 37 million Americans living in poverty.” 

    Now, the Edwards’ camp claims that this isn’t part of the campaign – and if we believe that there’s some real estate development opportunities in New Orleans they’d like to talk with us about.

    The Edwards camp says their man is “taking a break from [his] normal campaign schedule” and emphasizes that the tour does not include any of the early-voting states.

    But campaign manager Joe Trippi did send out an e-mail on Friday under the header “George Bush doesn’t care about poor people.”

    Is George Bush running for President again in ’08? Apparently Joe Trippi thinks that’s true. So why would John Edwards be focusing on poverty in the US (aside from emmulating Robert F. Kennedy in the ’68 election)? Because Edwards is a typical Liberal Democrat – he’s playing to Democrats’ guilt for their successes in what ever endeavor they’ve chosen. Like Edwards himself who channels the ghosts of dead babies into the courtroom to the tune of millions of dollars.

    Edwards made a half-million dollars as a consultant to a hedgefund while learning what hedgefunds do (it’s always been my understanding that consultants know more about the business they’re hired to advise than that business – but what do I know). Edwards funds a charity for the poor that doesn’t do anything for the poor except send John Edwards out to talk to groups of rich Liberals about the poor (with whom Edwards has never met, by the way – ask his middleclass neighbor in North Carolina) at meals that the poor couldn’t imagine in their wildest dreams.

    But we all know that the media will follow him around like a fricken puppydog and record every word that falls from his pretty mouth. 

    “While we’re pleased that a presidential candidate is showing an interest in Eastern Kentucky, we’re a little cautious about Edwards’ visit since the theme of his tour is poverty,” Tony Fyffe wrote in an editorial titled “Visit is welcome but could have negative impact” on Wednesday.

    He predicted “news footage of rundown homes, trash-ridden roads and streams, etc.” and complained that  “Kentucky is nothing more than a poverty-stricken state, according to the national media.”

    If Edwards does make his way to the White House, Fyffe wrote, “we hope Edwards returns to the region and puts his poverty action plan to work. Something tells us, however, that we’ll be just a memory as soon as the tour bus leaves the region next Wednesday.”

    I guess Fyffe is just writing these predictions based on Edwards’ past performance as the prettiest girl in the campaign.

  • El Pollo Rico esta cerrado; Illegal Immigrants deported

    I saw this story initially on Telemundo’s local news last night and to hear it told on the Spanish language channel, you’d have thought that Federal agents were persecuting hispanic-Americans. I didn’t hear anything about the money laundering until I searched the web. This from the Washington Post;

    Four members of a family that owns popular chicken restaurants in the Washington area were arrested by federal agents yesterday for knowingly employing illegal immigrants and laundering the money earned from that business, according to immigration officials.

    Francisco Carlos Solano, 55, and his his wife, Inos Solano, 59, of Germantown; Consuelo Solano, 69, of Arlington County; and Juan Faustino Solano, 57, of Kensington were charged with employing and harboring illegal immigrants, money laundering and structuring deposits to avoid financial reporting requirements, according to a criminal complaint unsealed yesterday. Nine employees of their El Pollo Rico restaurant in Wheaton were taken into custody and will be placed in deportation proceedings, authorities said.

    The Solanos were all legal immigrants from Peru and Columbia – but they were dealing with illegal immigrants. Now, to hear Telemundo’s news readers tell it, Federal agents were harrassing Hispanic businesses, but as it turns out, Federal agents were arresting criminals. Even if you disregard the fact that they were harboring illegals, there was still over $7 million dollars being laundered – and that could’ve been used in the drug trade or terrorist activities – or human trafficking. From the Post again;

    Federal agents say the Solanos deposited more than $6.6 million into a business account between June 2002 and September 2006 in increments of $7,000 to $9,000, which authorities say was done to avoid filing currency transaction reports that must be submitted with deposits that exceed $10,000.

    Now that’s supicious. From the local NBC4 news;

    On Friday, agents said they seized more than $3 million in cash and jewelry from residences of the defendants, and several vehicles.

