“South America” on The Daily Caller

CARACAS (Reuters) – Capitalism may be to blame for the lack of life on the planet Mars, Venezuela’s socialist President Hugo Chavez said on Tuesday. (more)

President Obama’s long-planned trip to South America’s sunny vistas was carefully routed around the political storms in Columbia and Venezuela, but his smooth flights to Rio de Janeiro and charming Santiago are already being disrupted by the media turbulence emerging from Japan, Libya and the faltering U.S. economy. (more)

One wouldn’t normally associate heavy snowfall with global warming, but according ABC News, it’s time to consider that causality. (more)

Hugo Chavez, the yanqui-hating dictator of Venezuela, will not accept Washington’s proposed emissary and has dared the United States to break diplomatic relations. It seems Ambassador-select Larry Palmer’s sin is that he did not applaud Chavez when he used his rubber-stamp parliament to perpetuate his dictatorial regime. The State Department’s limp-wristed response was to cancel the visa of the Venezuelan ambassador. That, and silence from the White House, told the megalomaniac in Caracas exactly what the United States will do when Iran finishes building a nuclear missile base in Venezuela — absolutely nothing. (more)

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — President Hugo Chavez is promising to build new public housing complexes, boost social programs and renovate the long-neglected Caracas subway — and he needs money. (more)

Editors Note: Have a question for Matt Labash? Submit it here. (more)

A.C. Clark — a pseudonym the author used to protect himself and his family — is the author of the book “The Revolutionary Has No Clothes: Hugo Chavez’s Bolivarian Farce,” released in 2009. With last week’s election results in Venezuela making news, Clark agreed to answer 10 questions for The Daily Caller about his book and why Americans should care about what happens in the oil-rich Latin American country: (more)

On Sunday, for the second year in a row, former Republican House Majority Leader Dick Armey’s FreedomWorks organization hosted a 9/12 March on Washington in Washington, D.C. The focus of this year’s political rally was on the Contract From America, a plan FreedomWorks has been asking politicians to sign and pledge to follow. The Contract is aimed at reducing spending and government involvement in people’s lives. (more)

In a grisly discovery, Mexican marines have found 72 bodies dumped at a ranch in a violence-torn stretch of northern Mexico, the navy announced. (more)

A woman has been killed in a shoot-out after armed men burst into a tourist hotel in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro, police say. (more)

A recently published article titled Top Secret America by the Washington Post made a blatant attempt to destroy U.S. National Security and the U.S. Intelligence Community’s never ending attempt to ethically secure the persons of this great country. This flagrant attempt of belittling the very organizations that allows the Washington Post an opportunity to freely express itself is depressing and completely appalling! (more)

The ocean floor is known to release numerous natural gases. The release of these gases is not normally caused by manmade disasters but by natural events. Because the ocean and the world’s land mass are plush with natural filters alleviating risk to human lives, we have not been truly affected until now. (more)

Sitting in a swimming pool full of piranhas, Jeremy Wade began to suspect his television crew was out for revenge. (more)

RIVERHEAD, N.Y. — The last of seven New York teenagers implicated in the hate crime killing of an Ecuadorean immigrant pleaded guilty on Wednesday. (more)

In a previous post, in recognition of National Military Month, it was discussed how our military had improved as first defenders of America’s freedoms. This post focuses on how the military, while assuring our national security, has also in unheralded fashion improved civilian society, enhancing daily lives of people and their surroundings, in health and conservation, both here and around the world. (more)

Arizona’s new immigration policy, which requires aliens to carry immigration papers and directs the police to detain “suspected aliens,” has re-ignited debates over how to reduce illegal immigration. Most of this debate involves wishful thinking: the claim that stricter border controls or Arizona-like measures can make a real difference. The reality is that only four policies can significantly reduce illegal immigration. (more)

Arnold Schwarzenegger, apparently taking a break from the budgetary troubles that have dogged him during his governorship, appears on screen with Willis and Stallone in “The Expendables”, utters a crisply satirical line (“Give this job to my friend here — he loves playing in the jungle,” he says about the “Rambo” star) and, as quickly as he appeared, turns and walks away. (more)

A new landslide has swept away some 40 homes in Brazil’s Rio de Janeiro area, burying up to 200 people, following the heaviest rains in decades. (more)

The recent murder of a United States consular employee and her husband has cast a disturbing pall upon the devastating nature of Mexico’s increasingly internecine warfare against the drug cartels operating within its borders. (more)

SANTIAGO, Chile — Two strong offshore tremors jolted the coastline of southern Chile on Friday morning striking close to the epicenter of the earthquake that devastated the country a week ago. (more)