Photo from Reuters

So Coke-chewing Hugo Chavez’ cheese slid off his cracker-again-as he accused Columbia and the United States of plotting against him-again-according to a Miami Herald article;

President Hugo Chávez on Friday accused neighboring Colombia and the United States of plotting a military ‘’aggression’’ against Venezuela.

‘’I accuse the government of Colombia of devising a conspiracy, acting as a pawn of the U.S. empire, of devising a military provocation against Venezuela,’’ Chávez said.

‘’A military aggression is being prepared,’’ Chávez added. He did not offer evidence to support his claim.

But he warned Colombia not to attempt a ‘’provocation’’ and said Venezuela would cut off all oil exports in the event of a military strike from the neighboring country.

‘’In that scenario, write it down: The price of oil would reach $300, because there wouldn’t be oil for anyone,’’ Chávez said. “The invaders would have to step over our dead bodies.’’

Well, that’s a way to rally the people around you - promise them that they’d die before Chavez would allow himself to be killed. He’s beginning to sound like another former Latin American leader who dared to stand up to the United States by hiding behind his pueblo.

In the meantime, The Devil’s Excrement is reporting that on of the Chavez-hired thugs in the Maleta-gate investigation has changed his plea to guilty of intimidating a US witness in the case;

Moises Maionica one of the men charged in the US with being an agent of the Venezuelan Government in US territory in the Maletagate scandal, changed his plea to guilty in a sign that he is now coopertaing with US authorities. Immediately the Venezuelan Foreign Minister said Maionica was lying through his teeth in declaring himself guilty. Maionica was facing 15 years in jail if found guilty after declaring himself innocent, but has probably changed his plea now in exchange for immunity and reportedly, a US visa.

Daniel at Venezuela News and Views says this won’t affect Chavez much in Venezuela but impacts his world-wide image;

In Venezuela Chavez has little to fear. After all the judicial system is now inexistent and certainly not about to investigate Chavez on anything. No matter what the trials of Miami in the coming months might reveal, we can be assured that the most that will happen will be a delightfully botched operation such as the one on the Danilo Anderson assassination. That one lead to nowhere, though ensuring that at least a few political opponents were put in trouble for nothing, one still in exile. No, even if there were to be a judge willing to take on Chavez, or at least his corrupt camarilla, even if the other 3 in Miami were to plead guilty now and start talking, Chavez has much worse problems than Antonini to face anyway.

Because the HMS-Chavez seems to make water from all sides these days.

First, at least for Chavez, his foreign policy front, the only aspect of his rule that he really cares about, is collapsing right and left.

And that probably explains his macho muscle flexing in public. Katy at Caracas Chronicles says he has domestic problems, too;

However, I get the feeling that the government is slowly entering into panic mode. Increasingly, the tone I get - from the scandals, from what bureaucrats are saying in public, from what chavista talking heads say on the air - is that the revolution is in trouble, perhaps more trouble than we on the other side acknowledge.

Repeated defeats at the hand of chavismo have taught us not to have high expectations. But it’s hard to shake the sense that chavistas are on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

Gustavo Coronel at Las Armas de Coronel writes that the state-run oil company, PDVSA, is failing at producing and exporting oil, but they’ve switched gears into importing food stuffs;

PDVSA’s oil production has declined by some 800,000 barrels per day during the last seven years and it will inevitably keep declining, as investments are significantly below requirements. This means that oil exports, the economic lifeline of Venezuela, have also been declining, not only because production is down but also because domestic consumption is sharply up. Meanwhile PDVSA, led by the future liberator of Bolivia, Rafael Ramirez, has opened a new division called PDVAL, PDVSA Alimentos, to import food (faster than producing it). The opening of this new division has been a major event in the State of Zulia. It is born, says Ramirez, “to solve the problems of supply of basic foods, in answer to the existing situation of hoarding, contraband and detour of products”

So, the logical solution is to blame the US and Columbia, well…logical from a completely whacked out perspective, anyway. Hugo, why do you think they call it “dope”, compa?