    Investigators said the money was hidden but could easily be accessed at the residences in Germantown and Wheaton.

    “In one residence we found over $2 million concealed in various places, including kitchen cabinets. In the other residence we found about $1.5 million in various safes,” said James Dinkins, of Immigration Customs and Enforcement.

    Officials said their investigation began about a year ago because of suspicious banking activity such as a quick succession of high-volume deposits and withdrawals. Officials said the underlying immigration violations were revealed over the course of the investigation.

    Nine immigrant workers, employees of El Pollo Rico and residents of Guatemala, were arrested and charged with immigration violations in connection to the case. Officials said they face possible deportation.

    I’ll tell you why this story interests me; it’s about a quarter-mile from my home (I prefer to live among Latins and Asians than among the goofy yuppies and hippies in Chevy Chase and Bethesda). The smoke from the roasting chicken filled the air of the hill on which Wheaton sits and is a beacon to the passing hungry people. Apparently, I’ve been complicit since I’ve been a frequent customer of El Pollo Rico – y es la verdad que el pollo esta bien sabroso y rico. Pero…I mean…but that’s definitely criminal behavior.

    This morning I went to my local barbershop, where the haircutters are Latin and Chinese immigrants (legal, I’m sure) was empty. Usually the whole neighborhood is bustling with Latin customers, but not today. The Washington Post noticed, too;

    “There’s much hubbub right now because of what happened,” Juan Lopez, 27, of Wheaton said in Spanish. “There are many people who don’t want to return to work, because they think immigration will come back.”

    Lopez, who said he entered the country legally, said he quit his job at a nearby business because he feared immigration officers.

    Seems to me that a legal immigrant would have nothing to fear. And I wonder if Juan Lopez was his real name.

    What really pissed me off about the whole thing (besides the fact that I’ve been duped by El Pollo Rico into funding whatever illegal activity they’ve been involved in) is the Montogomery County Police Chief J. Thomas Manger on Telemundo last night explaining that Montgomery County cops were not involved in the raid and that the Hispanic community has nothing to fear from the Mont. Co. Police because they have no intention of enforcing the law in Montgomery County. There’s nothing on the Mont. Co. Police website of the television conference. I guess the statement was in reaction to things like this quoted from the Post story;

    [Luis] Lora also worried that the arrest would negatively impact the image of the Hispanic community. “They make the community look bad,” Lora said. “If he’s a minority, people will say every minority does the same thing.”

    And the arrests and the ensuing rumors caused a near riot at the small strip mall;

    Shortly after the raid, rumors of immigration arrests spread throughout the community, which is heavily populated by Latinos, causing several witnesses to become angry, News4’s Jackie Bensen said.

    According to Bensen, that anger appeared to boil over when a crowd in the shopping center where Pollo Rico is located witnessed a tow truck towing an SUV that belonged to a restaurant employee.

    The tow truck was taking the vehicle away because it violated the parking time limit, Bensen said. The move caused an angry exchange between witnesses and the tow truck driver.

    Friends of the SUV owner teamed up to pull the vehicle off of the tow truck, Bensen said. The owner then left the scene in the vehicle.

    That’s stupid. If the Latin community quit facilitating illegal immigration by equating it with legal immigration, and calling 4th and 5th generation Americans illegal immigrants, maybe they’d be taken a little more seriously. Legal immigrants helping illegal immigrants enter this country and setting up shop doesn’t help, either.

    I’ve always admitted that I admire the work ethic many Latin immigrants bring to this country – and in Metro DC, the truth is that illegals do the jobs that the lazy-ass Americans who populate this welfare kingdom won’t do for any price. That may sound cliche` to many of you, but you have to live here to see it for yourself.

    However, I support the federal government enforcing the law and shipping every illegal they catch back to their own countries – I also hope that those who are deported and who want to come here and work hard come back legally.

