Alberto de la Cruz

Our very own Humberto Fontova – or as we call him around here, “El Cirujano” – tells it like it is in this interview with Men’s News Daily.

BC: Why do you think anti-American dictators so reflexively enthrall the political left?

Humberto Fontova: Battered-wife-syndrome comes to mind.

It seems at times that we are tilting at windmills when we try to explain to the world just how skewed and erroneous their view of Cuba and the vile revolution is. But just imagine how much more twisted and flawed their views would be if it were not for Cubans like Humberto who go out there day-in and day-out and try to educate the American public.

Uno tiene que nacer con esto.

H/T Lori

Chavez Loses Constitutional Vote

The Venezuelan CNE (Congreso Nacional de Elecciones) has just proclaimed the NO vote the winner by a 1.4% margin of victory!!! chavez is, at this moment, giving a very somber speech admitting his defeat. You can watch it HERE.

Let us celebrate tonight, for tomorrow the dictator will already have begun brewing up a new plan to maintain his stranglehold on power.

Nevertheless, we offer our Venezuelan brothers and sisters a well earned CONGRATULATIONS!

The newly emboldened dictatorship of Venezuela is already claiming victory in today’s pivotal vote to determine the future of the country. Deep down I hoped against the obvious that somehow the Venezuelan people would find a way to defeat the man and the movement that will ultimately enslave them. But it appears that no matter what they did in the polls today, the outcome had been decided long ago.

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez appeared headed for victory on Sunday in a referendum on allowing the leftist to rule for as long as he keeps winning elections, government-linked sources said, citing exit polls.

Foreign investors worry that the opposition could contest the result if it suspects fraud, sparking political turbulence after a campaign marred by violent street clashes.

Contrary to what chavez and his thugs may be hoping for, it is still not over. It will now fall to the Venezuelan people to decide whether or not to accept this yoke of oppression being placed on their shoulders.

This is but one of the first news items regarding the outcome of today’s voting. Perhaps things may not seem as bad as they are being reported, but I am quickly running out of optimism. You can read the entire Reuters article HERE.

H/T rsnlk

UPDATE – 10:03 pm:

I am reading a lot of reports, one from the New York Times, that the Venezuelan government has not released the results of the vote yet because the count is too close to call. Being one that has been accused of cynicism on more than one occasion when it comes to lying and thieving communists, I can’t help but to be troubled when we also have the Chinese news service, Xinhua, reporting that the delay in the release of the vote count is due to the “high” turnout of voters. Conversely, the original Reuters article linked above, as well as many others throughout the day, mentioned a lower than expected voter turnout.

This whole thing has smelled from day one, and now it is starting to really stink. We have no choice now but to wait until an official announcement is made. In the meantime, the world must maintain their eyes on Venezuela. I have read on various internet forums in Venezuela where reports are coming in of students being rounded up and held for no reason other than being opposed to chavez’s grab for dictatorial power.

I will keep the Babalublog community posted as often as I can on the progress in Caracas.

UPDATE – 12:04 am Monday:

Well folks, it is already Monday here in Miami and in Caracas. Still, there is no word from the chavista government as to the results of today’s yes or no vote. Thirty minutes ago an opposition leader, Ismael Garcia, publicly demanded that the government release the results of the vote immediately. And now, General Baduel is demanding an explanation as to why the numbers have not been released. You can read both of their statements HERE.

Fifteen minutes ago, Reuters released another news article downplaying their original story that proclaimed victory for the communist dictator, and is instead now describing the closeness of the vote and the very distinct possibility that the opposition may have beaten the chavistas. It is all said very carefully to ensure full access to the eventual winner, I am sure.

As for me, your faithful observer must go to work tomorrow and I need to catch some sleep. I will be searching the news tomorrow morning, however, to give all of you the latest information that pops up between now and tomorrow morning.

Good night and hopefully, it will also be a good night for our brothers and sisters in Venezuela.

Like a rabid three-pound mutt barking and yapping ferociously through the screen door at the postman, chavez is more of a nuisance than an actual threat to the US. The mutt may act like the screen door is impeding his attack, but the reality is that the screen door offers the mutt the protection he needs to act as tough as he wants without getting stomped on.

