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jwhop
Knowflake

Posts: 863
From: Madeira Beach, FL USA
Registered: Apr 2009

posted June 29, 2009 11:28 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for jwhop     Edit/Delete Message
So here's the grubby little Communist President of Honduras who attempted to override the Honduran Constitution and set himself on a path to exceed the Constitutional term limit of his office.

Naturally, this is what Communists do ala Hugo Chavez.

So, the Honduran Supreme Court told him he couldn't hold a referendum on the matter and this Communist twit went ahead with his plans anyway..going so far as to order ballots from his Communist bud Hugo Chavez.

The Honduran Supreme Court ordered the military to remove him which they did. The Honduran Congress wanted him removed too.

So, now Communists all over are angry that one of their own didn't get away with his bullshiiit.

Guess who else is upset with the turn of events?

If you guessed the Marxist Barack Hussein Obama and Hillary Clinton, you get a gold star.

Gee, it seems only days ago that El Presidente O'Bomber was saying he wasn't going to "Meddle" in the internal affairs of Iran...over a voting matter and the ensuing protests. I guess El Presidente O'Bomber thinks it's only necessary to "Meddle" in the internal affairs of other countries when one of his a$$hole buddy Communists gets dumped under the rule of law in Honduras.

Honduras Defends Its Democracy, Fidel Castro and Hillary Clinton object

Hugo Chávez's coalition-building efforts suffered a setback yesterday when the Honduran military sent its president packing for abusing the nation's constitution.

It seems that President Mel Zelaya miscalculated when he tried to emulate the success of his good friend Hugo in reshaping the Honduran Constitution to his liking.

But Honduras is not out of the Venezuelan woods yet. Yesterday the Central American country was being pressured to restore the authoritarian Mr. Zelaya by the likes of Fidel Castro, Daniel Ortega, Hillary Clinton and, of course, Hugo himself. The Organization of American States, having ignored Mr. Zelaya's abuses, also wants him back in power. It will be a miracle if Honduran patriots can hold their ground.


Associated Press
That Mr. Zelaya acted as if he were above the law, there is no doubt. While Honduran law allows for a constitutional rewrite, the power to open that door does not lie with the president. A constituent assembly can only be called through a national referendum approved by its Congress.

But Mr. Zelaya declared the vote on his own and had Mr. Chávez ship him the necessary ballots from Venezuela. The Supreme Court ruled his referendum unconstitutional, and it instructed the military not to carry out the logistics of the vote as it normally would do.

The top military commander, Gen. Romeo Vásquez Velásquez, told the president that he would have to comply. Mr. Zelaya promptly fired him. The Supreme Court ordered him reinstated. Mr. Zelaya refused.

Calculating that some critical mass of Hondurans would take his side, the president decided he would run the referendum himself. So on Thursday he led a mob that broke into the military installation where the ballots from Venezuela were being stored and then had his supporters distribute them in defiance of the Supreme Court's order.

The attorney general had already made clear that the referendum was illegal, and he further announced that he would prosecute anyone involved in carrying it out. Yesterday, Mr. Zelaya was arrested by the military and is now in exile in Costa Rica.

It remains to be seen what Mr. Zelaya's next move will be. It's not surprising that chavistas throughout the region are claiming that he was victim of a military coup. They want to hide the fact that the military was acting on a court order to defend the rule of law and the constitution, and that the Congress asserted itself for that purpose, too.

Mrs. Clinton has piled on as well. Yesterday she accused Honduras of violating "the precepts of the Interamerican Democratic Charter" and said it "should be condemned by all." Fidel Castro did just that. Mr. Chávez pledged to overthrow the new government.

Honduras is fighting back by strictly following the constitution. The Honduran Congress met in emergency session yesterday and designated its president as the interim executive as stipulated in Honduran law. It also said that presidential elections set for November will go forward. The Supreme Court later said that the military acted on its orders. It also said that when Mr. Zelaya realized that he was going to be prosecuted for his illegal behavior, he agreed to an offer to resign in exchange for safe passage out of the country. Mr. Zelaya denies it.

Many Hondurans are going to be celebrating Mr. Zelaya's foreign excursion. Street protests against his heavy-handed tactics had already begun last week. On Friday a large number of military reservists took their turn. "We won't go backwards," one sign said. "We want to live in peace, freedom and development."

Besides opposition from the Congress, the Supreme Court, the electoral tribunal and the attorney general, the president had also become persona non grata with the Catholic Church and numerous evangelical church leaders. On Thursday evening his own party in Congress sponsored a resolution to investigate whether he is mentally unfit to remain in office.

For Hondurans who still remember military dictatorship, Mr. Zelaya also has another strike against him: He keeps rotten company. Earlier this month he hosted an OAS general assembly and led the effort, along side OAS Secretary General José Miguel Insulza, to bring Cuba back into the supposedly democratic organization.

The OAS response is no surprise. Former Argentine Ambassador to the U.N. Emilio Cárdenas told me on Saturday that he was concerned that "the OAS under Insulza has not taken seriously the so-called 'democratic charter.' It seems to believe that only military 'coups' can challenge democracy. The truth is that democracy can be challenged from within, as the experiences of Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and now Honduras, prove." A less-kind interpretation of Mr. Insulza's judgment is that he doesn't mind the Chávez-style coup.

The struggle against chavismo has never been about left-right politics. It is about defending the independence of institutions that keep presidents from becoming dictators. This crisis clearly delineates the problem. In failing to come to the aid of checks and balances, Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Insulza expose their true colors.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124623220955866301.html

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jwhop
Knowflake

Posts: 863
From: Madeira Beach, FL USA
Registered: Apr 2009

posted June 30, 2009 09:59 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for jwhop     Edit/Delete Message
June 30, 2009
Obama's Attraction to Human Rights Violators
By Lauri B. Regan

"To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history, but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist."
- Barack Obama's Inaugural Address, January 20, 2009

The left in this country spent the Bush years wringing their hands, frustrated over efforts at nation building in the Mideast. Newsweek's attempt at rewriting history with claims of success in Iraq due to Obama's policies won't change the fact that the Bush administration's "war of choice" was a success. An entire population of repressed people now lives in freedom due to United States Mideast policy under President Bush. And the Iranian people desire a similar fate if only the American President were to seize the opportunity and support the populace demanding that their voices be heard.

Unfortunately, President Obama has traveled the globe handing out carrots to each and every one of America's enemies, leaders who also happen to be repressive dictators. Yet, no matter which tyrant Obama approaches with his open hand, he has, as my kids like to say, been "dissed."

With each fist bump from Hugo Chavez, Team Medvedev/Putin, Kim Jong-Il and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, one would expect that Obama would learn to close his open palm and offer up the tough policy that he promised would appear. Yet the only world leader who has seen Obama's stick wielding, clenched fist is Israeli Prime Minister, Benyamin Netanyahu.

