Showing posts with label socialism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label socialism. Show all posts

Tuesday, 26 November 2013

4th grade textbook - Whites are ractist for opposing Obama




Socialist Common Core "Education"
The Federally funded brainwashing of our children.


Parents in Duplo, Ill., are up in arms over a book portraying white Americans as racist –
required reading for their fourth-graders under the Common Core curriculum.

Students at Bluffview Elementary School were told they would be tested and graded on the book, “Barack Obama,” part of the Scholastic “Reading Counts” program, according to EAGNews. The author, Jane Sutcliffe, has written numerous books on other historical figures, such as George Washington, Ronald Reagan and Susan B. Anthony reports BizPac Review.

The book begins with Obama’s life as a child, referring to him as “Barry,” and frequently mentions that he was “the only black” in various settings, a situation that caused a bit of an identity crisis for him, according to this passage:
When Barry looked in the mirror, he saw a young black man. But he didn’t know how to be black. And no one was there to teach him. 
He decided to act like the black characters he saw on TV. He started acting tough. He cursed. Was that what it meant to be black? 
As he got older, he started smoking and drinking. He tried drugs. Was that what it meant to be black?
The biography refers to Obama’s candidacy in the 2008 presidential election this way:
But some people said Americans weren’t ready for that much change. Sure Barack was a nice fellow, they said. But white voters would never vote for a black president. Other angry voices were raised. Barack’s former pastor called the country a failure. God would damn the United States for mistreating its black citizens, he said.
Attention centered on the book after it was mentioned by a Facebook page, “Moms Against Duncan (MAD)” that organized earlier this month in opposition to U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s comments about “white suburban moms” and Common Core.  The group’s page says:
We are trying to be not only a pushback to Duncan but also a group of action. We are asking every mom (and the guys too!) to actively recruit parents to opt out of all testing. 
We only need 10% of students from every school to refuse Arne’s tests. This will corrupt the data, protect the teachers and begin the shut down of Common Core!! Moms, this can be done! Let’s show Arne what REAL mom pushback looks like!
The group has attracted over 4,000 members so far.


You are a racist
if you oppose Socialism.



Sunday, 24 November 2013

De Blasio gets policing advice — from ex-cons



Socialism in Action
The insane new Communist Mayor of New York wants
criminals to tell him how to reform the police department.


Communist Democrat New York Mayor Bill de Blasio is getting his policing advice from the real experts — hardened criminals.

A group of 50 ex-cons, kidnappers, junkies and chronic vagrants gathered at a Manhattan “Think Tank” Thursday to describe what they thought the NYPD should be doing to make their lives easier.
.
The felonious forum outlined a clear “get-soft-on-crime” vision.

“I like the idea of ending stop and frisk. That was the first thing that was totally there for me,” opined Mikell Green-Grand, a 49-year-old former jailbird who has convictions for grand larceny and identity theft reports the New York Post.


Arthur Castillo, 38 — who has been convicted for possessing stolen property and assault — said he would be much obliged if the cops just left him alone to do his thing.

“Cops won’t leave us alone!” he said. “Newly released prisoners are watched by the police and a lot of us don’t feel we have an opportunity to readapt to normal life because we are treated as criminals even though we are free.”

The event, which was held in Morningside Heights, was hosted by an advisory group called Talking Transitions, run by liberal billionaire investment magnate George Soros.

The goal was to offer de Blasio tips on “policing, corrections, parole policies and more.”

Since Talking Transitions is actually advising de Blasio during his preparations for assuming office, the opinions posited by the panel of crooks and deadbeats will be relayed to him and could have real policy effects.

“Bloomberg forgot about all of us. I’m hoping DeBlasio remembers us,” said Gregorio “Koko” Cruz, 63, who was convicted of first degree manslaughter, robbery, kidnapping and criminal possession of a weapon.

“After 12 years of Bloomberg, it’s time for a change,” the thief Green-Grand added.

Castillo, of Bayside, Queens, called for de Blasio to both “redistribute” the wealth and pay what is, in effect, protection money.

