Venezuela

Leave it to Reuters in this April 29 article, to express surprise that Hugo Chavez' planned economy, complete with “land reform,” price controls and forced production, is failing. Even worse, reporter Frank Jack Daniels relied on a Marxist outlook and socialist jargon to pretend that those tired policies weren't to blam. Chavez wants to increase domestic food production; so, of course, the…

Who knew that Bart Simpson still had it? Years after "The Simpsons" merged into the American cultural mainstream, the show is still raising hackles--in socialist Venezuela where a government regulatory agency decreed it was "inappropriate for children."Replacing the "inappropriate" show will be reruns of, and this is not a joke, "Baywatch: Hawaii," the late 90s lifeguard show famous for its…

Leftist Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez is threatening neighboring Colombia with war after that country successfully killed via airstrike FARC terrorists in a camp in Ecuador. Yet in reporting the story, CBSNews.com and the AP downplayed the terroristic nature of the leftist rebel movement.The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) has been on a Comprehensive List of Terrorists and Groups…

"Chavez inspires left but [is] no icon," insists the headline for a February 21 story by Reuters reporter Frank Jack Daniel. Daniel took time to examine what role Chavez could play in rallying Latin American leftists now that the Fidel Castro has kindly retired to let little hermano Raul take the wheel for a while indefinitely.Daniel practically makes Chavez sound like the Barack Obama of Latin…

On February 18, the Zenit News Service reported that the apostolic nunciature in Caracas, Venezuela - the Holy See’s equivalent of an embassy in the country - was bombed on Thursday [February 14]. The bombing "caused only minor damages. The facade of the structure was also vandalized by political graffiti." The Zenit story was one of only four items on the bombing that came up during a Google…

During a two part interview on the Thursday and Friday CBS "Early Show," co-host Maggie Rodriguez asked Hugo Chavez’s ex-wife, Marisabel Rodriguez, "Is Hugo Chavez a charismatic leader or a mad man?" This was followed later by the question, "Is he a Communist?" To which Marisabel Rodriguez responded: "If he's not, he's very similar to one."Maggie Rodriguez, who is Cuban-American, had several…

One of the most liberal newspapers in America recently mocked "celebrities making asses of themselves...hanging out with the world's most notorious dictators and other authoritarian figures." One such a-a-actor, Sean Penn, who has actually written for the paper in question, struck back Monday by calling the outlet "lame-brain," "desperate," and having "become Mad Magazine for small-minded…

After the Venezuela referendum, I 'd been waiting for the first MSMer to make an invidious comparison between Hugo Chavez and George W. Bush.Didn't take long:"[D]emocracy was alive and vital in Venezuela on Sunday in a way foreign to President Bush’s America."That's Roger Cohen writing in today's New York Times, reacting to Chavez's apparent acceptance of the referendum results that turned thumbs…

The Associated Press, Los Angeles Times, and Washington Post are all referring to a package of recently-defeated Venezuelan constitutional amendments as "reforms." In reality, those so-called reforms were all bent on amassing more power and influence in the hands of Hugo Chavez. Washington Post's Juan Forero gave readers early of the December 3 Home Edition article (published before the outcome…

Hugo Chavez and Mahmound Ahmadinejad attended the OPEC summit, where they said the fall of the dollar is a sign that "the U.S. empire is coming down."