60% Say Government Has Too Much Power, Too Much Money

…Not surprisingly, the Political Class sees things a lot differently. While 85% of Mainstream Americans say the government has too much power and money, just two percent (2%) of the Political Class agree. Nearly one-our-of-four members (24%) of the Political Class, in fact, believe the government has too little money and power, but 68% say it has about the right amount of each.

While slightly more than half of those working for both the government and private industry say the government is too big, 79% of entrepreneurs feel that way.

The findings follow last week’s “tea party” protests against higher government spending and the threat of higher taxes. Fifty-one percent (51%) of Americans have a favorable view of the tea parties, but the Political Class strongly disagrees.  ~rasmussenreports.com

This is fundamentally a conservative country despite the election of a socialist leaning administration. So will the Obama adminstration continue their drive toward socializing America. No doubt they will.

Chavez says crisis-hit U.S. needs new constitution

LISBON, Sept 27 – Venezuela’s leftist President Hugo Chavez said on Saturday it was the capitalist system that had caused the financial crisis in the United States and the country should come up with a new constitution.

Speaking to reporters in Lisbon on the last leg of a tour that included visits to China and Russia, he said: “I think the United States should start a constituent process to create a constituent assembly, a new truly democratic model.”

A constituent assembly is a body elected to draft and sometimes adopt a new constitution.

“It was capitalism that caused the ruin” in the United States, said Chavez, who is one of Washington’s fiercest critics, calling the financial crunch “the worst financial crisis in history”.

“Let the U.S. empire end and let a great nation and great republic rise from the ruin … It’s time to shout ‘Liberty!’ again in the United States,” Chavez said, calling for a new government to be free of the “dictatorship of the elite” such as big banks and corporations.

Critics accuse Chavez of running an authoritarian, Cuban-style regime in oil-rich Venezuela.

Chavez, who has signed various deals from weapons to energy this week in China and Russia also signed an agreement with Portugal’s Socialist government on Saturday to buy 1 million ultra-cheap laptops for schools and 50,000 pre-fabricated houses in deals worth $3 billion.

They also signed a draft deal between Energias do Portugal <EDP.LS> and Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA for the development of a liquefied natural gas project from the Blanquilla Este reserve in northern Venezuela.

The computers, which the government started distributing in Portuguese primary schools this week at a subsidised price of 50 euros , will be delivered to Venezuela from December. They cost 285 euros in stores in Portugal.

The laptop is based on Intel Corp’s <INTC.O> Classmate PC, a cheap computer that has been adopted in various formats in countries such as Brazil and Indonesia. ~sg.news.yahoo.com

The one problem — as with all of Hugo’s philosophy — is that it was the government who caused the problem and Chavez wants more of the same.

CARACAS, Venezuela — Faced with shortages of foods, building materials and other staples, President Hugo Chávez is intensifying state control of the Venezuelan economy through a new wave of takeovers of private companies and the creation of government-controlled ventures with allies like Cuba and Iran.

The moves come just months after voters rejected a referendum to give the president sweeping constitutional power over the economy and public institutions, leading to new accusations that Mr. Chávez is more interested in consolidating power than in fixing Venezuela’s problems. ~nytimes.com

It’s a slippery slope we have so far avoided but that doesn’t mean that it can’t happen here. In fact Chavez is betting that it will happen here which is why he wants Obama to win.

From Powerline:

If this report is correct, Nancy Pelosi was carrying on her own foreign policy in opposition to that of the United States, trying to work with the socialist Hugo Chavez and the Communist FARC terrorists to undermine America’s ally, Colombia. In normal times, this would be unthinkable. Given the crazed state of today’s Democratic party, I’m not so sure.

Further, the statement that Pelosi designated the outrageously left-wing Jim McGovern to head up her mission to the terrorists is also interesting. It may tie in with this document, which, as reported by the Associated Press, apparently records an attempt by Democrats to encourage FARC to hold on until Barack Obama becomes President:… ~powerlineblog.com

We know that Chavez is a favorite among the lefties here in the US. With myriads of actors and politicians making pilgrimage to see the glorious leader and his 21st century socialism at work. We know too that leftist NGO’s actively and routinely give aid and comfort to these leftist revolutionary/terrorist gangs.

As we learn more about the Colombian military’s daring hostage rescue last week, one detail stands out: In tricking FARC rebels into putting the hostages aboard a helicopter, undercover special forces simply told the comandantes that the aircraft was being loaned to them by a fictitious nongovernmental organization sympathetic to their cause called the International Humanitarian Mission.