And so is the case with Venezuela’s wannabe dictator; chavez’s antagonistic and threatening rhetoric against the number one buyer of Venezuelan crude is bolstered by the fact that he knows the US will never take him seriously. He knows, as well as the US knows, that he has neither the economic, nor the military wherewithal to fulfill any of his threats. The only ones that can be hurt by this yapping mutt are the Venezuelan people themselves. chavez does not fear them since he believes he has the thugs and the guns that can quash any uprising.

I found two editorials today that give good insight into the false bravado being sported by chavez, and describe how he is more interested in enriching himself with money and power, than anything else. The first is from Roger Cohen in the International Herald Tribune:

Oil centralizes power. Venezuelan oil fetches a lower price than most because it’s harder to refine, but [c]hávez is still pocketing between $4 billion and $6.7 billion a month, depending on whom you believe. Give anyone in an opaque, rather than open, society more than $100 million a day and he might start raving about ruling until 2050, as [c]hávez has.

The second comes from an unlikely source, the LA Times, but Sergio Muñoz still points out how chavez is a threat only to his people:

Does Chavez have the military and financial resources to play in the same league as the U.S. and other world powers?

Venezuela’s 2006 defense budget amounted to less than $2 billion, about 1.3% of its gross domestic product. His combined armed services — army, navy and air force — number about 82,000, according to GlobalSecurity.org. In contrast, the U.S. has more troops in Iraq than Chavez has in all three branches of his military.

Although this Venezuelan tyrant with the Napoleonic complex poses little, if no threat to us here in the US, he is still the largest threat to our Venezuelan brothers and sisters. Left to pursue his whims and avarice, the yapping dog of Caracas will end up destroying Venezuelan society, families, and the economy, just as his master has done in Cuba.

Today may be Venezuela’s last chance to put this mutt back in his cage. If they fail to stop him, they need only look to Cuba to see what their future will look like.

*No dogs were hurt during the writing of this post. The author also apologizes for any offense, directly or indirectly, this post may cause dogs who through no fault of their own, must also endure chavez’s yapping.

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuela’s leftist President Hugo Chavez said on Friday he will cut oil sales to the United States if the American government interferes in Sunday’s referendum aimed at allowing him to run for reelection indefinitely.

Chavez told supports at a rally that the state oil company will halt sales to the United States on Monday if Washington interferes with the vote on the proposed constitutional reform.

The Venezuelan leader and Cuba ally also said he had ordered the military to protect oil fields and refineries in case of political violence.

The reform would also give him direct control over foreign currency reserves while reducing the workday to six hours and expanding social security benefits for informal workers like street vendors.

With 60% of Venezuela’s oil production going to the US, the interminable mouth-flapper could ill afford to take such a financial hit. But threats such as these sure do make provocative headlines.

Go ahead, monkey-boy; I double-dog dare you to cut your oil sales by 60%.

U.S. tracking growing intelligence ties between Cuba, Venezuela
Wow, who could have seen that coming?
On a related note, a very reliable Venezuelan source told me a while back that chavez—who lives in constant fear of being knocked-off by one of his own—goes nowhere without his Cuban bodyguards who make up the nucleus of his security detail.
Imagine that; chavez is so loved by his own people that he has to import bodyguards.

Miami, Nov 28 (EFE).- Spain’s top official for relations with Latin America said she met here Wednesday with representatives of Miami’s powerful Cuban exile community to dispel “certain erroneous perceptions” about Madrid’s policy toward the communist-ruled island.
Trinidad Jimenez said she told the exiles about the efforts of the Spanish government to serve as a bridge between the Castro regime, the internal Cuban dissident movement and exile groups.
“I explained in detail how the Spanish government is working in its relations with Cuba to clarify certain erroneous perceptions that do not conform to reality,” she told Efe after the meetings.
One of the misperceptions, Jimenez said, is that Madrid does not maintain a fluid relationship with Cuba’s internal opposition.
“Spanish foreign policy with regard to Cuba includes the relationship with the internal dissident movement as the meetings held in Havana by (senior Spanish Foreign Ministry official) Bernardino Leon demonstrate,” Jimenez said.
Spain’s secretary of state for Ibero-America emphasized that Wednesday’s meetings were enormously fruitful because although some organizations have different points of view, “they understood the logic of the Spanish position.”
“We spoke frankly and it was understood, although some do not share (that point of view), that we’re working to influence the internal process in an honest and logical manner,” she added.
Those mistaken perceptions about Spanish policy toward Cuba arise partly because “there is a debate with a very strong ideological component that hampers dealing more calmly with the complexity of the Cuban matter,” she said.
“But it was very good that we exchanged points of view and that we were able to explain in depth the position of the Spanish government,” she said.
Some of the Cuban exile organizations in Miami have maintained a critical position toward the Spanish government’s dealings with Havana, contending that such a relationship helps to keep the communist Castro regime in power.

