posted November 09, 2006 04:26 PM              

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Ortega's Victory: Another Administration Blunder?
Analysis: Washington's public efforts to stop Nicaraguans from electing the Sandinista leader prompted a backlash against yanquiinterference

By TIM PADGETT/MANAGUA
Posted Thursday, Nov. 09, 2006

The U.S. Congress wasn't the only place the Bush Administration suffered electoral embarrassment this week. In Nicaragua, cold-war bogeyman Daniel Ortega — whose Marxist Sandinista government had been an obsession of the Reagan Administration — was elected president again on Sunday despite frantic U.S. lobbying for his defeat. By most accounts, the yanqui politicking — which included a threat to cut off U.S. aid to impoverished Nicaragua if Ortega won — backfired miserably, actually helping boost the Sandinista leader to his first-round victory. That such U.S. pressure tends to work in favor of its opponents is a lesson Washington seems woefully unable to learn in a post-Cold War Latin America whose electorates have unexpectedly turned leftward in recent years.

posted December 04, 2006 08:32 PM              

By Patrick Markey

CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez stormed to a re-election victory in Sunday's vote, handing him an ample mandate to broaden his promised socialist revolution and challenge Washington's influence in Latin America.

Dressed in his signature red shirt, Chavez told cheering supporters at his presidential palace late Sunday his landslide was a blow to U.S. President George W. Bush's administration, which portrays the leftist as an anti-democratic menace.

"Today we gave another lesson in dignity to the imperialists, it is another defeat for the empire of Mr. Danger," Chavez roared from a balcony above the crowds using one of the insults he has tossed at the U.S. president.
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The former soldier's victory will further rile the White House, which worries about Chavez destabilizing Latin America neighbors and strengthening ties between the OPEC heavyweight Venezuela and U.S. foes Cuba and Iran.

The National Electoral Council said Chavez won 61 percent of the vote while rival Manuel Rosales, a governor of an oil-producing province who managed to unite the fractured opposition, won 38 percent after nearly 80 percent of the vote had been counted.

Chavez supporters fired off thunderous fireworks in the capital and drove through Caracas chanting "Hey ho, Chavez will not go" to celebrate his securing six more years in office.

LEFTIST TIDE

Chavez is the fourth leftist to win an election in Latin America in the past five weeks. Continued...

posted December 04, 2006 09:07 PM            

Daniel Ortega finally got religion, reformed and now wants a "close" relationship with Washington.

And how else could this communist Sandanista regain power in Nicaragua? Last time, he and his communist buddies totally destroyed the economy of the whole country.

Poor Hugo Chavaz. He tries so hard to be relevant but in the real world he's more akin to a gnat or at worst a pesky mosquito.

I wonder if Hugo knows we are sitting on top of more oil than the total known reserves of Saudi Arabia? I wonder if Hugo knows the extent of the sand tar fields in Canada and the United States. I wonder if Hugo knows we have, by a conservative estimate, 250 years worth of oil locked up in shale.

Not only is that all true but further, we have the technology to convert all that shale oil to real oil.

Oh, and that doesn't even account for all the clean GTL (Gas to Liquid) that could be developed from all that methane we're sitting on.

So, if we ever decide to go a-drillin, I wonder what Hugo is going to do with all that oil he's been selling us. Ditto for the Middle East.