It's particularly interesting how Venezuela has expelled 2 U.S. officials out of fears of them trying to stage a coup.
While Chavez is not a man that I would like to have as my President, I do have to admire his charisma, passion, and willingness to stand up against the United States (while it's arguable if those reasons were right or not). At the very least he did improve their economy, lowered the poverty rate, and improved education in the country.
He was a major player in Latin America, and it will be interesting to see how this transition goes over and if the next leader will be remotely United States friendly. There's a Reddit thread going on discussing this where a couple of Venezuelan Users will be giving frequent updates as to the state of the country. It's also suspicious/slightly silly that the man who is supposed to take interim control of the country, Nicolas Maduro, is claiming that Chavez was poisoned with cancer
At the same time, it's worth noting that not everything improved under his leadership. For instance the murder rate has increased drastically, making it more dangerous for civilians than countries such as Mexico and Iraq.
There is certainly an upside and a downside to Chavez's reign, but that poisoning business is just plain silly. If we knew how to poison world leaders with cancer we would have taken out Castro and Kim a long time ago. Although, Chavez was a smoker, so I suppose if he smoked Lucky Strikes like so many Latin Americans then he could say the US poisoned him with cancer.
I know a couple of people that moved to Canada from Venezuela. While they think he is bad overall for the country, it seemed like he had a bit of their respect too, because everyone agreed that he was a genius. They moved though. The people who get to move out are rich. They said that back home they would have bodyguards because kidnapping is so rampant. Girls are kidnapped off the streets and then ransomed back to the family. Not everyone has enough money for the ransom.
And the most ridiculous response goes to Representative Cotton from Arkansas:
I can't imagine the logic that goes through people who use this language. It clearly hearkens back to the assassination of Lincoln, which seems to me to imply that you have at least positive feelings towards his assassination.
Booth was a very famous actor and had a known.... flair for the dramatic. So yeah, it makes sense that he would throw around Shakespeare quotes while killing someone. Oddly, I'm not sure that he fully 'got' the tragedy of Brutus and Cassius. Maybe he stopped after Act 3 and figured it all worked out for the assassins.
yes in america it has that connotation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sic_semper_tyrannis There is a strong anti-american trend in the conservative party.
Wow, the local morning show this morning, at around 7am CT, called this. The host, who's semi famous around Minnesota, was like "He's been dead since he got back from Cuba or at best on machines keeping him alive as a vegetable. But honestly I think he's been dead for months and the military and his chronies just needed time to plan for his succession." They (or no one really) had heard this new this morning as it was only recently announced.
Odd timing for him to have that conversation on air, and he mentioned he heard from someone in government who could know these things that he's been dead for at least a month. Then the official news of his death comes out tonight... too weird.
/takes tinfoil hat off.
As someone who is from Minnesota I am curious who the host is. I am a little afraid you are going to say Jesse Ventura.
Tom Bernard, host of the KQ Morning Show. I guess he's not really famous just local famous. Everyone knows who he is. He was the one making these statements this morning.