Conspicuously absent from this group of “Miami’s powerful Cuban exile community” was any member organizations of Unidad Cubana, which according to its leader, Armando Perez-Roura, was never informed, let alone invited to this meeting. Present, however, were several groups who consider dialog with a lying, repressive, and brutal regime as a viable option in the quest for liberty in Cuba.
Once again, Spain avoids any course of action that might jeopardize their extensive and sizable ongoing investments in communist Cuba. This ludicrous attempt at reconciliation is nothing more than empty words and obfuscation of Spain’s true goals: maximum profit regardless of the suffering of the Cuban people.
Five hundred years of exploitation does not appear to be sufficient for the Spanish government.

At long last, I am back in Miami where cafe cubano is on every corner, and the smell of cigar smoke wafts along the crowded sidewalks. The Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina were majestic, but so was the smell of coffee coming out of my espresso machine this morning, complete with espumita.

My most sincere thanks go out to all of you that offered me locations and invitations to enjoy some Cuban coffee during my stay in North Carolina. I did not want, nor intend to take anything away from the people and the beauty of the place–I just wanted un cafecito, coño!

The writers’ strike going on here in the US has had no apparent effect on chavez’s ability to come up with new material. To his credit, he is not satisfied with just regurgitating the same old lame communist and socialist rhetoric. And once in a while, he comes up with one right out of left field (pun intended).
Beginning one week after the farcical voting to be held this Sunday (which regardless of what the Venezuelan people vote, chavez will ensure his constitutional reforms receive an overwhelming victory) Venezuela will begin its own time zone. The plan does not call for the country to move ahead into the next, or behind into the previous time zone; the plan calls for Venezuela to have its very own Twilight Time Zone.
On the appointed day, everyone in Venezuela will move their clocks back one-half-hour. So, no matter what time it is in the world, Venezuela will always be off by at least a half an hour. No other country in the world will be on the same time as them.
What is the purpose of this change? Besides his whimsical musings of giving Venezuelan children more daylight in the morning, this only goes to show the world what we have been telling them for years now: This guy is not well in the head. In chavez you have a delusional psychopath who dreams of world domination and now has decided to create his own break in the time/space continuum.
In the end, the time change will be more inconvenient than anything else, but the point here is how this man, with each day that goes by, is losing more and more touch with reality. Combine that with his unbelievable wealth, and soon, his unbelievable power and perhaps all of you may understand my concerns.
I am just waiting for him to show up on TV or in a press conference wearing a tinfoil hat and threatening the aliens from planet J74K, of the Alpha Centauri system, for flying over Venezuela at night without permission or payment of over-flight taxes.
Mental disease is a serious and dangerous disorder; just look at what the last delusional psychopath did with the power he wielded and the billions in aid he received from the former USSR in Cuba.

Today is my fourth day in the Blue Ridge mountains of North Carolina. The views are, to say the least, unbelievable. Everyone we have dealt with since we have arrived have gone out of their way to be nice and helpful. There is just one thing missing that would make this trip perfect: Café Cubano!
To my surprise, and dismay, most places up here do not even have espresso machines. And the few places we have been able to find that do have espresso have been disappointing. It makes you wonder which is worse; watered down espresso, or no espresso at all. Oh well, that is what I get for forgetting to pack our portable, plug-in cafetera.
Moments like these remind me of how lucky I am to live in Miami and have access to practically anything Cuban I need. It also reminds me of all of you out there that live throughout the US, and the world, far away from any Cubania.
To all of you out there that have held on to your Cuban heritage far from all things Cuban, my hat goes off to you!

They say loose lips sink ships, but in monkey boy chavez’s case, it sinks his standing in the diplomatic world even lower, if that were at all possible. Unable to keep his trap shut, the Venezuelan simian once again spoke out of turn, possibly sabotaging the hostage negotiations going on with the leftist guerilla terrorists in Colombia.
My uncle used to call guys like him, un animal con ropa (an animal with clothes on).
Even that, I’m afraid, may be considered insulting to animals.