Following the death of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez yesterday, it has been announced that his handpicked successor, Vice President Nicolas Maduro, will run the nation as the interim president. In a news conference explaining he transition, Maduro also launched into conspiracy theories. He suggested that the U.S. may have been behind Chavez’s cancer and that Washington was attempting to destabilize the country.

A State Department representative released a statement saying, "We completely reject the Venezuelan government's claim that the United States is involved in any type of conspiracy to destabilize the Venezuelan government.” Venezuelan officials did not make it immediately clear when a new presidential election would be held. Chavez, an outspoken critic of the United States, ran the socialist country nearly singlehandedly for 14 years …