“A lot of money is spent on the prison system — it should be used to cultivate prisoners lives,” he opined. “The money should be redistributed to help those who want to change while they are incarcerated.”


My kind of law enforcement



"Nothing wrong with shooting as long as
the right people get shot!"
Harry Callahan

Friday, 22 November 2013

RETARD ALERT - Parent fined $10 by school for not including crackers in a sack lunch



Socialist Food Police
Parents fined for not including Ritz crackers
in kids’ school lunch


Retard Alert  -  The insane are running the asylum.  I am firmly convinced that our "educators" are some of the most fucking stupid people on the planet.

It's quite possible that the single stupidest school lunch policy on the planet comes courtesy of a strange interpretation of the Manitoba Government's Early Learning and Child Care lunch regulations (an earlier version of this article incorrectly pointed at the Manitoba Child Care Association as the source of the strangely interpreted policy).

Apparently if a child's lunch is deemed "unbalanced", where "balance" refers to ensuring that a lunch conforms to the proportions of food groups as laid out by Canada's awful Food Guide, then that child's lunch is "supplemented", and their parent is fined.

Manitoba Government’s Early Learning and Child Care fined mother Kristen Bartkiw $10 because she neglected to include healthful Ritz crackers in her kids’ school lunches. Weighty Matters has more details:
She sent her children to daycare with with lunches containing leftover homemade roast beef and potatoes, carrots, an orange and some milk. 
She did not send along any “grains”. 
As a consequence the school provided her children with, I kid you not, supplemental Ritz Crackers, and her with a $10 fine.

(Yahoo News)





Socialist Councilwoman urges Boeing workers to physically seize factories


 
The Rise of American Communism
The American Left has become so extreme that
FDR's New Dealers look like Conservatives.


Seattle City Councilmember-elect Kshama Sawant told Boeing machinists her idea of a radical option, should their jobs be moved out of state.

“The workers should take over the factories, and shut down Boeing’s profit-making machine,” Sawant announced to a cheering crowd of union supporters in Seattle’s Westlake Park Monday night.

This week, Sawant became Seattle’s first elected Socialist council member. She ran on a platform of anti-capitalism, workers’ rights, and a $15 per-hour minimum wage for Seattle workers.


On Monday night, she spoke to supporters of Boeing Machinists, six days after they rejected a contract guaranteeing jobs in Everett building the new 777X airliner for eight years, in exchange for new workers giving up their guaranteed company pensions reports KIRO TV.

Now Boeing is threatening to take those jobs to other states. “That will be nothing short of economic terrorism because it’s going to devastate the state’s economy,” she said.

Sawant is calling for machinists to literally take-possession of the Everett airplane-building factory, if Boeing moves out. She calls that “democratic ownership.”

“The only response we can have if Boeing executives do not agree to keep the plant here is for the machinists to say the machines are here, the workers are here, we will do the job, we don't need the executives. The executives don’t do the work, the machinists do,” she said.

Sawant says after workers “take-over” the Everett Boeing plant; they could build things everyone can use.

“We can re-tool the machines to produce mass transit like buses, instead of destructive, you know, war machines,” she told KIRO 7.

Sawant says she was referring to “drones” when speaking of war machines. Still, she says even as they work on the lines, building airplanes daily, she believes Boeing workers are under siege.

“Workers have to realize, they have more power than they think,” she said.


Obama should nationalize the big corporations says Antonio Banderas



Hollywood Moonbat Alert
If he’s so into wealth redistribution why doesn’t he
hand over his millions to the government?


Don't you just love millionaire Socialists?  It is capitalism for them, but Socialism for others.

Spanish actor Antonio Banderas surprised CNN viewers when he criticized US President Barack Obama and suggested Europe and the US should apply the same economic policies as Venezuela’s late president Hugo Chávez.

During his talk with Spanish journalist Ana Pastor, Banderas was asked several questions about the current financial crisis and possible solutions to it.


