Free Republic

Last week Jimmy Carter fired off letters to Venezuela’s fraudulent President Nicolas Maduro and to Venezuela’s defrauded Presidential candidate Enrique Capriles expressing “grave concern” regarding the political turmoil and bloodshed convulsing their nation. From his pulpit at Emory University’s Carter Center, the former U.S. president calls for “dialogue” among the embattled Venezuelan parties and offers to visit the troubled nation--but not as a formal “mediator.” The news of Carter’s proposed Venezuela visit was only hours old when alarmed Venezuelan anti-socialists sent out an SOS: “Please, desist from your trip,” reads an open letter from Venezuelan blogger/journalist Daniel Duquenal. “You have...

A new low in the disgrace of the American political class was reached when Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) took the floor this week to extol the virtues of Cuban communism. A new high immediately followed, as Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) rose to annihilate Harkin, and all the other miserable apologists for left-wing tyranny. The civilized world continues to pay an appalling price for failing to cast out communism with the same vehement disgust we showed towards fascism. Among other things, the difference in our attitude toward these monstrous evils blinds us to their similarities. Too many Western politicians and academics...

In this excellent 14 minute speech, Marco Rubio explains that Venezuela is turning into a Cuban-style dictatorship. He asks what good is Cuba’s high literacy rate if the government prevents the people from reading the things that they want to read. He asks what good is Cuba’s medical care if doctors can make more money from driving a taxi than from working as a doctor. He asks why, if Cuba is as great as its supporters in the U.S. say it is, do so many refugees, doctors, and baseball players flee Cuba for the United States, instead of it being...

For some reason the left can never see the dark red side of communism. Yet they'll trumpet every flaw about America!Yesterday I posted in pictures the story of student protests in Venezuela and asked why the left was either silent in support or on the side of the oppressive government thugocracy? A day earlier, Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA), an arch liberal reported on a recent trip to Cuba where he swallowed every bit of left wing propaganda that was served up to him by the Cuban government. Senator Rubio (R-FL) followed Harkin to the floor with the real story about...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_wKhXurFyI

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter is expressing concern about Venezuela's escalating political crisis and wants to meet with leaders on both sides in an upcoming trip. Carter, a mediator of past political conflict in the deeply polarized South American nation, made the offer in private letters he sent this week to President Nicolas Maduro and opposition leader Henrique Capriles. Expressing "grave concern" about the loss of life in recent protests and the risk of more conflict ahead, Carter in the letter to Capriles said that for dialogue aimed at easing tensions to succeed both side must...

Anti-government demonstrators set up barricades and started fires in Venezuela's capital on Monday despite calls from within the opposition to rein in protests in which at least 12 people have died in the OPEC nation. Traffic slowed to a crawl around Caracas, and many people stayed home, as protestors burned trash and debris along main avenues a day after opposition leader Henrique Capriles called on them to keep demonstrations peaceful. "We know we're bothering people but we have to wake up Venezuela!" student Pablo Herrera, 23, said next to a barricade in the affluent Los Palos Grandes district of Caracas....

Dan from Squirrel Hill's Blog Hugo Chavez was an incompetent, communist dictator, who wreaked havoc on Venezuela’s ability to produce goods and services Last year, Hugo Chavez, the President of Venezuela, died.How do I know that Chavez was a dictator?Because only a dictator would use the military to seize food from private owners.How do I know that Chavez was incompetent?Because only a complete incompetent could create a shortage of gasoline in a country that has some of the world’s biggest oil reserves.How do I know that Chavez was a communist?Because only a communist would label toilet paper as a “luxury.”Hugo Chavez...

Venezuelan political opposition leader and founder of the Popular Will Party, Leopoldo López, will spend the next 45 days in the Ramo Verde jail in Los Teques. During that time, the Public Prosecutor’s Office will decide whether it seeks to convict him of the alleged planning of the violent incidents that happened after the opposition rally on February 12 in the center of Caracas. Judge Ralenis Tovar Guillén delivered the detention measure today at 1:00 a.m. inside the military prison where López is held. She made use of a “mobile court” unit — basically a bus repurposed to function as...

U.S. Investigates Voting Machines’ Venezuela Ties By TIM GOLDEN Published: October 29, 2006 The federal government is investigating the takeover last year of a leading American manufacturer of electronic voting systems by a small software company that has been linked to the leftist Venezuelan government of President Hugo Chávez. Enlarge This Image Tim Boyle/Getty Images A touch-screen machine by Sequoia Voting Systems was used this month during early balloting in Chicago. Politics Blog News, updates and insights on the midterm elections, the race for 2008 and everything in-between. Go to Election Guide More Politics News The inquiry is focusing on...