  • Irony overload

    Just doing my daily blog reading and from two of my favorites too much irony for one person to stand – so I pass off some of it to ya’all. First from Atlas Shrugs, the all-by-itself-laughable story of the UN’s new Global Compact initiative to teach private business to be more responsible;

    Its goal is promoting more virtuous behavior on the part of private business, and just last week it hosted what its own brochure described as an “historic” two-day corporate jamboree at the UN’s palatial offices in Geneva.

    And then, as if by magic, I turned to Bloodthirsty Liberal to read;

    A new audit has found that renovating the iconic U.N. headquarters building is already $148 million over budget, long before the dirt has been shoveled.

    Delays and design changes to the nearly $2 billion project have created the initial cost overrun, according to a report from the U.N. Board of Auditors, which further finds that the United Nations has yet to undertake important pre-construction surveys.

    So, the most innefficient, nonproductive, irresponsible and corrupt entity in the world wants to teach us all how to be successful and responsible.

  • Treason

    Apparently, US Congressmen standing on Saddam Hussein’s terrace declaring that Hussein is a more rational actor and more trustworthy than President Bush on the eve of our invasion of Hussein’s Iraq is not treason.

    The US Speaker of the House meeting with terrorist governments and transmitting false messages from other governments against the advice of the Executive Branch is not treason. Facilitating the sales of space and missile technology to our economic and military rival, China, in return for political campaign donations is not treason. Turning a blind eye to North Korea’s nuclear program is not treason.

    Calling our soldiers murderers and SS concentration camp guards is not treason. Demanding the release from Guantanamo of dangerous terrorists bent on our destruction is not treason. Facilitating the immigration invasion from our South is not treason.

    So what is treason these days? Ask Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.;

    “Get rid of all these rotten politicians that we have in Washington, who are nothing more than corporate toadies,” said Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the environmentalist author, president of Waterkeeper Alliance and Robert F. Kennedy’s son, who grew hoarse from shouting. “This is treason. And we need to start treating them as traitors.”

    Yep, global warming deniers are treasonous. People who question the Flat Earth Society of Global Warming Nuts are treasonous. If you don’t run around behind Chicken Little Manbearpig and screech that the sky is falling, you’re a traitor.

    Yet let’s be content, and the times lament, you see the world turn’d upside down.

  • Latin America and the Democrats

    The Gateway Pundit has a great piece today about Democrats playing Russian Roulette with our foreign policy in regards to Latin America entitled FARC You! where he catalogues Democrat hypocrisy towards our allies in that region.

    The reason it caught my eye is some of the rhetoric I’ve been hearing from the Left in regards to the Bush Administration in Latin America that’s not exactly the truth. For example, Barack Obama has a statement on his senate.gov website that claims the Bush Administration isn’t engaged in Latin America;

    I am, however, disappointed that the President has fallen so short in his promise to transform U.S. relations with the Americas. Our regional relationships cannot be properly attended to with one six-day trip, a series of photo opportunities, and some lofty rhetoric on collaboration.

    Neglect? Why, just this week, the Bush Administration has finalized trade agreements with Peru, Columbia and Panama – to absolutely no fanfare in the press. because these trade pacts are all opposed by Big Labor. Oh, and they’re good for the US – can’t see the President getting good press over anything can we? These trade agreements give these country the ecomonic power to keep their residents at home instead sending them here as illegal immigrants. (Not to mention, it might drive the price of sugar down far enough that Coca Cola might put sugar in that drink again and make it tasty again)

    In Miami this week, Obama said, “It’s not sufficient for us to have Latin American policy based on not liking Hugo Chavez and not liking Fidel Castro.” That’s pretty simplistic rhetoric, actually. The Bush administration has pretty much ignored Chavez and Castro – I don’t see any statements coming out of the White House everytime Banana-brains starts yammering paranoid rants about someone wanting to kill his useless ass. I don’t think anyone in the Administration has even acknowledged that Chavez exists. His own people can deal with him – and Castro – phht – he’ll be dead soon enough, so who cares.

    President Bush even travelled around Central and South America in the Fall of 2005 – I left Panama the day before he arrived and it was the talk of the entire country. He’s a very popular figure there, despite the bad press.

