Alleged pic of empty shelves in Venezuela is actually from a Wal-Mart in the US

Get a load of this….

So Michelle Malkin in National Review did a piece on Bernie Sanders a few days ago, still whining about the underarm deodorant issue…

Ask Venezuelans How Sanders-Style Socialism Is Working Out for Them

Venezuela’s vibrant economy.

Wow, horrible pic of some lady in a store with empty shelves and disgustingly dirty too — along with a caption “Venezuela’s vibrant economy.”

So I did an image search and turned up this….

Defying the Laws of Physics at Walmart

Now it appears that this may be a Wal-Mart in Wisconsin (?), but it’s not clear from the story. But if you look at a larger version of the image, you can see the English signs in the background, so it’s clearly NOT from Venezuela.

Preparing for Hurricane Rita, Maria Chavez of Austin looks for a loaf of bread Thursday in the empty shelves of a Wal-Mart at Interstate 35 and Slaughter Lane. The store was sold out. (Credit: Jay Janner, Austin-American Statesman)

So whoever posted this story to National Review purposely cropped out the English signs and then applied a dirty filter to it — because we all know Hispanics are filthy people, right?

In an argument with a wingnut friend of mine, his response was “It’s clearly a stock photo.” ORLY? Even if true, why crop it, make it dirty, and label it as a sign of Venezuela’s economy?

So, bottom line, a scare story about empty shelves that will plague the U.S. if Sanders is elected used a picture from a Wal-Mart in the U.S. that had trouble keeping their shelves stocked.

LGF contributor Backwoods_Sleuth discovered the true origin of the photo, from a 2005 post at this blog: Fergie’s Tech Blog: Austin Hurricane Panic Insanity.

The photographer was Jay Janner from the Austin-American Statesman, and the photo shows a Walmart in Austin, Texas. The original caption from their front page: