Chavez seizes opposition TV station

Let the defenders of socialist tinpot Hugo Chavez explain away this (via Hot Air):

The last one in the country, in fact, with a national reach:

[T]he decision not to renew Radio Caracas Television’s broadcast license and replace it at midnight Sunday with a public service station was celebrated in the streets by supporters of Chavez, who watched the new channel’s first transmission on large TV screens. Others launched fireworks and danced to the classic salsa tune “Todo tiene su final” — “Everything Has Its End.”

The mood inside the studios of RCTV — the sole opposition-aligned TV station with nationwide reach — was somber. Disheartened actors and comedians wept and embraced in the final minutes on the air.
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Founded in 1953, RCTV had broadcast a mix of talk shows, sports, soap operas and the popular comedy program “Radio Rochela,” which poked fun at presidents — including Chavez — for decades. RCTV was regularly the top channel in viewer ratings, but Chavez accused the channel of “poisoning” Venezuelans with programming that promotes capitalism.

Gateway Pundit has photos of the reaction from Chavez’s opponents. The tanks have allegedly been sent in.

How sad it is that the left can never acknowledge the totalitarian tactics of socialists and other leftist "leaders" of the world. This is beginning to look like Cuba redux circa 1959.

Neal Boortz sees a disturbing pattern here:

Jealousy is an ugly thing. And jealousy is especially ugly when you have freely elected leaders from a country that prides itself on a dedication to freedom and individual liberty being openly jealous of a dictator.

Such is the case with Venezuela's Hugo Chavez.

Hugo the Horrible has now accomplished in Venezuela what Democrats only wish they could accomplish here at home. He has silenced a broadcast outlet that was critical of his regime. Sunday night Venezuela's most popular television station went off the air. Why? Because Chavez decided that their broadcast license would not be renewed. Radio Caracas Television was the only TV station in Venezuela that was broadcast nationwide ... and Radio Caracas Television was critical of Hugo Chavez.

Are you starting to get the picture here?

Chavez says he is "democratizing" the public's airways. He also said that this TV station was a threat to his country. Wow! Now doesn't that sound very much like the things that the left is saying about talk radio in the U.S.?

What Chavez accomplished by edict the left in this country hopes to accomplish through legislation and regulation.

Just be patient, my friends on the left. Your time is coming. The impotent Republicans pose no threat to you in 2008. In the meantime, just sit back and admire your friend Hugo.

We should note that Venezuelans are protesting Chavez' actions. He'll tolerate some protests --- but let's hope these people know just how far they can push it. My wife and I were being shown around Caracas many years ago when we noticed some demonstrators. It was quite a spectacle to watch ... until the gunfire started. Our guide rushed us into a building to keep us safe.

How soon before Chavez answers these protestors with gunfire?

Hold on another second here. We can't let this segment go without mentioning that Hugo Chavez is the hero of such great Americans as Cindy Sheehan (see below), Danny Glover, Harry Belafonte and others. Great Americans all. Coming soon, don't miss Michael Moore's exciting documentary on the evils of Radio Caracas Television!

"Terry McAuliffe: Chavez is Bush’s fault"

I swear, I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried. This profile in moonbattery is brought to you by Hot Air, and sponsored by the letters "BDS":

McAuliffe was about as honest as I expected, which is to say that he didn’t strike me as being particularly honest. During Q&A, our own Ian pestered Terry Mac about his Global Crossing earnings. If you haven’t heard about that or his interesting land deal, well, you don’t know just how much of a hypocrite he is for criticizing the business deals of everyone named Bush. Ian did well going toe to toe with the man who ran the DNC for about 8 years.

Also during Q&A, several liberals in the audience came at McAuliffe from the left, giving him the chance to burnish his nutroots credentials. He took the opportunity and ran with it. One asked him why the US is so unpopular with Hugo Chavez, prompting McAuliffe’s BDS affliction to come out in full glory. Keep in mind that Chavez is turning all of Venezuela into an armed camp as he cozies up to the Iranian mullahs and turns himself into a clone of Fidel Castro. Keep in mind that Chavez calls himself an enemy of the US, and keep in mind that Chavez currently rules Venezuela by dictatorial decree as he nationalizes (a fancy way of saying “steals”) private companies. Keep in mind that Chavez was kept in power, in all likelihood, by a sham election certified real by Jimmy Carter. Keeping all of that in mind, McAuliffe actually blamed Chavez’s actions and attitudes on George W. Bush.

Which, if he’s being logically consistent (is that possible? - Ed.), means Castro is entirely the fault of John F. Kennedy.

