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

Category: Hugo Chavez

  • They’re coming for our wallets

    I listened to Hillary on Fox News and Larry Kudlow proclaiming that she wants to take $36 billion in profits from the oil companies;

    The other day the oil companies recorded the highest profits in the history of the world. I want to take those profits. And I want to put them into a strategic energy fund that will begin to fund alternative smart energy, alternatives and technologies that will actually begin to move us in the direction of independence.

    The only links I can find to this quote are at right blogs, not a whisper anywhere in the news. The quote above came from NewsBusters. There’s a blog about Hillary’s Energy Agenda at Pajama Media by “Anonymous”.

    But doesn’t that seem odd that the main media isn’t reporting this any degree? Usually they’re is reporting every fricken syllable the woman speaks regardless from which orifice that syllable is expelled.

    Then we have Edwards on Meet the Press promising to raise our taxes to pay for his healthcare scheme.

    The bottom line is we’re asking everybody to share in the responsibility of making health care work in this country. Employers, those who are in the medical insurance business, employees, the American people — everyone will have to contribute in order to make this work.

    Nevermind that most Americans are paying for their own health insurance already. Do the rest of us get rebates because we’re responsible enough to plan for our own healthcare while the minority Edwards is trying to cover won’t?

    $120 billion/year cost to working Americans. God help us if Healthcare Hillary and this froo-froo form a party ticket next year. And since Edwards is always a bridesmaid and never a bride, that makes sense.

    So just take a wild guess what gas would cost us if Hillary seized oil company profits (actually she sounds a bit like Hugo Chavez, doesn’t she?) and then tack on Edward’s healthcare tax. I really don’t think working Americans will be able to afford to live in this country any longer after that election.

    This all so reminiscent of the 1984 when every talking head praised Walter Mondale for his “courage” to admit he was going to raise taxes in 1984 Convention acceptance speech (by falsely claiming that Reagan would raise taxes, too, Mondale was proving his honesty by telling the voters he would raise taxes up-front. To head off any stupid comments by my Leftist readers, Reagan didn’t raise taxes - he closed loopholes in then-current tax legislation.)

    I sure hope Dick Morris is wrong about the outcome of the next election. But I have a feeling he’s not.

  • Our new neighbors

    Daniel Ortega, newly-elected President of Nicaragua, signed a socialist trade pact yesterday with Venezuela, Bolivia, Venezuela and Cuba according to an AP story. Our good buddy Hugo Chavez was on hand to pass out goodies to the Nicaraguans in attendence including a few tractors to some farmers in front of an electrical plant shipped from Venezuela the day Ortega won his election.

    “Think of what Nicaragua would be like today if the North American imperialists had allowed Daniel to continue his revolution!” [Chavez] said.

    He promised a slew of aid and investment, including 100,000 barrels of oil under preferential terms and the construction of an oil refinery and factories for Venezuelan products. Later, Ortega and Chavez signed agreements giving Nicaragua $20 million in loans with little or no interest for the country’s rural poor as well as help improving health care and education.

    All the while Chavez railed against US policy in the region, policy Chavez has claimed ruined Central American economies. But, not as much as communist guerillas in the region have ruined economies, I’ll wager.

  • The case for domestic oil drilling

    If anybody learned anything yesterday, it should have been that we need to expand our domestic oil production. Russia and the Belarus battling each other over gas lines,Hugo Chavez nationalizing the US-corporation-owned telecommunications and electricity industry in Venezuela (while Chavez stays insulated from serious backlash with massive petrodollars after nationalizing the oil industry last year) to cries of “Always towards victory, Comandante!” from his cabinet.

    Iran appears to be running short of oil according to Roger Stern in the International Tribune which doesn’t do anything for stability in the oil-rich Persian Gulf. Without the US in the Gulf, Iran would be free to run rough shod over the emirates and then hold the world hostage to it’s lunatic President’s whims.

    A UPI story reports that the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta holds Nigerian oil production hostage to it’s demands that the industry be nationalized to “let profits benefit the people”. A chonology of the attacks on Nigerian oil by the rebels courtesy of Reuters.

    With vast reserves of oil in Alaska, the Gulf of Mexico and off the West Coast, it seems to make common sense to get ahead of the impending worldwide energy disaster. But no one has accused Democrats of having too much common sense.

    Since we haven’t built an oil refinery since 1978, it’d probably be a good idea to build or expand a few of those as well. In his 1979 “malaise speech“, Democrat President Jimmy Carter promised us that

    We will protect our environment. But when this nation critically needs a refinery or a pipeline, we will build it. 

    So where are the Democrats when there is a Republican administration facing an energy crisis? Are they on the side of working Americans or are they on their own selfish, political side?

    But President Bush’s administration is lifting a ban on drilling in Alaska’s Bristol Bay and boosting royalty rates to offset OPEC’s impending production cuts. While in the interim, Democrats are planning to cut back tax breaks for oil company exploration and development. So who’s really doing the people’s business here?

