Fausta's Blog

American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture

Archives for July 2010

July 31, 2010 By Fausta

Howard Zinn, Communist

Stacy has the goods on Zinn, the Stalinist apologist,
FBI Files Reveal Historian Howard Zinn Lied to Hide CPUSA Membership
Check out the links, too.

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Filed Under: Communism, history, USA Tagged With: Fausta's blog, Howard Zinn

July 31, 2010 By Fausta

Chavez sends troops to Colombia border

Been there, done that, but here he goes again,
Venezuela Sends Troops to Colombian Border

Venezuela’s president says he has deployed troops to the border with Colombia, as tensions rise between the two South American countries.

Hugo Chavez said Friday he believed the outgoing government of Colombian President Alvaro Uribe could be planning to attack Venezuela.

The move follows Colombia’s accusations last week that Venezuela is harboring leftist Colombian rebels.

Mr. Chavez, denying the charge, had harsh words for Mr. Uribe. In a phone call to a Venezuelan television show Friday, Mr. Chavez said the Colombian President should see a psychologist, saying he sees peace as a “little trap.”

Here’s Hugo ranting about Uribe in Spanish, if you want to hear it,

Of course Colombia denies any intention of invading Venezuela (link in Spanish).

Colombia’s president-elect, Juan Manuel Santos, is scheduled to take office on August 7, and Hugo needs a distraction from all the country’s problems, so here you have it: mobilize troops, offend everyone.

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Filed Under: Colombia, Hugo Chavez, Venezuela Tagged With: Fausta's blog, Juan Manuel Santos

July 31, 2010 By Fausta

Hooray! It’s National Dance Day!

As you already know, today is National Dance Day.

To celebrate, here are the winners of the New York tango festival,

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Filed Under: dance, entertainment, tango Tagged With: Fausta's blog, National Dance Day

July 31, 2010 By Fausta

Prince Charles, saviour of the world

Do you want this guy to save you?

My duty is to save the world: Prince Charles believes he was born for a purpose

You mean, for the purpose of inheriting, by mere accident of birth, a ceremonial position in a declining country that is voluntarily descending into dhimmitude?

Not quite. Charles thinks he’s here to save the world:

The Prince of Wales says he believes he has been placed on Earth as future King ‘for a purpose’ – to save the world.

Giving a fascinating insight into his view of his inherited wealth and influence, he said: ‘I can only somehow imagine that I find myself being born into this position for a purpose.

‘I don’t want my grandchildren or yours to come along and say to me, “Why the hell didn’t you come and do something about this? You knew what the problem was”. That is what motivates me.

‘I wanted to express something in the outer world that I feel inside… We seem to have lost that understanding of the whole of nature and the universe as a living entity.’

While the prince flies private jets to ceremonial shindigs at exotic locales, he ought to consider injecting himself with 2 cc. of humility and pondering where he would be if he had actually had to work for what he got by mere accident.


UPDATE

theblogprof lets the snark flow.

and more,
Does Prince Charles Believe He is The Muslim Messiah

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Filed Under: England, idiocy, Princess Diana, UK Tagged With: Fausta's blog, Prince Charles

July 31, 2010 By Fausta

Colombia proves again that Venezuela is harboring FARC terrorists UPDATED

WaPo editorial,
Colombia proves again that Venezuela is harboring FARC terrorists

That Venezuela is backing a terrorist movement against a neighboring democratic government has been beyond dispute since at least 2008, when Colombia recovered laptops from a FARC camp in Ecuador containing extensive documentation of Mr. Chávez’s political and material support. Colombia’s presentation to the OAS last week contained fresher and more detailed intelligence. Ambassador Luis Alfonso Hoyos supplied precise map coordinates for several of the 75 FARC camps that he said had been established on Venezuelan territory and that harbor some 1,500 militants. He showed photos and videos, including one of a top commander from another Colombian terrorist organization, ELN, sipping Venezuelan beer on a popular Venezuelan beach.

Mr. Chávez responded with predictable bluster, breaking off relations with Bogota and threatening (not for the first time) to cease oil exports to the United States. Another crisis with Colombia probably benefits the caudillo, who is desperate to distract attention from his country’s imploding economy and soaring violence.

Nevertheless, the question remains: Will other democracies support Colombia against this flagrant violation of international law? The Obama administration is characteristically lukewarm. The State Department, which has designated the FARC a terrorist organization, said it found Colombia’s allegations “persuasive” but limited itself to supporting “a transparent international process” to investigate them. Perhaps more consequentially, one of the leading candidates in Brazil’s presidential election campaign, José Serra, said “it is undeniable that Chávez is sheltering these FARC” militants. Under outgoing president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil has been one of Mr. Chávez’s chief apologists and enablers. Were that support to be withdrawn, Mr. Chávez might have to rethink his terrorist alliance.

Would Lula pull his support? I doubt it.

However, with the upcoming election in Brazil, that may change.