President Nicolas Maduro is taking a page out of the Castro playbook to violently oppress Venezuelans who are demanding an end to his disastrous rule. February 21, 2014 (202) 228-7561 WASHINGTON, DC -- U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz released the following statement regarding the crisis in Venezuela:"As opposition protests drag into their second week in Venezuela, President Nicolas Maduro is taking a page out of the Castro playbook to violently oppress Venezuelans who are demanding an end to his disastrous rule. Activists have been detained and abused, and even shot dead in the streets. Opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez, who has emerged...

Venezuelan police and opposition demonstrators have clashed at the end of a march that gathered tens of thousands of people in Caracas. Several people were injured, as police fired tear gas and activists hurled stones in the Altamira district....

With intensifying unrest and the Maduro regime fighting a losing battle for survival, it appears that Hugo Chávez’s ‘Bolivarian revolution’ will outlive him by about a year. Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro is fighting a losing battle to salvage his regime, and student demonstrations that will continue today are only one of his problems. As details of his government’s bankruptcy are made public, his political base will continue to splinter. And as he follows Cuban advice to use brute force against peaceful demonstrators, the nationalist military will find the growing violence intolerable. In short, Maduro’s condition is terminal.According to a source...

The protesters in Venezuela do not seek anything extraordinary: They demand to be secure in their homes and their persons, they demand an end to current shortages of staple foods and other goods in the country, and they demand the right to free speech. That these things should be considered a challenge to the Maduro regime is what is extraordinary, along with the regime’s brutal response to the protests — both speak to the character of the current Venezuelan government. If honoring such basic human decencies requires a regime change in Caracas, that is more a reflection on the current...

Caracas (AFP) - President Nicolas Maduro said Saturday that remarks by US Secretary of State John Kerry on the unrest in Venezuela gave violent groups a "green light" to carry out attacks. In a tweet, Maduro also slammed the remarks made by Kerry late Friday as "arrogant" and "insolent." "John Kerry threatens Venezuela with more violence, with his statements gives the green light to violent groups to attack our people," Maduro wrote.

Caracas held on of its biggest rallies ever. The pictures of the Francisco de Miranda avenue packed cannot lie. And cannot be ignored. See previous post. There were also many marches/rallies around the country, some very well attended (Merida to name one), some in more obscure places but where there had never been anything in the past, so even 50 folks is a huge deal there.

Venezuela's Socialist government has warned it will suspend the passports of arrested protesters for five years amid a hardening crackdown on the bloody unrest that has spread nationwide in recent weeks, threatening to consume the volatile oil-rich nation. Anger erupted among demonstrators in Caracas, as news broke on Friday night of the Interior Ministry resolution that anyone detained for disturbing the peace and the public order or participating in acts of violence would be barred from leaving the country. "We're turning into Cuba", government opponents wailed as they once again took to the streets for the daily protests that have...

As the world focuses on the demonstrations and “Day of Liberation” in Kiev, as the oppressive regime in Ukraine has fled to areas in which they have support, events closer to the United States are also flaring up.While the demonstrations against the leftist dictatorship of Nicolas Maduro continue in Venezuela, news has arrived that a new group of Cuban troops has arrived in Caracas to help the regime defeat the protestors. As PJ Media contributor Alberto de la Cruz [1] reports at Babalu [2], the anti-Castro website, these troops are in fact “simply joining the thousands of other Cuban...

How are things coming along in Venezuela, that paradise of democratic socialism? You must remember Venezuela. That's the country that Diane Abbott said was showing "a better way", which Owen Jones told us had proven that "you can lead a progressive, popular government that says no to neo-liberalism"? The apple in the eye of Marx, the last hope for humanity in a world of fat cat banksters and austerity Scrooges. The Copacobana of the international revolution. Viva! How is Venezuela doing? Well, tens of thousands of protesters are in the streets, the army's been sent to crush revolt, an opposition...

In the face of the massive violence taking place in Venezuela, Texas Senator Ted Cruz, in a statement released today, sharply criticized Venezuela President and hand-picked successor to Marxist Hugo Chavez, Nicolas Maduro as using strongman tactics similar to Cuban communist tyrant Fidel Castro: “As opposition protests drag into their second week in Venezuela, President Nicolas Maduro is taking a page out of the Castro playbook to violently oppress Venezuelans who are demanding an end to his disastrous rule. Activists have been detained and abused, and even shot dead in the streets.” Cruz went onto call out Maduro for arresting...