The Malaga-born star pointed the finger of blame at “the markets, the lobbies, the big corporations” and suggested they didn’t have to take responsibility when countries and governments had problems.
“We’re not being governed by the people we voted for,” he told Pastor.

“How do you put a stop to that?” she asked.

“You break it like Chávez did in his day, you get all these big corporations and you nationalize them,” answered Banderas in the midst of a deafening silence.

“There was no other way out,” he added.

The Hollywood actor also criticized the US’s President Obama for not fullfilling his promises during his two terms in office and succumbing to the pressure of big business and financial markets.

Keep reading…




Thursday, 21 November 2013

Army to go Vegetarian to Fight Global Warming


 
Norwegian army goes on vegetarian diet


The Norwegian military said Tuesday it plans to put its troops on a vegetarian diet once a week in a bid to fight a new kind of enemy — climate change.

The army said its new meatless Mondays are meant to cut its consumption of ecologically unfriendly foods whose production contributes heavily to global warming.

“It’s a step to protect our climate. The idea is to serve food that’s respectful of the environment,” spokesman Eystein Kvarving told France24 News.

Hmmm . . . which one should I eat?
 
The diet has already been introduced at one of Norway’s main bases and will soon be rolled out to all units, including those serving overseas, said the army, estimating it would cut its meat consumption by 150 tonnes per year.

“It’s not about saving money,” said Kvarving. “It’s about being more concerned for our climate, more ecologically friendly and also healthier.”

A Norwegian environmental group that campaigns for meatless Mondays nationwide, The Future in Our Hands, welcomed the army announcement.

"The defence ministry deserves a lot of praise because it's taking climate and environmental issues seriously," said the group's director, Arild Hermstad.

According to the organisation, the average Norwegian eats more than 1,200 animals over the course of their life, including 1,147 chickens, 22 sheep, six cattle and 2.6 deer.


The Government Owns Your Children



Pick your up kids from school & go to jail
  • With school dismissed a father was arrested for attempting to pick his kids up from school in a startling new example of how the state is increasingly treating children as its own property.


A Cumberland County, Tennessee father didn't want to wait in a long line of traffic to pick his kids up from school. That led to a series of encounters last week at South Cumberland Elementary, and now the dad's facing charges.

"I'm going to call some help down here and we're going to take you up to the jail right now. I'm not putting up with this today. You're being childish and it's uncalled for," Sheriff Deputy and School Resource Officer Avery Aytes said in the YouTube video.
.
The video goes on to show the dad arguing with the school security officer over state law, then the dad winds up in handcuffs reports ABC WATE News.

"I'm not raising my voice, I'm not confrontational, I want my kids," Jim Howe said in the YouTube video.

The video was taken by Amanda Long Thursday afternoon as she and her fiance, Jim Howe, were trying to pick up Howe's two children from school. It shows Howe arguing with Deputy Aytes.

Howe says, because of a new policy that started last week, the only way parents can get their children after 2 p.m. is to wait in a line of cars until everyone is released at 2:35. He says not only is this time consuming, it's illegal.

"You don't need a reason as a parent to go get your children. They are our children," Howe said.

As the video shows, Howe was arrested by Aytes for disorderly conduct. Deputy Aytes tells 6 News he's unable to comment because this is an open case. Cumberland County Sheriff Butch Burgess says he hasn't seen the video and doesn't need to, because it won't tell the whole story. He says Aytes was just doing his job.


Your Children are the Property of the State





Venezuela makes a Communist their dictator



A Communist Power Grab
  • Leftist Congress gives their Socialist President the power to pass laws without congressional approval.


The Socialist-Communist majority in the Venezuelan Congress granted President Nicolas Maduro yearlong decree powers on Tuesday that he says are essential to regulate the economy and stamp out corruption but adversaries view as a power grab.

Hundreds of supporters of the ruling Socialist Party cheered outside the National Assembly as the so-called Enabling Law was passed, while a recording of Maduro's late predecessor, Hugo Chavez, singing Venezuela's anthem rang out inside the hall reports Reuters News.

