Vzla: 'Hurricane' Hugo Chavez tries his hand at distraction

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - Venezuela's outspoken president, Hugo Chavez, has claimed often and passionately that he is the target of coup and assassination plots.

In 2002, it was actually true. So many Venezuelans are befuddled by his latest claims: that dozens of Colombian paramilitaries were training to kill him.

More than 100 people have been arrested since authorities stormed a farm on the outskirts of Caracas Sunday. No weapons have been seized, and some wonder whether it is an elaborate ruse to deflect attention from a possible vote to recall the president.

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The article goes on to report how Chavez is rolling out all the same tired marxist tropes by claiming that Americans - along with Cuban and Venezuelan exiles - are plotting to assassinate him by way of supporting Columbian "right wing paramilitaries".

He might as well have thrown in the shadowy Zionist Easter Bunny Illuminati while he was at it...except they may have been too busy oppressing the Poor Arab Street^®.

Let's see what's shoved toward the bottom of the report...shall we?

The raids and arrests come just two weeks before 1 million people must go through the process of confirming signatures on a petition to demand a recall vote against Chavez. Government officials had questioned the petition's validity and demanded the confirmation.

A vote would be triggered if government opponents, who accuse Chavez of being increasingly authoritarian and dividing the country along class lines, confirm roughly 500,000 signatures on the recall petition.

Ahhhhh! A kernel...amidst the regular cherry-picked AP 'man on street claims so and so alledges this about that' and 'totalitarian defends himself thus'. ...and without even batting that blinkered journalistic eye.