So where are the voices of the left now, as Obama attempts to strong arm a sovereign nation -- one in which citizens of all ethnicity live free -- into ceding land to a sworn enemy of freedom? This despite the fact that history has proven the Palestinian people both unwilling and incapable of peace with Israel. Why is no one questioning the amount of energy being expended by the Obama administration on finding a peaceful solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict while remaining silent with regard to the world's true human rights violators.

Meghan Clyne, a speechwriter in the Bush White House, wrote an editorial in the New York Post last month addressing "Obama's dangerous silence" with regard to dissidents the world over. Candidate Obama promised the world that he would make human rights a focus of his administration yet he has remains silent when it comes to addressing issues that face citizens of almost every country to which he has reached out - and then some.

Unlike Obama who utters beautiful yet shallow words read from a teleprompter, Clyne points out that:

"Bush sent a clear message to those risking everything for their freedom: If you stand up for liberty, the president will stand with you."

From Hillary Clinton's clear statements that human rights in China take a back seat to economic concerns, to Obama's Latin American love fest with the Castro bothers and Hugo Chavez, and finally his outreach (and bowing down) to the Muslim world as a whole, Obama is dissing every freedom-loving man, woman and child living under repressive regimes. And yet he continues to attempt to pummel Israel into submission in the hopes of forming a new nation for the repressed Palestinian people, while befriending the real oppressors.

Obama was handed a golden opportunity to take back the role of leader of the free world when Ahmadinejad and the Mullahs stole the election in Iran. Yet, Obama continued to look and play the fool with all of his make nice policies and statements rather than voice a strong decisive (presidential?) statement in support of democracy. By failing to refuse to recognize the illegitimate government, Obama's initial reaction was reminiscent of his time spent in the Illinois State Senate voting present. After suggesting that he would continue "negotiations" with whomever held the title of President, the opinion polls forced him to finally make a weak statement, drawing the ire of Ahmadinejad (who was taken by surprise since he has gotten used to Obama's can't we just be friends foreign policy).

On the other hand, Obama has had strong words for the citizens of Honduras who have legally ousted President Zelaya after he refused to obey the rule of law and the constitution. In a statement in which he made it clear that he is "deeply concerned" by the events in Honduras, Obama went on to say,

"I call on all political and social actors in Honduras to respect democratic norms, the rule of law and the tenets of the Inter-American Democratic Charter. Any existing tensions and disputes must be resolved peacefully through dialogue free from any outside interference."

And Obama is in good company as Mary O'Grady points out in the Wall Street Journal:

"Yesterday the Central American country was being pressured to restore the authoritarian Mr. Zelaya by the likes of Fidel Castro, Daniel Ortega, Hillary Clinton and, of course, Hugo himself. The Organization of American States, having ignored Mr. Zelaya's abuses, also wants him back in power. It will be a miracle if Honduran patriots can hold their ground....

The struggle against chavismo has never been about left-right politics. It is about defending the independence of institutions that keep presidents from becoming dictators. This crisis clearly delineates the problem. In failing to come to the aid of checks and balances, Mrs. Clinton...expose[s her] true colors."

Sadly, the Obama presidency keeps getting "curiouser and curiouser." According to Obama, Israel's settlement building is illegal, the Iranian elections are legitimate, and the Honduran military's respect for the rule of law is "not legal." In other words, it is fine for the Obama administration to meddle in the internal affairs of a sovereign ally, it has no interest in defending a popular uprising in which people are dying in the name of freedom, and it will support the Chavez-cloned dictator in the face of a democratic struggle.

Many have suggested that due to the voter fraud pervasive during his campaign, Obama is not troubled by a similar occurrence in the Iranian and Honduran elections. Yet this is the same man that made human rights a benchmark of his campaign speeches. And how does one rationalize his completely irrational responses to the various events taking place across the globe as citizens of repressed nations attempt to achieve freedom and democracy. The leader of the free world persists on choosing the wrong side of the fight.

The only discernable pattern to Obama's foreign policy decisions since taking office seems to reflect an attraction by Obama to dictatorial governments and disdain for freedom loving democracies. How else can one rationalize the disparity between his silence and weak response to the protests and bloodshed in Iran and his powerful and demanding response to the coup in Honduras? America's President is consistently supportive of tyrants at the expense of oppressed citizens who bear a terrible price for his policies.

During the final years of the Bush administration rumors abounded that he was quietly planting and nurturing seeds of democracy in Iran in the hopes that regime change would occur from within. Unfortunately, the sprouting of freedom reflected in the uprisings occurred under the auspices of a dictator-loving American President who cares more about international friendships with authoritarian despots than he does about human rights the world over. Americans that voted for this man are equally responsible for the human rights disasters that may occur world wide under his watch.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/06/obamas_attraction_to_human_rig.html

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jwhop
Knowflake

Posts: 863
From: Madeira Beach, FL USA
Registered: Apr 2009

posted June 30, 2009 10:12 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for jwhop     Edit/Delete Message
June 30, 2009
More on the Honduran 'Military Impeachment'
Rick Moran

Not even our own State Department is calling what occurred in Honduras over the weekend a "coup." What's more, Hillary Clinton's refusal to brand the military's legal ouster of President Zeyala a coup puts her seemingly at odds with the Obama White House.

Once again, our Keystone Kops foreign policy makes us look ridiculous when the president brands the action "illegal" while the State Department rejects that term "coup."

Mary Beth Sheridan of the Washington Post:

President Obama said yesterday that the military ouster of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was illegal and could set a "terrible precedent," but Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the United States government was holding off on formally branding it a coup, which would trigger a cutoff of millions of dollars in aid to the impoverished Central American country.

Clinton's statement appeared to reflect the U.S. government's caution amid fast-moving events in Honduras, where Zelaya was detained and expelled by the military on Sunday. The United States has joined other countries throughout the hemisphere in condemning the coup. But leaders face a difficult task in trying to restore Zelaya to office in a nation where the National Congress, military and Supreme Court have accused him of attempting a power grab through a special referendum.

Peter Hakim, president of the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington, said the situation presented a dilemma for the United States and other countries. Zelaya is "fighting with all the institutions in the country," Hakim said. "He's in no condition really to govern. At the same time, to stand by and allow him to be pushed out by the military reverses a course of 20 years."

