VENEZUELA: 06 Jan. UPDATE: Legislature Meets; Chavez Likes Idea Of New U.S. Ambassador Nominee.

AP/ M.HERALD/ IAN JAMES /

    President Hugo Chavez likes the U.S. government's suggestion that it may nominate a new ambassador to Venezuela instead of former nominee Larry Palmer, whom Chavez trashed because of some comments Palmer made.
    He even joked that Washington might name an American he knows and likes, maybe Noam Chomsky or Bill Clinton.
   "I hope they name Oliver Stone ... Sean Penn," said Chavez on TV. "We have many friends there."

  ALSO, today's WSJ has an excellent but somewhat technical analysis by David Luhnow of Venezuela's new soon to be seated but powerless legislature, clipped by Chavez's recent moves.
He labels it as "no longer a full democracy."
   "After September elections gave the opposition big gains in congress, Chávez and his allies in the lame duck legislature passed a series of laws that, among other things, gave the president the power to rule by decree for the next 18 months, bypassing the congress."
 Unfortunately, a FREE LINK is NOT AVAILABLE!


BUT FOR AP UPDATE : Special By Phil Gunson/

  A new parliament had an acrimonious session with bitter opposition complaints about unconstitutional behavior, shouts of ``murderers'' and chants of ``Uh, ah, Chávez isn't leaving!''

      Also, hundreds of Chavez opponents demonstrated in support of their lawmakers.

"I hope they fight for all of us Venezuelans who voted for democracy," said Maria Eugenia Escalona, a 53-year-old housewife.
  Chavez believes that "democracy is impossible under capitalism.''
http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/01/05/2002747/protests-insults-as-parliament.html

VENEZUELA: Impressions Of Hugo Chavez.

SLATE/ Christopher Hitchens/OPINION/   Hitchens expounds on "What I learned about Hugo Chávez's mental health when I visited Venezuela with Sean Penn" during a trip in 2008, and the recent TV broadcast of Simon Bolivar's exhumation.

"Recent accounts of Hugo Chávez's politicized necrophilia may seem almost too lurid to believe, but I can testify from personal experience that they may well be an understatement. In the early hours of July 16—just at the midnight hour, to be precise—Venezuela's capo officiated at a grisly ceremony. This involved the exhumation of the mortal remains of Simón Bolívar, leader of Latin America's rebellion against Spain, who died in 1830."

VENEZUELA: Actress Takes On Actor Sean Penn Over Chavez Remarks.

NYDAILYNEWS/    In news previously covered here about Sean Penn's comments, a minor brouhahha now is brewing in Hollywoodland as actress Maria Alonso Conchita blasts fellow actor Sean Penn for his support of Veneuela's president Hugo Chavez. "Even though I have great respect for your artistic talent," Alonso said in a web-posted letter, "I was appalled by a recent television interview where you vigorously showed support for the regime of Hugo Chavez. Chavez did win his first elections," the former Miss Venezuela wrote, "but like Hitler, he betrayed what the country gave him." And "It's startling to observe how Venezuela, where I was happily raised, is fast becoming Cuba's mirror image," she writes, "dismantling of fundamental democratic rights deserved by its people and citizens of the world."

VENEZUELA: Actor Sean Penn Defends Hugo Chavez; Wants Journalists Jailed.

GUARDIAN.UK/   Actor Sean Penn is defending Hugo Chávez as a model democrat and says those who call him a dictator should be jailed. He claims the US media smear Chavez and wants journalists doing it to be punished. "Every day, this elected leader is called a dictator here, and we just accept it, and accept it. And this is mainstream media. There should be a bar by which one goes to prison for these kinds of lies. We are hypnotised by the media. Who do you know here who's gone through 14 of the most transparent elections on the globe, and has been elected democratically, as Hugo Chávez?"