    Captain Ed comments on Chavez at Captain’s Quarters

  • Ominous rumblings from Chavez

    Maria Anastasia O’Grady writes in the Wall Street Journal from Venezuela the most troubling reports;

    Over the course of five days in Caracas last week, I couldn’t help but notice the ubiquitous image of President Hugo Chávez peering down from hundreds of his campaign banners that read “Vote against the devil; vote against the empire.” The nationalistic message denouncing President George W. Bush and the U.S. blanketed the capital.

    On election night, as it became clear that more votes had been cast for Mr. Chávez than for candidate Manuel Rosales, the president appeared on the balcony of Miraflores, the presidential palace, to proclaim that “the devil who tries to dominate the world,” had suffered another defeat.

    The red-clad Chávez dramatically recited from the Lord’s Prayer and then borrowed from it for his own prophesy. “Thy kingdom come,” he bellowed, and thereafter, “the kingdom of socialism.” The ailing Fidel Castro reportedly sent a short message from Havana congratulating Mr. Chávez and noting that “the victory was resounding, crushing and without parallel in the history of our America.”

    Couple this with Socialist winning elections in Equador and Uraguay and Daniel Ortega winning his election in Nicaragua. And then back it all up with Chavez’ endless petro dollars after nationalizing his oilfields. So if we somehow defeated the Islamist facists today, tommorrow we’d be shifting our focus to the south.

    It’s been my opinion for some time that Chavez has been taking advantage of the Middle East War to build himself up a power base and become the new Simon Bolivar. Most of the Central Americans I know think of him as a big joke, but with his non-stop flow of cash, his need to stay in power, and our current immigration problem, he’s becoming a bigger threat to us than the Arab terrorists.

  • Chavez; the Left’s darling

    Aside from the fact that Jimmy Carter certified his recall election in 2003, the Left has been in love with Hugo Chavez, former brother paratrooper and current Venezuelan President. On every discussion forum where I’ve participated in the last six years, The resident Leftists have gone out of their way to defend this populist-cum-Leftist-cum-communist applauding the way he “bravely” stands up to the US (when was the last time the US attempted to assasinate a foreign leader who wasn’t a threat to our national security?), the way he “bravely” seizes foreign assets and nationalizes them (like his mentor Fidel Castro did in Cuba-bankrupting a previously profitable economy).

    Hugo (pronounced oo-go in Spanish) has offered oil to the US poor through his now-nationalized oil company (Citgo) while his own people live in abject poverty – hundreds of thousands in lean-to huts on the edge of high-rise projects in urban areas.

    Well, now Hugo has threatened to shut down non-state media outlets in Venezuela and yesterday, on the eve of his election, shutdown US-based Telemundo’s election coverage. Doesn’t sound very liberal (in classical sense of the word) does it? Telemundo, though based in the US is far from US friendly (I watch their nightly news at least three time every week just to keep my language skills current), in fact I’d call them pro-Chavez given the coverage I’ve seen there.

    So what’s Chavez worried about. Nothing, really. He’s just demonstrating that he has a firm grasp of the people’s throats in Venezuela. He’s using the US as his boogeyman to scare people into believing that he’s the only thing that stands between them and US occupation – in the Noriega mold.

    The real danger in Chavez’ personnae is that he’s funding loyal Leftists and communists in neighboring countries with his oil profits. So the supposed “populist”, is funneling money that could go to help his own people into a buffer zone of South and Central American fiefdoms withholden to Chavez. In our own backyard.

     This threatens the security of the entire region. We are still dependent on the Panama canal to move our goods to market and keep our Navy supplied to some extent. They just voted to widen the Canal this last year which will increase our traffic there. We still depend on Latin American oil (the chance that we’ll develop our own resources in the next five years is pretty grim given the current make-up of Congress).

    And now he’s claimed victory in yesterday’s election – and in typical style has claimed it was a blow to President Bush, a point reiterated unsurprisingly by Iran. I wonder if he’s planning to get the chair at the DNC next year.

  • Europe smoldering

    AP is reporting that a Danish court threw out a lawsuit by Muslim organizations against Jyllands-Posten is response to their “evil” depictions of Mohammed last year.

    No Pasaran! (via Powerline) has a localized view of the beginnings of riots in Paris last night on the anniversary of last year’s riots. Four buses were torched by gun-wielding “youths” (“youths” is apparently French for Muslims). It looks like Europe couldn’t insulate themselves well enough against Islamofacism.

    I’m sure anger about the Danish courts and inaction of the French police will fuel even more riots tonight and through the weekend.

    Also via Powerline is this story from Argentina which has decided to issue an arrest warrant for former Iranian president Hashemi Rafsanjani (and seven others) for his role in the planning and approval (apparently by the Iranian government) of the 1994 bombing of a Jewish cultural center in Buenas Aires.

    Let’s just see if the Iranians’ new friend and fellow goat-roping aficianado, Hugo Chavez, has any influence over his South American (and oil-rich) neighbor.Â