As facts begin to emerge about what Zeyala was up to, it becomes crystal clear why the military, the Congress, and the Supreme Court all felt the necessity to act. Fausta Wertz has been doing a fantastic job of translating Latin American press accounts and brings us information on the reasons for the military action:

Here is more information on Mel Zelaya's move:
Zelaya couldn't get the ballots printed in Honduras since the referendum had been pronounced illegal by the country's Supreme Court AND the electoral board. Therefore, the government couldn't print them. No private printer was willing to break the law, either. So Zelaya had the ballots printed in Venezuela and flown in.
The Supreme Court instructed the military (who would be the ones doing the job) NOT to distribute the ballots to the polling stations.
Zelaya then

led thousands of supporters to recover the material from an air force warehouse before it could be confiscated.
His supporters broke into the military installation where the ballots were kept.

Zelaya's supporters started distributing the ballots at 15,000 voting stations across the country. This act placed him in outright defiance of the law, the Constitution, and the Supreme Court.
When the armed forces refused to distribute the ballots, Zelaya fired the chief of the armed forces, Gen. Romeo Vásquez, and the defense minister, the head of the army and the air force resigned in protest. The country's Supreme Court voted unanimously that Vásquez be reinstated.
Tuesday last week the Honduran Congress, led by members of his own party, passed a law preventing the holding of referendums or plebiscites 180 days before or after general elections.
The Honduran Congress, led by members of his own party, named a commission to investigate Zelaya. The Commission found (my translation: If you quote it, please credit me and link to this post)

Zelaya acted against the mandates of legal and electoral laws, the Public Ministry, the National Congress, the Attorney General, and other institutions of the State, which had declared the poll illegal
On Thursday (h/t GoV) the Attorney General requested that Congress impeach Zelaya
The position of the Honduran Congress, the Supreme Court, and the attorney general is that the Constitution is to be strictly adhered to.
This is the story not being told by the White House, the State Department, most of the mainstream press, and liberal blogs who have their panties in a twist and are close to apoplexy because Obama isn't sending in the Marines to restore the Chavez stooge to power.

Roberto Lovato at the Huffington Post manages to write almost 1,000 words without once referring to any of the illegal, extra-constitutional actions taken by Zelaya and instead, refers to "street demonstrations" that Fausta reports is being led by Nicarauguan and Venezuelan bully boys. And in a burst of surrealism worthy of Salvadore Dali, Lovato compares these staged street demonstration by foreign thugs with the demonstrators in Iran:

Viewed from a distance, the streets of Honduras look, smell and sound like those of Iran: expressions of popular anger - burning vehicles, large marches and calls for justice in a non-English language - aimed at a constitutional violation of the people's will (the coup took place on the eve of a poll of voters asking if the President's term should be extended); protests repressed by a small, but powerful elite backed by military force; those holding power trying to cut off communications in and out of the country.

These and other similarities between the political situation in Iran and the situation in Honduras, where military and economic and political elites ousted democratically-elected President Manuel Zelaya in a military coup condemned around the world, are obvious.

But when viewed from the closer physical (Miami is just 800 miles from Honduras) and historical proximity of the United States, the differences between Iran and Honduras are marked and clear in important ways: the M-16's pointing at this very moment at the thousands of peaceful protesters are paid for with U.S. tax dollars and still carry a "Made in America" label; the military airplane in which they kidnapped and exiled President Zelaya was purchased with the hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. military aid the Honduran government has been the benefactor of since the Cold War military build-up that began in 1980's;

That's quite an original spin. Zeyala "kidnapped?" Late word is that he resigned and asked for safe passage out of the country. This was granted and he was flown to Costa Rica. Don't even bother with the laughable comparison with Iran. Those demonstrators in Honduras are not being shot down in cold blood, axed to death, or even beaten within an inch of their lives.

And the dark hints that the US is to blame because we supplied M-16's to a friendly government is beyond ludicrous. It's loony. Perhaps if Lovato made even a small attempt to explain Zeyala's illegal actions, he might have a smidgen of credibility. But in true leftist fashion, he leaves out the facts to spin his anti-American diatribe.

Once more, with feeling: Zeyala was removed by the military who were acting under the orders of the Supreme Court. Zeyala's own party in Congress has now helped impeach him. Zeyala's extra-constitutional actions threatened Honduran independence and the rule of law.

What's so hard to understand about that? What's "illegal" about it? A leftist stooge of Chavez has been removed. This is an event that should be cheered by an American president. Instead, Obama subsumes American interests to curry favor with leftists in Latin America and Europe.

It won't work. They despise us anyway, no matter what Obama does. The more he apologizes and sides with them in international disputes, the more they hold him and the US in contempt.

If Obama is seeking to make the world like us, the only way that will happen is if we completely disarm, withdraw our troops from Iraq and Afghanistan (and elsewhere), and agree to abide by whatever the UN says we should do in any international crisis.

As Dirty Harry said; 'That's a high price to pay for being stylish."

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/06/more_on_the_honduran_military.html


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jwhop
Knowflake

Posts: 863
From: Madeira Beach, FL USA
Registered: Apr 2009

posted June 30, 2009 10:18 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for jwhop     Edit/Delete Message
June 29, 2009
To Meddle, Or Not To Meddle
Randall Hoven

President Obama wants to make sure he is not seen as meddling in Iran. But apparently, it is quite OK to meddle in Honduras. The Wall Street Journal reports

The Obama administration worked in recent days to prevent President Manuel Zelaya's ouster, said a senior U.S. official. The State Department, in particular, communicated to Honduran officials on the ground that President Barack Obama wouldn't support any nondemocratic transfer of power in the Central American country.

"We had some indication that a move against Mr. Zelaya was afoot," said a U.S. official briefed on the diplomacy. "We made it clear it was something we didn't support."

When it came to Iran, Obama didn't want to meddle.

But there is a common denominator: President Obama does whatever it takes to keep anti-American dictators in power. In Iran: don't meddle. In Honduras: meddle. In Venezuela: soul shake. In Saudi Arabia: bow.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/06/to_meddle_or_not_to_meddle.html

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jwhop
Knowflake

Posts: 863
From: Madeira Beach, FL USA
Registered: Apr 2009

posted July 03, 2009 08:22 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for jwhop     Edit/Delete Message
Well, it's standard Marxist Socialist policy to never be on the side of liberty and freedom.

So, it's no surprise to see O'Bomber lined up on the side of a petty little Marxist Socialist dictator in the making and lined up against the Constitutional government actions of the government of Honduras.

It's also no surprise to see O'Bomber lined up on the side of his Marxist Socialist buddies Fidel and Raul Castro, Hugo Chavez and Daniel Ortega.

Birds of a feather do flock together.

July 03, 2009
Honduras and Iran: Obama Betrays Freedom Again
By Pamela Geller

Coup is the word du jour in the Orwellian age of Obama where words take on opposite meaning. Coup is the word used to recklessly define the healthy, democracy at work in the Honduras.