The power to pass laws without congressional approval gives Maduro a political victory in the run-up to December 8 municipal elections, although he still faces a severely distorted economy with embarrassing product shortages and inflation surging to nearly 55 percent.

"I want to thank the majority of patriotic and socialist lawmakers for approving this law that will let us advance, over the next 12 months, in defeating the economic war being waged against our people," Maduro said.


An Attack on Private Property
  • The mouth-breathing Leftist masses empty the store shelves of the "evil" capitalists on the orders of their Socialist Dictator.  

Thousands of people have lined up in front of electronics stores and hardware stores that have been forced at gun point by Maduro to empty their inventories at cut-rate prices.

His party is hoping the moves will revive its chances in the upcoming elections for about 370 mayors and city council members.

"Don't leave anything on the shelves," Maduro said when he announced his campaign against what Socialists call "price gouging" and what the rest of the world calls free enterprise.

Maria Davila felt like a winner after emerging from the Traki department store with clothes for herself and her husband, as well as toys for their four children.

Davila spent 14 hours in line to make her purchases after the store reduced prices by up to 70% on merchandise to comply with Maduro's crusade against the country's "parasitical bourgeoisie," reports USA Today.

"It was well worth the wait," Davila, 42, says of her ordeal. "I saved so much money. I feel like I won the lottery."

"The opposition is going to do very well in the largest cities and state capitals,'' says Tarek Yorde, a Caracas-based political consultant. "I think they are going to win up to 25 of the country's 33 largest cities."

"They are destroying the Venezuelan economy,'' opposition leader Henrique Capriles Radonski said during a weekend campaign swing through the eastern state of Sucre. "People are waiting in line outside stores because they know that inventories are drying up."


Wednesday, 20 November 2013

Student health insurance cancelled by Obama



Welcome to Obamacare Socialism
The Democrat Party is forcing colleges to cancel thousands
of low cost student health insurance policies.


While millions of Americans are watching their individual polices get canceled due to ObamaCare regulations, the new health care rules are also having a major impact on college campuses.
.
For decades, universities and colleges have offered students bare-bones policies. But because of the Affordable Care Act, those policies no longer cut it – and universities are forced to decide whether to offer significantly higher-cost plans or cancel coverage altogether.

The new rules affect a broad swath of American schools, especially the small ones.

At Bowie State University in Maryland, the cost of student health insurance policies went from roughly $100 a year to $1,800 a year reports Fox News.


The cancelled plan offered $5,000 worth of medical coverage to students for just $54 per semester. University administrators said an acceptable replacement under the Affordable Care Act would have cost $900 per semester, a 1,500 percent increase.

Students who need individual coverage are likely to find a better deal for themselves on the Maryland Health Connection insurance exchange, University spokeswoman Cassandra Robinson said.

In the end, the school decided to drop the policy for all of its 5,500 enrollees. Students were notified of the dropped coverage on the school’s website.

"Bowie State University has suspended offering health insurance for domestic students for the 2013-2014 academic year," according to the school's official website. "Due to new requirements of the Affordable Care Act which will go into effect on January 1, 2014, the cost of insurance for domestic students will increase to approximately $1800 per year."

The sticker shock didn’t sit well with some students who spoke out against the price hike.

“You’ve haven’t done anything Obama and I am disappointed in you,” one student said. Another told Campus Reform, “We don’t have that money. We can barely afford books.”

The frustration has been felt across the country as colleges and universities have to decide whether to cut coverage or offer sky-high plans that in some cases triple the cost of premiums.

In New Jersey, students who enrolled in this past semester were the first class that had to shoulder the higher premium costs. Many community colleges in Bergen and Passaic counties were forced to cut student coverage altogether.

In Cranford, N.J., Stephen Nacco, the Union County Community College Vice President of Administrative Services, says the cost of health insurance is now “more than a thousand dollars per students and that it is dramatically different” than what it had been in the past.

Students were paying so little before because the coverage they received was so scant. The costs have gone up because under ObamaCare, plans must offer coverage for services like annual checkups and alcohol abuse treatments. Because they offer a wider range of services, the premiums also increase.

According to the New Jersey Association of State Colleges and Universities, students at nine schools in the state saw the cost of their policies triple, Paul Shelly, a spokesman for the organization told North Jersey.com.


It’s been a similar story across most of the country.

According to a 2008 study by the Government Accountability Office, about 6,000 students or about 7 percent of the total number of 18-to-23-year-olds in college, bought their own insurance, usually through plans arranged with the school.

The same study found that 60 percent of schools’ plans had coverage of $50,000 or less for specific conditions, and almost all the rest had some sort of payout caps that they will have to do away with by 2014.

In the past, students at Bethany College in Lindsborg, Kan., were offered a one-year plan that cost students $445, with payouts capping at $10,000. For the 2012-2013 academic year, the payout cap was increased to $100,000 per the new health care overhaul, which meant students at Bethany would have to shell out more than $2,000 for coverage. It apparently was too much in the end.

Bob Schmoll, Bethany’s vice president for finance, told The Wall Street Journal, the school “decided not to offer coverage for our students next year” given the proposed increase in premium. Schmoll says the school could have kept the limited-coverage plan but that it would have financially not been feasible.

Administrators at Lenoir-Rhyne University in North Carolina, Cornell College in Iowa and the University of Puget Sound in Washington also told students they would be dropping school-sponsored coverage. The three schools say student premiums would have gone up 10-fold.


Tuesday, 19 November 2013

De Blasio - Bringing Socialism to New York


A RED campaign sign - Truth in advertising.

“People were shocked and speechless”
  • New York City Commie Mayor-elect tells businessmen he not a free-marketeer.  That he believes in the heavy hand of government.
  • Will New York's new Democrat mayor follow the policies of Lenin, Stalin or Castro?  Inquiring minds want to know.


The People's Republic of New York - Welcome to the new Democrat Party's "big tent" where everyone from Marx to Lenin is represented.  Suddenly Mayors Michael Bloomberg and Rudy Giuliani look like drooling right-wing loons.


(New York Post)  Business leaders in the city are scratching their heads over recent remarks by Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio.

Describing how he plans to govern once he takes office next year, the mayor-elect declared flatly that he doesn’t believe in the free-market system.

At least Comrade Bill was being honest.

“Everything you heard about me is true. . . I am not a free-marketeer. . . I believe in the heavy hand of government,” de Blasio stated matter-of-factly during an hour-long presentation to some of the city’s biggest real-estate developers reports Charles Gasparino in the New York Post.


The meeting occurred several weeks before the election with de Blasio way ahead in the polls and New York’s business elite hoping and praying he wasn’t as much of a leftist as he said he was on the campaign trail.

Now that de Blasio’s been elected mayor with a resounding 73 percent of the vote, his comments have become a hot topic for business people trying to digest what life will be like with Comrade Bill in charge.

Attendees of the gathering with de Blasio included Jared Kushner of Kushner Properties, Stephen Green of SL Green Realty, Douglas Durst of the Durst Organization and Jeff Blau, chief executive of the Related Companies. Scott Rechler of RXR Realty, who hosted the event at his offices, served as moderator (that is, to the extent it’s possible to moderate de Blasio).

“It was startling to hear someone in this day and age boldly proclaim he’s not a ‘free marketeer,’ ” said one person in ­attendance.

“Scary” was how another person with direct knowledge of the event described his statements. “People were shocked and speechless,” said another person who was there.

This is a guy who honeymooned in Cuba, gave aid and comfort to the communist Sandinista rebels and never apologized for his radical past. In fact, he’s built upon it, advocating a distinctly far-left agenda — further left, in fact, than any mayor since David Dinkins. That includes everything from bashing the police to demanding higher taxes and much bigger government, which he believes will alleviate a fictional narrative: that one of the most generous cities in the world to poor people is really a Dickensian hell hole.


Thanks to http://www.longislandfirearms.com/forum/
 

Sunday, 17 November 2013

Seattle elects a Socialist to City Council



From each according to their ability
"I don't think socialism makes most people in Seattle afraid."


The People's Republic of Seattle  -  Why vote Socialist?  Because Democrats are just too damn moderate.  Welcome to the new America.

Seattle voters have elected a socialist to city council for the first time in modern history.
Kshama Sawant's lead continued to grow on Friday, prompting 16-year incumbent Richard Conlin to concede.

Even in this liberal city, Sawant's win has surprised many here. Conlin was backed by the city's political establishment. On election night, she trailed by four percentage points. She wasn't a veteran politician, having only run in one previous campaign.

But in the days following election night, Sawant's share of the votes outgrew Conlin's.

"I don't think socialism makes most people in Seattle afraid," Conlin said Friday reports the Associated Press.

While city council races are technically non-partisan, Sawant made sure people knew she was running as a socialist — a label that would be politically poisonous in many parts of the country.





Sawant, a 41-year-old college economics professor, first drew attention as part of local Occupy Wall Street protests that included taking over a downtown park and a junior college campus in late 2011.

She then ran for legislative office in 2012, challenging the powerful speaker of the state House, a Democrat. She was easily defeated.

This year, though, she pushed a platform that resonated with the city.

She backed:
  • raise the minimum wage to $15
  • called for rent control 
  • supports a tax on millionaires to help fund a public transit system and other services.

"I will reach out to the people who supported Richard Conlin, working with everyone in Seattle to fight for a minimum wage of $15 (an) hour, affordable housing, and the needs of ordinary people," Sawant said in a statement.

During her campaign, she condemned economic inequality, contending that some people aren't benefiting from the city's declining jobless rate, ongoing recovery from the recession, and downtown building boom.

"She's passionate about her values," Conlin said.

Research showed no socialist candidate had won a citywide office in the past 100 years. The last socialist candidate to make it into the general election was in 1991 and was defeated, said Scott Cline, the city's archivist.

Socialist Kshama Sawant, a college economics professor.
.
Translation:  Those who can do, those who can't teach.

Saturday, 16 November 2013

The GOP shoves it hard up Obama's . . . .



Give it him hard and deep
Mark your calendar. The GOP actually did something. 




By Gary;

It warms the cockles of my heart to see the Socialist Democrats get fucked on live TV.

It was a thing of beauty, and a wonder to behold, to watch 39 scumbag Democrats jump from the Obamacare ship and vote with the GOP to extend insurance policies.

And I just love the name of the bill -  Keep Your Health Plan Act.

The House passed the bill, 261 to 157.  The DNA basic instinct to save your own skin first is as old as the caveman, and Democrats are scared shitless.  For some strange reason four Republicans voted against the bill.

A Warning  -  Keep in mind that we are dealing with the big government loving Republicans here.  It appears that the bill by GOP Rep. Fred Upton would allow insurers to sell their plans that were active as of January 2013 into 2014.

So the GOP had the Democrats by the short and curlies and all the bill did was push enforcement back by only one year????  Why not a bill to permanently give Americans the right to buy the insurance of their choice forever and ever?

To me this would have been the perfect opportunity (a teachable moment) to stand up for private enterprise and the right of the people to purchase, or not purchase, the product of their choice.

Maybe there is a good reason for only going for one year, but I can't see it.

Comrade Obama is threatening a veto.  He may think the Upton bill will get passed through a Democrat Senate in panic of losing seats and on to his desk.

Today we celebrate a small victory. . . . but like Michael Myers or Freddy Krueger, the horror of Socialism just won't die.  It keeps coming back like a bad movie sequel.  The battle goes on.





Venezuela jails 100 "bourgeois" businessmen



Coming soon to the United States of Obama?

"They are barbaric, these capitalist parasites!"
Comrade President Nicolas Maduro


Venezuela's socialist government has arrested more than 100 "bourgeois" businessmen in a crackdown on alleged price-gouging at hundreds of shops and companies since the weekend, President Nicolas Maduro said on Thursday.