It may have taken years for army intelligence to infiltrate the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, and it may have been tough to convincingly impersonate rebels. But what seems to have been a walk in the park was getting the FARC to believe that an NGO was providing resources to help it in the dirty work of ferrying captives to a new location.  ~online.wsj.com

Should the Internet be owned and maintained by the government, just like the highways? Vint Cerf, the “father of the Internet” and Google’s Internet evangelist, made this radical suggestion while he was sitting next to me on a panel yesterday about national tech policy at the Personal Democracy Forum.

…I tried to press Mr. Cerf on how exactly such a scheme would work without making Internet service even less competitive than it is today. He offered that the government could put the actual running of the service out to competitive bidding. It’s still a bad idea.  ~techcrunch.com

There’s no better way to destroy something than to nationalize it. Still the libs see this as a great idea most of the time and they’re getting more vocal.

Among other things, the Democrats called for the government to own refineries so it could better control the flow of the oil supply.  ~foxnews.com

HotAir has video of Maxine Waters and another rube Dem explaining their penchent for pure marxist thievery. Wow. Jaw dropper. Democrats believe this?

Hugh Hewitt quotes James Madison

“In a word, as a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights.  Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions. . . . Government is instituted to protect property of every sort; as well that which lies in the various rights of individuals, as that which the term particularly expresses. This being the end of government, that alone is a just government, which impartially secures to every man, whatever is his own.”

LONDON, May 7 (IranMania) – Iran slams capitalism as a means of plundering the wealth of other nations, saying the world hegemonic system will soon be destroyed, PressTV reported.Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made the remarks in a meeting with exemplary academics on the occasion of Teachers’ Day, which marks the martyrdom of acclaimed Iranian scholar and university lecturer Ayatollah Morteza Motahhari.

“Western-oriented democracy and the system of establishing security worldwide through the UN Security Council have failed to resolve global crises,” Ahmadinejad said.

The current system in the world has been planned by hegemonic powers and will soon be destroyed, he continued. ~iranmania.com

All those lessons in Venezuela with Hefe Hugo have not been in vain.

Bill Richardson Helps Prop Up Hugo Chavez

Will no Democrat ever pass up a chance to ingratiate themselves with a communist dictator and undermine our foreign policies?

But maybe Mr. Richardson is just trying to duplicate his wild success with getting the North Koreans to disarm.

Also, Fausta’s blog has the latest translation of Hugo’s socialist rants:

“This [Venezuela's] percentage is one of the highest in the continent for health spending. Do you know where the government spends almost nothing on health? In the United States. It’s all pure capitalism, compadre. Nothing on health and nothing on social security.

“See how much poverty and misery have increased in the US in the last few years. ~faustasblog.com

PRINCETON, NJ — A solid majority of the U.S. public, 73%, believes the Second Amendment to the Constitution guarantees the rights of Americans to own guns. Twenty percent believe the amendment only guarantees the rights of state militia members to own guns. ~gallup.com

This 20% lines up perfectly with the amount of hardcore liberals in America who admire Hugo Chavez and his 21st century socialism: Sean Penn, Danny Glover, Code Pink and the like.

It’s not difficult to understand really:

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

Joe Kennedy’s back, playing Santa Chavez with a new sleigh full of Venezuelan heating oil for “the poor.” The tropical dictator’s politicized “gift,” however, comes with strings. We see Joe dancing on them. ~ibdeditorials.com

The left and Chavez are on the same page. They are leftists.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez urged his Latin American allies on Saturday to begin withdrawing billions of dollars in international reserves from U.S. banks, warning of a looming U.S. economic crisis.

What? Capitalism is finally about to collapse!

Chavez warned that U.S. “imperialism is entering into a crisis that can affect all of us” and said Latin America “will save itself alone.”

The enemies of America.

Chavez said a new fund created by Venezuela and Iran to support projects in third countries would have links to the ALBA Bank.   ~news.yahoo.com

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) – President Hugo Chavez warned his supporters on Friday that anyone voting against his proposed constitutional changes would be a “traitor,” rallying his political base before a referendum that would let him seek unlimited re-election in 2012 and beyond. Brandishing a little red book listing his desired 69 revisions to Venezuela’s charter, Chavez exhorted his backers to redouble their efforts toward a victorious “yes” vote in the Dec. 2 ballot.

“He who says he supports Chavez but votes ‘no’ is a traitor, a true traitor,” the president told an arena packed with red-clad supporters. “He’s against me, against the revolution and against the people.” ~breitbart.com

Notice the Chairman Mao little red book in his hands. Looks like he means business about getting his ‘reforms’ which also happen to make him president-for-life.