As this guy so hilariously illustrates, it's all Bush's fault! Amazing that a guy supposedly as idiotic as the left portrays him to be is capable of that kind of evil genius, isn't it?

Another socialism failure in Venezuela

Yeah, that Hugo sure is doing a helluva job. From the Old Gray Hag:

Faced with an accelerating inflation rate and shortages of basic foods like beef, chicken and milk, President Hugo Chávez has threatened to jail grocery store owners and nationalize their businesses if they violate the country’s expanding price controls.

Food producers and economists say the measures announced late Thursday night, which include removing three zeroes from the denomination of Venezuela’s currency, are likely to backfire and generate even more acute shortages and higher prices for consumers. Inflation climbed to an annual rate of 18.4 percent a year in January, the highest in Latin America and far above the official target of 10 to 12 percent.
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“It is surreal that we’ve arrived at a point where we are in danger of squandering a major oil boom,” said José Guerra, a former chief of economic research at Venezuela’s central bank, who left Mr. Chavez’s government in 2004. “If the government insists on sticking to policies that are clearly failing, we may be headed down the road of Zimbabwe.”
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The economy grew by more than 10 percent last year, helping Mr. Chávez glide to a re-election victory in December with 63 percent of the vote. Yet economists who have worked with Mr. Chávez’s government say that soaring public spending is overheating Venezuela’s economy, generating imbalances in the distribution of products from sugar to basic construction materials like wallboard.

Public spending grew last year by more than 50 percent and has more than doubled since the start of 2004, as Mr. Chávez has channeled oil revenues into social programs and projects like bridges, highways, trains, subways, museums and, in a departure for a country where baseball reigns supreme, soccer stadiums.

In an indicator of concern with Mr. Chávez’s economic policies, which included nationalizing companies in the telephone and electricity industries, foreign direct investment was negative in the first nine months of 2006. The last year Venezuela had a net investment outflow was in 1986.

Shortages of basic foods have been sporadic since the government strengthened price controls in 2003 after a debilitating strike by oil workers. But in recent weeks, the scarcity of items like meat and chicken has led to a panicked reaction by federal authorities as they try to understand how such shortages could develop in a seemingly flourishing economy.

Economic ignorance abounds here, by both socialists and the NYT (pardon the redundancy). It's simple, oh functional economic illiterates: if you keep food retailers (or any other business owners) out of a profit margin, do you think they're going to work for free? The more that government tries monkeying with prices and basic supply and demand, the more damage it does to the very people that government purports to want to help.

Continuing:

With shoppers limited to just two large packages of sugar, a black market in sugar has developed among street vendors in parts of Caracas. “This country is going to turn into Cuba, or Chávez will have to give in,” said Cándida de Gómez, 54, a shopper at a private supermarket in Los Palos Grandes, a district in the capital.

José Vielma Mora, the chief of Seniat, the government’s tax agency, oversaw a raid this month on a warehouse here where officials seized about 165 tons of sugar. Mr. Vielma said the raid exposed hoarding by vendors who were unwilling to sell the sugar at official prices (in other words, they wanted to make a profit...those bastards! - Ed.). He and other officials in Mr. Chávez’s government have repeatedly blamed the shortages on producers, intermediaries and grocers (aka the market! - Ed.).

Those in the food industry argue that the price controls prevented them from making a profit after inflation rose and the value of Venezuela’s currency plunged in black market trading in recent weeks. The bolívar, the country’s currency, fell more than 30 percent to about 4,400 to the dollar in unofficial trading following Mr. Chávez’s nationalization of Venezuela’s main telephone company, CANTV, and its largest electric utility, Electricidad de Caracas.

Fears that more private companies could be nationalized have put further pressure on the currency as rich Venezuelans try to take money out of the country. Concern over capital flight has made the government jittery, with vague threats issued to newspapers that publish unofficial currency rates (officially the bolívar is quoted at about 2,150 to the dollar).
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“There seems to be a basic misunderstanding in Chávez’s government of what is driving scarcity and inflation,” said Francisco Rodríguez, a former chief economist at Venezuela’s National Assembly who teaches at Wesleyan University.

“There are competent people in the government who know that Chávez needs to lower spending if he wants to defeat these problems,” Mr. Rodríguez said. “But there are few people in positions of power who are willing to risk telling him what he needs to hear.”

Take note, Dubya! The left thinks that Chavez is wonderful, and since Hugo threatens newspapers that publish anything that could be seen as detrimental to Hugo's image, one can logically conclude that the left approves of such censorship. Therefore, if Bush were to do the same thing to the NYT or other leftwing fishwrap that Hugo is doing to his newspapers, the left would support the move, no?