What just happened in Honduras? A military coup, destroying democratic rule? No. What just happened in Honduras was an example of how democracy works - and yet more confirmation that Barack Obama is not on the side of freedom, but of tyranny. The United Nations, the leftopaths in the mainstream media, and the radical U.S. President are trying to paint what happened in Honduras as a coup. It was not. It was a democracy at work, saving itself from a Hugo Chávez-backed takeover. For a complete time line on the Chavez backed attempt to overthrow a free and thriving democracy go here.
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2009/07/honduras-timeline-democracy-at-work.html

The real story behind the chaos in Honduras is a huge story that needs to be exposed to the world. And the bottom line is that Obama got it wrong, again.

Take this hypothetical: imagine that Barack Obama announced that he was going to hold a referendum on legalizing a third term for himself. Imagine that even his attorney general, Eric Holder, advised him that it was illegal. Imagine that the Supreme Court ruled that holding the referendum was unconstitutional. In spite of that, let's imagine that Obama coerced the FEC into holding the referendum anyway. Then - let's further imagine -- we found out that Venezuelan strongman Chávez (who has pulled off a similar power grab in his own country) was financing the referendum. What should the Joint Chiefs do in such a case? And if they removed Obama from office, would they be destroying the Constitution or preserving it?

This is exactly what has occurred in Honduras, to a tee. The Honduras Attorney General and their Supreme Court did exactly that - ruled that President Manuel Zelaya's referendum was unconstitutional. The Honduran Generals did what they had to do. But then Chávez, Zelaya's friend and ally, announced: "I have put the armed forces of Venezuela on alert." And at that point Barack Obama spoke out - to side with Zelaya, Chávez and dictatorship. Obama said he was "deeply concerned" about what was happening in Honduras and called upon that nation to "respect democratic norms."

Obama is on the same side as Chávez, Ortega and the Castro brothers.

And the irony is thick. In a press conference on June 23, Obama said: "I've made it clear that the United States respects the sovereignty of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and is not interfering with Iran's affairs." He never called upon the Iranian mullahs to "respect democratic norms." On the contrary, he ostentatiously refuses to "meddle" in Iran, where individuals are courageously risking life and limb for the idea of free elections. Brutal Islamic nazis are crushing dissent, and Obama talks about "lively debate." Former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami spoke out Thursday against what he called a "velvet coup against the people and democracy." Obama has sided with that coup, while in Honduras, Obama and the ****** at the United Nations have no qualms about interfering to back a Chávez proxy. On Tuesday, U.N. General Assembly piled on, condemning the "coup" in Honduras and demanding that Zelaya be returned to office. It passed - by acclamation - a resolution calling upon all member states not to recognize the new government.

Obama and the U.N. passed up an opportunity to recognize the will of Honduran people and the sanctity of their Constitution. It has been widely reported in the Spanish-language press, but not here in the United States, that the anti-Zelaya demonstrations in Tegucigalpa are huge, demonstrating that the Honduran people support the actions of their Congress and Supreme Court in removing Zelaya from office.

The new president of Honduras, Roberto Micheletti, said Thursday: "I am concerned that President Obama - for whom we have a great deal of respect and admiration, as we do for his people - should shun us without having heard our explanation" for the removal of Zelaya. He added: "However, of Señor Chávez we can expect anything: he has already threatened to invade the country. This is a lack of respect." Former U.S. diplomat and democracy advocate Martin Barillas noted that in an interview Thursday, "Micheletti said that 80 percent of his compatriots support his presidency, a claim that has been bolstered by the throngs of supporters appearing on the streets of Tegucigalpa, the capital city. Some protesters in the Honduran capital brandished placards telling President Obama, in English, that they too have a dream of democracy."

Obama, wrong on Honduras, wrong on Iran. He's consistent, no?

Obama,yet again, on the side of evil.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/07/honduras_and_iran_obama_betray.html

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jwhop
Knowflake

Posts: 863
From: Madeira Beach, FL USA
Registered: Apr 2009

posted July 03, 2009 08:39 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for jwhop     Edit/Delete Message
Question:

What is O'Bomber, the so called "Leader of the Free World" doing lined up with the enemies of freedom, liberty and Constitutional government in the persons of Castro, Chevez and Ortega?

Honduras Timeline: Democracy at Work!
Thursday, July 02, 2009

Atlas reader Allan R received this from friends who live on Roatan. Thousands of Hondurans have marched in support of their democracy here. It is the best description that I have come across of the events that led Honduras to save itself from a Chavez backed dictatorship (a coup, as it were):

I don’t profess to be an expert at Honduran politics or constitution, but I have been here a while and stay pretty involved with what’s going on in Honduras and especially Roatan. For those that don’t know me, I’m an American investor that has lived in Honduras full time since 2002. I’m very active on several commissions and have met with minister level executives of the Honduran government many times in the past few years.

There have been a lot of comments, descriptions, and hypothesis over the past few days. I’ve spent a LOT of time reading Spanish and English reports, talking to a lot of people on the islands and on the mainland, and listening to the local politicians. I’d like to present my take on what’s happened. This is especially for Nick who’s been posting on the Roatan Tourist discussion group, but hopefully it will help clarify some points for others as well.

Mel Zelaya was elected 3 ½ years ago with an underwhelming 49% of the vote. He was seen as a fairly conservative member of the liberal party. The general feeling when he was elected was that he wasn’t the greatest pick, but his background as a wealthy logger and rancher coupled with his more liberal social policies would probably be OK.

Almost from day 1, Mel started shifting Honduras policies to the left.

Remember when he tried t o nationalize the oil industry – forcing all fuel distributors to buy from 1 company so that Mel could control the price? The US rightfully reminded Mel that the US oil companies had a lot invested here and the confiscating of those assets would not be a good thing. Mel changed his mind a couple of days later.

Mel gave away the fishing rights to an area that Honduras has been fishing for decades if not a hundred years. He gave those rights to Nicaragua for nothing – or at least nothing that was ever publicly reported. Mel forgot to mention this transaction to anyone in the country, let alone the fisherman. Guess how the fishermen found out? The Nicaraguan Navy confiscated several boats over a period of a few weeks. The crews on these boats were detained from a few days to a few weeks. Some of the boats were eventually returned to the rightful owners – after paying “fines”. Some of the boats even had the electronics and gear still on board when they were returned to the owners. The Honduran government did absolutely nothing to repatriate these boats.

Mel wanted Honduras to join ALBA – a collection of countries that was formed by Cuba and Venezuela to counteract NAFTA/CAFTA from the US. When this was announced, there was a lot of concern – especially from the business community. I was in a meeting with the local congressman less than a week before it was ratified. The message being sent was that this was just a way to get cheap oil from Venezuela. The congress wouldn’t consider ratifying this treaty for 6 or 8 months and by then Mel would have the oil that he was after. Again, less than a week later Mel got the treaty was ratified by the congress.