    Think maybe our stature in Latin America has suffered because Democrats won’t meet with our greatest ally in the region President Alvaro Uribe has been snubbed by the Congressional Democrats as well as Al Gore. This from a Mary Anatasia O’Grady piece in the Wall Street Journal from April entitled “One Righteous Gringo“;

    Al Gore may not have known that he was taking the side of a former terrorist and ally of Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chávez when he waded into Colombian politics 10 days ago. But that’s not much consolation to 45 million Colombians who watched their country’s already fragile international image suffer another unjust blow, this time at the hands of a former U.S. vice president.

    The event was a climate-change conference in Miami, where Mr. Gore and Colombian President Álvaro Uribe were set to share the stage. At the last minute, Mr. Gore notified the conference organizers that he refused to appear with Mr. Uribe because of “deeply troubling” allegations of human- rights violations swirling around the Colombian government.

    It is not clear whether the ex-veep knows that making unsubstantiated claims of human-rights violations has been a key guerrilla weapon for more than a decade, along with the more traditional practices of murdering, maiming and kidnapping civilians. Nor is it clear whether Mr. Gore knew that the recycled charges that caught his attention are being hyped by Colombian Sen. Gustavo Petro, a close friend of Mr. Chávez and former member of the pro-Cuban M-19 terrorist group. What we do know is that Mr. Gore’s line of reasoning — that Colombia is not good enough to rub shoulders with the righteous gringos — is also being peddled by some Democrats in Congress, the AFL-CIO and other forces of anti-globalization. The endgame is all about killing the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement.

    When Mr. Uribe got wind of Mr. Gore’s decision to stand him up, he rightly interpreted its significance: Colombia is the victim of an international smear campaign that, if left unchecked, could undermine congressional support for the pending trade deal. Rather than let the whispering go on, Mr. Uribe elevated the matter, calling two press conferences over two days to refute the charges, which he says are damaging the country’s interests. He also asked Mr. Gore to look “at Colombia closely” so he could see the progress that has been made.

    By the way, President Uribe’s father was killed by terrorists – tough for them if he’s a little harsh in dealing with them. Since when is Al Gore willing to trade our friends down the river because he heard an unsubstantiated rumor somewhere?  

    So how exactly is Bush damaging our relations in Latin America? He’s got Democrats undermining his efforts with their petty politics, Democrats winging their way to Venezuela to gladhand with blood-soaked tyrants while they turn their backs on the people who are helping fight our enemies.

    Just like in the Middle East where Democrats have tea with our enemies and snub our allies. Maybe we have all of these problems because we present a fickle foreign policy – towards all of our allies and our enemies. Our foreign policy is ambiguous because we have 525 ambassadors in Congress – not to mention the ancillary ambassadors who are former presidents and vice-presidents. 

    I’m pretty certain that the founding fathers intended that the president be the sole voice of our nation to other nations. Maybe we need to impeach all of these extraneous diplomats floating around the world operating under a false flag.

  • Chavez needs submarines to find his popularity rating

    (Photo from Venezuela Llora, Venezuela Sangra)

    There was another march against Chavez yesterday not that you’d read about it from any US news organization. But Tank at Venezuela Llora, Venezuela Sangra has photos and videos. Pretty impressive crowd, actually. For the story, El Universal;

    On the National Journalists’ Day, on June 27, Venezuelan journalists are not celebrating. Rather, they are staging a march in Caracas streets to demand President Hugo Chávez to order resumption of private television station RCTV’s broadcast on its original open signal and to advocate freedom of expression.

    The march -organized by Periodistas Unidos por la Libertad de Expresión (Journalists United for Freedom of Expression)- is departing from Plaza Venezuela at 10:00 a.m. to the headquarters of RCTV in Quinta Crespo, west Caracas.

    The student movement, actors, and workers and trade unions of news media, professional associations, political parties, and non-governmental associations will join reporters.  

    Gateway Pundit has more photos and news.