"They are barbaric, these capitalist parasites!" Maduro thundered in the latest of his lengthy daily speeches. "We have more than 100 of the bourgeoisie behind bars at the moment."

The successor to the late Hugo Chavez also said his government was preparing a law to limit Venezuelan businesses' profits to between 15 percent and 30 percent.

Officials say "unscrupulous" companies have been hiking prices of electronics and other goods more than 1,000 percent. Critics say failed socialist economic policies and restricted access to foreign currency are behind Venezuela's runaway inflation reports Reuters News.

"Goodyear has to lower its prices even more, 15 percent is not enough, the inspectors have go there straightaway," Maduro said in his evening address, sending officials to check local operations of the U.S.-based tire manufacturer.


Since the weekend, soldiers and inspectors have gone into 1,400 shops, taken over operations at an electronics firm and a battery-making company, and rounded up a handful of looters.

The inspections have shaken Venezuela three weeks before local elections that his opponents are casting as a referendum on the 50-year-old former bus driver. Maduro has made preserving Chavez's legacy the mainstay of his government and has been matching his former mentor's anti-capitalist rhetoric.

"It's time to deepen the offensive, go to the bone in this economic war," he said.

Only a few of the hundreds of shops targeted with surprise inspections had been found to be offering "fair prices," officials say. Some businesses are voluntarily lowering prices - or staying closed - in case the inspectors come.

"We've reduced everything by 10 to 15 percent, but it's not fair. I can't make a profit now," said the owner of one small electronics store, who asked not to be identified.
Socialist Inflation
A $34.99 toaster in the US costs
$175 in Venezuela.

Venezuela's official inflation, 54 percent annually, is the highest in the Americas.

The government has ordered local telecom companies to block various websites showing the bolivar at 10 times the official rate of 6.3 to the greenback on the illegal market.

Prominent pro-opposition columnist Nelson Bocaranda said Maduro's economic policies were "chillingly similar" to those of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe. The African leader also used security forces to enforce a price crackdown in 2007.

Opposition party Justice First accused the state of hypocrisy, saying its stores were also hiking prices unjustifiably.

An imported sandwich toaster, for example, that costs $34.99 in the United States, was selling at a fivefold markup of 1,100 bolivars ($175 at the official exchange rate) in state supermarket chain Bicentenario, it said.

"This shows the economic chaos Maduro has got us in where prices have no logic. The government created this monster and now tries to pretend it will control it, but Venezuelans cannot be deceived by this electoral show," Justice First said.

Like Chavez on several occasions, Maduro is seeking decree powers from Congress, which granted preliminary approval on Thursday. He says he needs the Enabling Law to fix the economy, but critics accuse Maduro of simply amassing power.


Anti-Communist Demonstrations in April


Demonstrators, one holding a poster of opposition presidential candidate Henrique Capriles, shout slogans against the government and the official election results in the Altamira neighborhood in Caracas, Venezuela, Monday, April 15, 2013. National Guard troops fired tear gas and plastic bullets to disperse demonstrators protesting the official results in Venezuela's disputed presidential election.

An opposition supporter confronts riot police along a highway in the Altamira neighborhood of Caracas, Venezuela, Monday, April 15, 2013. National Guard troops fired tear gas and plastic bullets to disperse students protesting the official results in Venezuela's disputed presidential election.
(AP Photo/Fernando Llano)

Opposition supporters and students run away from tear gas after they clashed with riot police as they tried to block a highway in the Altamira neighborhood in Caracas, Venezuela, Monday, April 15, 2013.

Opposition supporters burn garbage during clashes with riot police in Caracas, Venezuela, Monday, April 15, 2013. National Guard troops dispersed students protesting the official results of Venezuela's disputed presidential election.

Demonstrators, one holding a poster of opposition presidential candidate Henrique Capriles, confront riot police from behind a burning barricade in the Altamira neighborhood in Caracas, Venezuela, Monday, April 15, 2013. National Guard troops fired tear gas and plastic bullets to disperse demonstrators protesting the official results in Venezuela's disputed presidential election.
(AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)


See more at the Huffington Post.com