Not too long ago, the minimum wage was raised from L. 3,500 per month to L. 5,500. That’s about a 60% increase. I’m not saying that the minimum wage didn’t need to be raised, but this huge increase was 3 times more than the labor unions were requesting (20%) and 6 times more than the business organizations had offered (10%). These increases caused tremendous layoffs on the mainland. Many maquillas (garment factories) began to move to Nicaragua because the cost of business in Honduras had gotten too high. This was another huge drop in jobs. I’ve not seen the actual number of jobs lost because of the 60% increase in minimum wage, but it was staggering.

The Honduran constitution says that each year the President presents the annual budget to congress for approval. If the approval is not obtained by a specific date (I think it’s the end of January, but am not 100% sure) the budget from last year will be used until the new budget is approved by congress.

Mel never submitted a budget for 2009, hence the Congress can’t approve it so Honduras is operating in 2009 on 2008’s budget.

Now, why would a President not submit a budget? Who knows for sure but one of the possibilities is that 2009 is an election year. Mel would like to stay in power past 2009. The budget in 2008 didn’t include an election, so in essence there is NO money available for the 2009 election because we’re operating on 2008’s budget. There are other theories about hiding graft and corruption, but I would assume that anyone that becomes President in Honduras wouldn’t be concerned about hiding corruption and theft in the budget – he certainly didn’t mind doing it the previous 3 years!

Somewhere along the way, Mel decided to take a lesson from his mentor (Chavez) and arrange it so that he could remain in power for as long as he wanted. There was a little problem with this. The Honduran constitution, enacted in 1982, has 378 articles. 6 of these articles are “cast in stone”, meaning that they can NOT be changed. These 6 articles deal with defining the type of government, territory claims, and presidential term limits. They are the basis of the Honduran democracy.

One other tidbit from the constitution – Article 42, Section 5 says that anyone who is found to “incite, promote, or aid in the continuation or re-election of the President” would face loss of citizenship. Remember this one later on in this saga.

To further complicate things for Zelaya, ANY changes to the constitution have to be initiated by the legislative branch. The congress has to convene a constituent assembly. That’s basically a group of people selected by the congress to analyze any proposed changes and form those ideas into the new constitution. After the proposed changes are formulated, the congress would approve them to be put to a national referendum. The executive branch (the President) has nothing to do with that process.

Mel didn’t think that the congress would go along with his ideas of staying in power so he decided he’d call his own referendum. He doesn’t have the authority to do that – remember that constitutional changes can only be done by the legislature AND the term limits are one of the articles cast in stone – but he goes ahead and calls one anyway.

The Honduran Supreme Court says “Sorry Mel, you can’t do a re ferendum. That’s not within your power as president”.

Mel, or more probably one of his advisors, figures out that if a referendum can’t be done, we could probably do a survey or a poll instead! Great idea – nobody will figure out that the poll that we’re now going to do is exactly the same thing as we were going to do with the referendum.

Damn those people on the Supreme Court! They figured out the ruse! They ruled unanimously that regardless of what you call it, if it acts like a referendum the president can’t do it. If it looks like a duck, and walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck . . . .

Mel continues to talk of doing the poll on June 28 regardless of the Supreme Court

The Congress looks at the poll that Mel wants to do and gives an opinion that the poll would be illegal and they will not support it. Remember that Mel’s own political party is in control of the congress.

The Attorney General also analyzes the poll and determines that it is illegal. Over the course of the weeks leading to June 28, the AG reiterates many times that the poll is illegal and anyone participating i n the poll would be committing a crime and could be arrested.

Mel runs into another logistical snafu. He needs some ballots printed. The entire political structure of Honduras (except him) has ruled that the poll is illegal. It’s a pretty sure bet that he can’t get the government to print the ballots for an illegal referendum so he asks his buddy Hugo Chavez to print the ballots. Of course Hugo says “No Problem Commrade!”

The rhetoric in the 2 weeks before the “poll” gets tense. Every legal opinion in Honduras says that the poll is illegal. The Supreme Court reaffirms its ruling that the poll is illegal. The Attorney General keeps saying that the poll is illegal and that anyone participating is committing a crime. Mel’s own political party says that the poll is illegal. There literally is not one legitimate group in the country that is siding with Mel about the poll.

Traditionally the military handles the distribution of the ballots and voting materials. The head of the military, Romeo Vasquez Velasquez says that the military will not participate in the poll because the Supreme Court is the entity that determines what is legal and what is illegal in Honduras. The Supreme Court has determined that the poll is illegal, so the military will not participate.

Mel Zelaya promptly fired Romeo Vasquez. The other heads of military (Navy and Air Force) as well as the Minister of Defense resigned in support of Vasquez.

The next day the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that Vasquez was fired without reason and demanded his reinstatement. Zelaya refused.

The ballots arrive in Honduras (from Venezuela on a Venezuelan flagged plane). The Attorney General demands that the ballots be confiscated and held at a military installation.

Mel decides that if the military won’t distribute the ballots, he’ll get his own people to distribute them

Mel gets a couple of busses and a few cars full of supporters. They drive to the Air Force installation that was holding the ballots. They forcibly entered the installation and took the ballots. Not only was this “breaking and entering” it was a complete betrayal of a lawful order of the Attorney General

The Attorney General says that the President has committed treason and asks for him to be removed from office. The congress created a commission to examine Zelaya’s acti ons and determine if removal from office is appropriate.

A side note here about removal from office. I’m in no way a Honduran constitutional expert, but from what I understand, there’s not a clear means to impeach a sitting president. In a lot of constitutions, the impeachment of a president would be done by the legislative branch. In Honduras, there’s no such structure. There could be criminal charges brought against the president and the trial would be handled by the judicial branch. Not much different than anyone else accused of a crime. I’ve not heard of any provision to temporarily remove a president from office until the criminal charges were adjudicated. What would you do? Let a man accused of treason remain as the sitting president until the trial was completed? That would be insane, but that may be the only choice.

On Saturday, June 27, Mel got most, if not all, of the ballots distributed around the country. The polls were set to open at 7am on Sunday.

The Supreme Court voted to remove Zelaya. The Congress decided to remove Zelaya. The Attorney General stated many times that Zelaya was committing illegal acts and in fact committing treason. The military determined that the poll was illegal and that their responsibility was to uphold the constitution as opposed to supporting the president.

Early Sunday morning, about 6am, the military went to the president’s house and removed him from the building. He was put on a plane to Costa Rica. This was done to enforce the ruling from the Supreme Court.

This is where Article 42 of the constitution comes into play. The way that I read that article, Zelaya should have lost his Honduran citizenship at this point.

Once Mel had been removed, the President of the Congress (Roberto Micheletti) was sworn in as the new President of Honduras. This was exactly the person that is indicated by the constitution. It was a proper and legal succession of the presidency. The first thing that Micheletti did was confirm that the regularly scheduled elections would be held in November. His post is temporary until the new President was duly elected.