    Chavez missed the protests, though – he was submarine shopping in Russia. According to Daniel at Venezuela News and Views;

    Thus as it is usual with Chavez, when the going gets rough, the rough start traveling overseas. First a trip to Russia to see if the submarines, 9 of them, will be bought or not. Venezuela as just gadget to go and rescue people that will be taken by the frequent floods of our starting raining season. Even there ridicule pursues Chavez.

    And then he will move on to Tehran.

    And while Chavez was in Russia, he couldn’t help but inject himself into another dispute that doesn’t involve him (how would a missile shield in Europe possibly affect the people of Venezuela) so he could cozy-up to Vlad Putin and get some verbal shots in against the US;

    Venezuela supports Russia’s opposition to the deployment of a US missile shield in Europe, President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela said here Thursday.

    […]

    “We support Russia (in its stance), we need Russia, which is becoming stronger day by day,” he said, adding that Venezuela intended to continue cooperating closely with Moscow, including in the military sphere.

    Russia has repeatedly stated that it would actively participate in the modernization of the Venezuelan armed forces until 2013.

    In 2005-2006, Venezuela ordered weaponry from Russia worth $3.4 billion, including 24 Su-30MK2V Flanker fighters, Tor-M1 air defense missile systems, Mi-17B multi-role helicopters, Mi-35 Hind E attack helicopters and Mi-26 Halo heavy transport helicopters.

    The country also purchased 100,000 AK-103 Kalashnikov assault rifles from Russia in 2005 and sent its fighter and helicopter pilots for training in Russia.

    The South American country has been vigorously pursuing the modernization of its armed forces to counter a possible US blockade of its oil fields and to prepare for a direct military confrontation with Washington.

    Comforting, isn’t it? Except we know that the Venezuelans would never directly engage in a war with the US – it’s not in our mutual interest. Neither country has anything the other would want – the only possible exception is that it would increase Chavez’ power to engage us in a shooting war – at least the perception of his power, in the region if not among his own people.

    Chavez also said;

    “If the United States attacks Venezuela, we are ready to die defending our sacred land,” Chavez said Thursday.

    Who is “we”, little fella? First of all, the US has no intention of ever invading the peaceful Venezuelan people. Secondly, I’m pretty sure you’d have trouble summoning anyone to help you if we did. And that’s probably why Chavez is pushing for a defense pact with his new Left neighbors – to use them against his people like Mugabe planned on using Angolan troops to quell his own people in Zimbabwe.

    So, as I said the other day, Chavez is building up his army to protect himself from his own people. Either to stir up something with the US to build a false sense of patriotism, or, failing that, a direct action against the people of Venezuela when their sense of patriotism tells them that Chavez is bad for Venezuela.

    Why? Well, how about economic reasons;

    Venezuela’s bolivar weakened in unregulated trading and dollar-denominated bonds tumbled after Exxon Mobil Corp. and ConocoPhillips abandoned operations in the country, raising doubts about future oil output in the world’s fifth-largest crude-oil exporter.

    […]

    “[Exxon conceding control of it’s facilities in Venezuela] sparks additional anxiety regarding the future of oil investment in Venezuela,” said Enrique Alvarez, a Latin America economist at the research firm Ideaglobal in New York. “Investors are going to the dollar as a safe haven.”

    The bolivar weakened to 4,180 per dollar in the unofficial dollar market from 4,050 yesterday, traders said. People and businesses turn to the parallel market when they are unable to acquire the limited number of dollars the government sells at the official exchange rate of 2,150 bolivars per dollar.

    All of the oil in the world can’t do you any good if you don’t have cash. Investors rushing to buy dollars will only compound Chavez problems. Daniel at Venezuela News and Views   has already reported food shortages in parts of Venezuela;

    Gas shortages too , and winter is starting. And all due, as in Venezuela, to unreasonable price controls which are kept up for political reasons. Price control, the eternal soft drug of populist regimes…. and with always the same consequences: higher inflation than the neighboring countries.

    While Hugo cavorts and glad hands with all the tyrants he can find.

    Cartoon from Noticias 24 (h/t Kate)