Meanwhile, the Venezuelan government condemned the WaPo editorial as being “dogmatic” (link in Spanish) in an open letter sent by Venezuelan ambassador to the US Bernardo Álvarez, which started by saying

One more time, the Post’s editorial page dogmatically editorializes against the Venezuelan government, asserting that a collection of Google maps and a bunch of outdated pictures taken out of context – presented by the Álvaro Uribe’s government in a media show — are the most recent “proof” about Venezuela’s support for “terrorist” groups.

Regardless of his letter, the evidence speaks for itself.

UPDATE
Follow-up post: Chavez sends troops to Colombia border

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Filed Under: Colombia, Communism, FARC, Hugo Chavez, terrorism, Venezuela Tagged With: Fausta's blog

July 30, 2010 By Fausta

Obama bows, again

What’s with the bow?
The President of the United States should bow to no one:

President Barack Obama laughs as he is greeted by N.J. Gov. Chris Christie, center and Newark Mayor Cory Booker, left, after exiting Air Force One at Newark Liberty International Airport, N.J. , Wednesday, July 28, 2010. The President is in the area to meet local business leaders in Edison, N.J.

H/t Weasel Zippers

UPDATE
Welcome, Brutally Honest readers. Please visit often.

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Filed Under: Barack Obama, New Jersey Tagged With: Chris Christie, Fausta's blog

July 30, 2010 By Fausta

The ultimate “Blame Bush”: expiring tax cuts!

In a twist of Democrat logic, Hoyer: Expiration of Bush Tax Cuts Equals a ‘Republican Tax Increase’ on Middle Class

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said on Wednesday that the expiration built into the Bush tax cuts is a “Republican tax increase” for “working Americans” and the Democrats have “no intention” of allowing it to go into effect.

“We have no intention of allowing the Republican tax increase — that their policies would lead to — to go into effect for working Americans. Period,” he said. “We’re going to act and make sure that the Republican phase out and increase in taxes does not end as they provided for in the laws they passed.”

Who prevented the tax cuts from becoming permanent? The Democrats, who threatened to filibuster.

You can’t make it up, folks.

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Filed Under: Democrats, economics, economy Tagged With: Fausta's blog, Steny Hoyer

July 30, 2010 By Fausta

The Chavez bailout

Exactly what the US doesn’t need,
Congress’s Hugo Chávez Bailout Bill
Proposed changes to the tax code would cost U.S. jobs and strengthen foreign competitors like China and Venezuela.

Research I’ve recently published indicates that under the administration’s six-month moratorium, set to last until Nov. 30, the Gulf Coast region will lose more than 8,000 jobs, nearly $500 million in wages, over $2.1 billion in economic activity, and nearly $100 million in state and local tax revenue. Taking into account the effects outside of the Gulf Coast, the moratorium will cost the United States 12,000 jobs and nearly $3 billion, including almost $200 million in federal tax revenues.

If the moratorium lasts six to 12 months longer, as many pundits expect, some 36,000 jobs could be lost across the country. Under the worst case scenario—a permanent moratorium on all oil and natural gas production in the Gulf of Mexico—nationwide economic losses would exceed $95 billion and more than 400,000 jobs.

This is bad enough. But earlier this week, both the House and Senate proposed new energy bills that will cost $25 billion and $15 billion, respectively—and the government wants the energy sector to pay the tab. The administration and its congressional allies are considering two changes to the tax code that would put U.S. energy companies at a competitive disadvantage to foreign-owned behemoths like BP, China’s Sinopec and Hugo Chávez’s Citgo. These constraints on the energy sector would handcuff domestic energy development, reduce future resources, and kill even more jobs.

In his 2011 budget proposal to Congress, President Obama seeks to repeal the “dual capacity” tax credit, under which American businesses with operations overseas receive a deduction on their U.S. taxes relative to the amount of taxes they have already paid other countries. This credit guarantees that the revenues of U.S. companies aren’t taxed twice. The U.S. is the only country that taxes foreign revenues in the first place, so the dual capacity credit allows U.S. companies to compete fairly against foreign competitors. Doing away with it would dramatically disadvantage American firms relative to their foreign rivals.

Mr. Obama’s budget, as well as the bills under consideration in the House and Senate, would further hurt the energy sector by excluding it from a critical tax deduction, known as Section 199, which allows firms to deduct a percentage of domestic production activity each year. Enacted in 2004 as part of the American Jobs Creation Act, Section 199 was meant to encourage employment across the entire manufacturing sector, including oil and gas. Under Mr. Obama’s budget, however, Section 199 would no longer apply to oil and gas companies.

According to analysis conducted for the Institute for Energy Research by the economist Andrew Chamberlain, this repeal would cause the U.S. to increase its reliance on imported oil from politically unstable nations, cost the economy 637,000 jobs, and reduce household earnings by nearly $35 billion over the next decade. As the Congressional Research Service recently put it, repeal would “adversely affect domestic production and increase imports.”

Change.
You asked for it, you got it.

(thanks to Emily & Maggie for the link)

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Filed Under: Barack Obama, China, Democrats, Hugo Chavez, oil, Venezuela Tagged With: Fausta's blog, Gulf oil spill

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