It’s been said all over the press that Mel was arrested in his pajamas. I personally don’t believe that. In an hour he would have been at some polling place to vote and also to motivate those that showed up. This was the biggest day of his life. I’d be amazed if he slept at all – I know I wouldn’t be able to. There was one report that Mel was actually in suit pants and a crisply ironed white shirt when he was arrested and he asked to change into other clothes. Quite frankly, I see this as more likely.

I believe that this is an accurate depiction of the events that led to Zelaya’s expulsion on Sunday. If I’m wrong on a any points, I don’t think I’m off by much. The salient points are certainly accurate.

I personally think that it would have been better to arrest Zelaya and hold him somewhere in the country. He was removed from Honduras in the interest of public safety. The feeling at the time was that if he was held within Honduras, his supporters would take violent actions to release him from captivity. It would be a difficult decision and I’m sure the powers that be did what they thought was best.

I have been disgusted at the world reaction to these events. It’s like they only looked at what happened on Sunday morning and ignored what events led to that day. I don’t understand how the removal of Zelaya was anything less than a small country demanding that their country remain democratic. Their constitutional process worked exactly right to remove a rogue president with an agenda that was detrimental to the Honduran constitution and society. While the actions of June 28 would fit some definitions of a coup, it was certainly a legal and CONSTITUTIONAL coup. There have been several articles written that state that it was a MANDATORY coup. That’s a very difficult concept for most people from the first world to understand, but there are some coups that are good and even required.

I’ve read so much over the past few days that I can’t remember where I read this, but the author was talking about the events in Honduras. He concluded by stating quite simply that if you find yourself aligned with Castro, Chavez, and Ortega – you should REALLY look at where you’re standing.

I think that the Hondurans should be honored for what occurred. I know that I’ve never been prouder of a group of people than I’ve been of Hondurans the past several days. Instead of being isolated from the world and denounced as being “anti-democratic” they should be lifted on the shoulders of all free men around the world. I’m sure that there are plenty of people in Cuba, Venezuela, and North Korea that would LOVE to hear the story of what a small country can do to ensure democracy lives in their society for their children to enjoy. That is if the people in those countries ever hear of the great accomplishments of a small third world country with ideals and principals larger than the “democratic showcase” of the first world.

http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2009/07/honduras-timeline-democracy-at-work.html

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pidaua
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Posts: 47
From: Grafenwohr, Germany- but my heart is in Iraq
Registered: Apr 2009

posted July 03, 2009 06:53 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for pidaua     Edit/Delete Message
Wow... and where are all the liberal supporters? Hmmm... totally absent. LOL... I know more Obama voters that are lamenting they voted the idiot into office...how sad!!

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katatonic
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Posts: 1894
From:
Registered: Apr 2009

posted July 05, 2009 04:00 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for katatonic     Edit/Delete Message
for those who seem not to know what a "liberal" is:

"Liberalism is a broad class of political philosophies that considers individual liberty and equality to be the most important political goals. [1]

Liberalism emphasizes individual rights and equality of opportunity. Within liberalism, there are various streams of thought which compete over the use of the term "liberal" and may propose very different policies, but they are generally united by their support for political liberalism, which encompasses support for: freedom of thought and speech, limitations on the power of governments, the rule of law, an individual's right to private property, [2] and a transparent system of government. [3] [4] [5] All liberals, as well as some adherents of other political ideologies, support some variant of the form of government known as liberal democracy, with open and fair elections, where all citizens have equal rights by law. [6]"

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jwhop
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Posts: 863
From: Madeira Beach, FL USA
Registered: Apr 2009

posted July 07, 2009 02:45 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for jwhop     Edit/Delete Message
The truth of the matter as to why O'Bomber backs a Communist thug in Honduras who is also backed by other Communist thugs, Ortega in Nicaragua, Castro in Cuba and Chavez in Venezuela is that O'Bomber is one of them...a fellow Marxist Socialist thug.

July 07, 2009
Obama explains why he backs Chavista thug Zelaya
Rick Moran

This is just about what we'd expect from a college student elevated to running the presidency.

Here's Obama's explanation for why we want to reinstall a Chavez stooge in Honduras, as reported nicely by ABC's Jake Tapper:


"America supports now the restoration of the democratically-elected President of Honduras, even though he has strongly opposed American policies," the president told graduate students at the commencement ceremony of Moscow's New Economic School. "We do so not because we agree with him. We do so because we respect the universal principle that people should choose their own leaders, whether they are leaders we agree with or not. "

The president's remarks came in the midst of a speech in which discussed "America's interest in democratic governments that protect the rights of their people" and supported Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's call for judicial reforms in his country.

How noble! How brave!

How utterly foolhardy and ridiculous.

Tapper, (Jake Tapper, ABC News) one of the few journos who "gets it" with regard to the situation in Honduras, shows why Obama needs to grow up:

The military removal of Zelaya as president - and the appointment of Roberto Micheletti as interim President by the Honduran legislature - came after Zelaya attempted to rewrite his nation's constitution to end term limits to continue his rule, despite the fact that term limits in the constitution is one of eight "firm articles" that cannot be changed.

After the Honduran Legislature refused to call a constitutional convention to rewrite the constitution, Zelaya called for a referendum to do so, which the Honduran Supreme Court and Attorney General declared unconstitutional. Zelaya, allied with leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez , fired top military commander Romeo Vásquez Velásquez for refusing to carry out the referendum. Every branch of government sided against Zelaya and Congress began discussing impeachment proceedings. Acting on orders from the Honduran Supreme Court, soldiers arrested Zelaya on June 28 and sent him into exile in Costa Rica.

That is the reality of the situation. Obama has taken the stand that Zelaya was elected. He has since been impeached which begs the question of why Obama is selectively applying a standard to Zelaya that is no longer relevant?

Instead of being noble and practicing self abnegation when it comes to US interests, why can't Obama do what we elected him to do and stand up for those interests instead of denying them out of some stupid, naive, notion where he believes we are going to be applauded for shooting ourselves in the foot?

Bragging about acting contrary to your nation's interests will no doubt be met with approval by the world's leftists. In the meantime, a perfectly legitimate change of government has occurred that bolsters US interests and Obama is fighting it, putting himself on the same side as the Castros, Danny Ortega, and Hugo Chavez.

Pretty good for a college kid. Disaster for a US president.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/07/obama_explains_why_he_backs_ch.html

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Glaucus
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Posts: 1478
From: Sacramento,California
Registered: Apr 2009

posted July 07, 2009 05:00 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Glaucus     Edit/Delete Message

I am a liberal,and I wouldn't have it any other way.

to each,his/her own...that's what I say.

we all have our own views,and so we all are going to have disagreements on things.

It's all relative imho

it's not about who is right or who is wrong imho


Raymond

------------------
“It is absolutely the perfect name,” Dr. Brown said, given the continuing discord among astronomers and the public over whether Pluto should have retained its planetary status.

In mythology, Eris ignited discord that led to the Trojan War.

“She causes strife by causing arguments among men, by making them think their opinions are right and everyone else’s is wrong,” Dr. Brown said. “It really is just perfect.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/15/science/space/15xena.html?_r=1

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jwhop
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Posts: 863
From: Madeira Beach, FL USA
Registered: Apr 2009

posted July 07, 2009 05:08 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for jwhop     Edit/Delete Message
Nothing relative about this at all Glaucus.

O'Bomber is the Marxist Socialist I say he is.

He's supporting other Marxist Socialist thugs who have illegally taken over democratic governments in Central and South America...and he's supporting those Marxist Socialist thugs over the democratic factions in those countries.

There is no Constitutional authority for what O'Bomber and the most radical leftist Congress in US history are doing here either.

O'Bomber is a disgusting disgrace...as an American President.

**Edited**

Fortunately..for America, Americans are catching on to O'Bomber's Marxist ideology and his poll numbers are falling.

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Glaucus
Knowflake

Posts: 1478
From: Sacramento,California
Registered: Apr 2009

posted July 07, 2009 05:28 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Glaucus     Edit/Delete Message

jwhop,

that's your view,

not everybody shares your view

just like not everybody shares my view


I agree to disagree


Raymond


------------------
“It is absolutely the perfect name,” Dr. Brown said, given the continuing discord among astronomers and the public over whether Pluto should have retained its planetary status.

In mythology, Eris ignited discord that led to the Trojan War.

“She causes strife by causing arguments among men, by making them think their opinions are right and everyone else’s is wrong,” Dr. Brown said. “It really is just perfect.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/15/science/space/15xena.html?_r=1

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jwhop
Knowflake

Posts: 863
From: Madeira Beach, FL USA
Registered: Apr 2009

posted July 07, 2009 06:41 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for jwhop     Edit/Delete Message
It is my view but I back it up with facts.

How about you Glaucus? You got any facts or are you just experssing an opinion devoid of any factual content?

Let me go further Glaucus.

Do you even care that O'Bomber is operating outside the Constitutional limits of his office?

Do you even care that O'Bomber is attempting to suppress the people of Honduras and supporting a Communist thug who is/was operating outside the constitutional limits of his office?

Is there anything at all O'Bomber could possibly do which you wouldn't support?

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jwhop
Knowflake

Posts: 863
From: Madeira Beach, FL USA
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posted July 08, 2009 10:07 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for jwhop     Edit/Delete Message
Obama grilled about Honduran prez drug links
Should U.S. restore official 'suspected of deadly trade'?
Posted: July 07, 2009
10:00 pm Eastern


Rep. Thaddeus McCotter, R-Mich.

A congressman from Michigan is grilling President Barack Obama about his open advocacy for the ousted president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, including whether the U.S. knew of Zelaya's alleged narcotics trafficking.

Zalaya was taken by members of the Honduras military from his home on June 28 and put on a plane to Costa Rica. They accused him of attempting to violate their own nation's constitutional limitation to one term for a president.

While President Obama has condemned the action as a "coup," the military quickly stood down and in place of Zalaya a member of his own political party was named by legislators to replace him.

Since then there have been arguments over Zalaya's actions, the military's response, and whether the result still is a democratic system.

Now Rep. Thaddeus McCotter has written to Obama, questioning the president's "personal, public demands" that Zelaya be returned to power in light of the accusations against him.

"We write to seek your explicit personal assurances that U.S. intelligence or law enforcement agencies have no information implicating officials of the Honduran administration of Manuel Zelaya, including Mr. Zelaya himself, in the transit of illegal narcotics through Honduran territory or in any other ties to drug trafficking," McCotter said in his recent letter to the White House.

"On June 30, the Associated Press published an accusation by a current Honduran official that Mr. Zelaya's government 'allowed tons of cocaine to be flown into the Central American country on its way to the United States,'" McCotter wrote.

He continued, explaining the report quoted Honduran Foreign Minister Enrique Ortez, "Every night, three or four Venezuelan-registered planes land without the permission of appropriate authorities and bring thousands of pounds … and packages of money that are the fruit of drug trafficking. … We have proof of all of this. Neighboring governments have it. The DEA has it."

The congressman said because of Obama's insistence Zelaya must be restored to power, "We believe you must assume personal responsibility for ensuring that our government is not aware of any information that suggests that Mr. Zelaya or his associates have been complicit in the trafficking of cocaine or any other illegal substances to the United States."

While Zelaya has demanded he be returned to power, and Obama, Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and the Castro brothers of Cuba have joined in his demand, a delegation of lawmakers from Honduras also has approached the U.S. with another side of the story.

Columnist Pat Buchanan described the situation.

"The ouster had been ordered by the Supreme Court and approved by the Congress, as Zelaya was attempting an illegal referendum to change the Honduran constitution so he could run for another term," he said, describing it as a "bloodless transfer of power to the civilian legislator first in line for the presidency."

He quoted Roberto Micheletti, the lawmaker named caretaker president to finish Zelaya's term this year.

"We have established a democratic government, and we will not cede to pressure from anyone. We are a sovereign country," Micheletti said. He said the those who have ousted Zelaya simple want the nation's constitution followed.

In fact, Reuters has reported Honduran officials have expressed a willingness to bring forward the scheduled Nov. 29 presidential election to resolve the issue.

Buchanan wrote, "the folks who put Zelaya aboard that plane are friends of the United States. … Why are Obama and [Secretary of State] Hillary Clinton meddling in the affairs of a friendly country, to dump over a friendly government, to reinstate a friend of Hugo's, whose goal is to bring Honduras into his anti-American 'Bolivarian Revolution?"

"Obama is coming off as one who shares the international left's view of the United States," he wrote.

On the Canada Free Press, commentator Cliff Kincaid explained the big picture.

"I continue to receive messages from Honduran citizens upset at the international media for their distorted coverage of the situation in the Central American country. The people support the ouster of Manuel 'Mel' Zelaya, who is considered a puppet of Venezuelan Communist ruler Hugo Chavez. They are mystified that an American president would want to return this Chavez puppet to power in Honduras."

He cited one Honduran's testimony: "The recent action taken by our Congress is highly supported by several organizations in support of peace and democracy: the State General Attorney, the Supreme Court, the Armed Forces, the private organizations and especially many young people. Mr. Zelaya broke the law on several occasions even after the Supreme Court stated that it was illegal. He had no respect for our laws and our Constitution.

"I'd also like to say that I am shocked by Mr. Obama's comments. Doesn't he know Mr. Zelaya is allied with Chavez?" continued the Honduran. "Doesn't he know that Mr. Zelaya wants to do in Honduras what Chavez did in Venezuela, Morales has done in Bolivia, Correa has done in Ecuador, Ortega in Nicaragua, as well as what Castro has done in Cuba?"

McCotter's letter continued: "We are certain that the American people would be shocked to discover that the United States government is playing or has played any role in restoring to power any official who U.S. intelligence or law enforcement agencies suspect of any ties to the deadly illicit drug trade."

He said it is wrong for the military to remove any democratically elected president.

"In this case, the situation is much more complicated because the political leader in question was in the process of violating the constitution of his country in order to maintain personal power. Furthermore, Mr. Zelaya was replaced not by a general but by an elected member of the parliament, who was selected by a vote of parliamentarians," McCotter said.

"The Supreme Court of Honduras, as well as many political people in Mr. Zelaya's own circle, were opposed to his efforts to eliminate certain constitutional restrictions on his presidency.

"These complications should suggest that the United States be cautious and deliberate in response … In this case the military action that was taken was done so to ensure the constitutional and democratic process in Honduras."
http://worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=103323

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jwhop
Knowflake

Posts: 863
From: Madeira Beach, FL USA
Registered: Apr 2009

posted July 11, 2009 10:41 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for jwhop     Edit/Delete Message
Yep, just doing what Communists do..which is back other Communists in their attempts to take over representative governments. In the case of Honduras, a Constitutional Republic.

Demoscat backing of the Communists cannot be missed or overlooked.

They talk the Rule of Law, Freedom and Liberty but they don't mean a word of it. When put to the test, they back a Communist attempting to destroy the Constitutional freedoms of the Honduran people who have had their share and also had their fill of banana republic dictators. These demoscats are lying posers and O'Bomber is their lying leader.

Republicans lambast Obama for backing Zelaya
Jul 10 08:42 PM US/Eastern


Republican lawmakers have slammed US President Barack Obama for branding Honduras' political upheaval a "coup," saying he was aligning himself with leftist Latin American leaders.
Republican lawmakers said Obama's reaction to President Manuel Zelaya's ouster had placed the US in line with the presidents of Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua.

"By calling this a coup and by early statements insisting on the reinstatement of Mr Zelaya, the administration now stands with the likes of (Hugo) Chavez, (Evo) Morales and (Daniel) Ortega, and not with the Honduran people," Republican Connie Mack said during a hearing by a panel of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Zelaya, who assumed the presidency in January 2006, raised the ire of lawmakers, judges and his country's military by seeking to rewrite the constitution for a referendum without the required congressional approval.

Currently in the Dominican Republic to drum up support, Zelaya is scheduled to return to Washington for talks with Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Thomas Shannon and Jose Miguel Insulza, the head of the Organization of American States, according to his embassy in Washington.

"Zelaya was removed from office for his unconstitutional and illegal attempts to alter the constitution of Honduras for purely selfish reasons," said Congressman Chris Smith, a Republican from New Jersey.

The claim that the events that led to Zelaya's ouster constituted a coup "melts under any serious scrutiny," Smith added.

"Rather, democracy and the rule of law triumphed over Mr Zelaya's lawlessness."

Democrats, meanwhile, backed Obama in calling for Zelaya's return to power. But the legislators were united in criticizing the Honduran leader for creating the polarized atmosphere that led to his forcible removal from office on June 28.

Democratic Representative Eliot Engel, who chairs the Western Hemisphere Subcommittee, countered that "our hemisphere cannot tolerate what is essentially a military coup."

Zelaya, he admitted, "needed to listen. He did not," when the Honduran political establishment expressed its concern over the proposed referendum, which was suspected as an attempt by the beleaguered leader to lift the one-term presidential term limit to seek re-election.

But "this is not to say that those who deposed him were angels," Engel said.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.0dac785ec5c1ab99f080af7212db184e.21&show_article=1

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jwhop
Knowflake

Posts: 863
From: Madeira Beach, FL USA
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posted July 20, 2009 01:27 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for jwhop     Edit/Delete Message
JULY 20, 2009
The U.S. Steers Left on Honduras
Why would Hugo Chavez expect Obama to help him?

Answer: Chavez and O'Bomber are Marxist Socialist brothers under the skin. Other Marxist Socialist twits who have joined the Chavez/O'Bomber effort to overthrow the Honduran Constitution include Daniel Ortego, Fidel Castro and Raul Castro.

O'Bomber keeps some strange company..for a US President.

O'Grady
Wall Street Journal

When Hugo Chávez makes a personal appeal to Washington for help, as he did 11 days ago, it raises serious questions about the signals that President Barack Obama is sending to the hemisphere's most dangerous dictator.

At issue is Mr. Chávez's determination to restore deposed Honduran president Manuel Zelaya to power through multilateral pressure. His phone call to a State Department official showed that his campaign was not going well and that he thought he could get U.S. help.

This is not good news for the region. The Venezuelan may feel that his aims have enough support from the U.S. and the Organization of American States (OAS) that he would be justified in forcing Mr. Zelaya on Honduras by supporting a violent overthrow of the current government. That he has reason to harbor such a view is yet another sign that the Obama administration is on the wrong side of history.

In the three weeks since the Honduran Congress moved to defend the country's constitution by relieving Mr. Zelaya of his presidential duties, it has become clear that his arrest was both lawful and a necessary precaution against violence.

The Americas in the News
Get the latest information in Spanish from The Wall Street Journal's Americas page.
Mr. Zelaya was trying to use mob rule to undermine Honduras's institutions in much the same way that Mr. Chávez has done in Venezuela. But as Washington lawyer Miguel Estrada pointed out in the Los Angeles Times on July 10, Mr. Zelaya's actions were expressly forbidden by the Honduran constitution.

"Article 239," Mr. Estrada noted, "specifically states that any president who so much as proposes the permissibility of reelection 'shall cease forthwith' in his duties, and Article 4 provides that any 'infraction' of the succession rules constitutes treason." Congress had little choice but to take its next step. It convened "immediately after Zelaya's arrest," Mr. Estrada wrote, "condemning his illegal conduct, and overwhelmingly voting (122-6) to remove him from office."

Mr. Zelaya was shipped out of the country because Honduras believed that jailing him would make him a lightning rod for violence. Interim President Roberto Micheletti promised that presidential elections scheduled for November would go forward.

That might have been the end of it if the U.S. had supported the Honduran rule of law, or simply refrained from meddling. Instead President Obama and the State Department joined Mr. Chávez and his allies in demanding that Mr. Zelaya be restored to power. This has emboldened Venezuela.

On July 5, Mr. Zelaya boarded a plane manned by a Venezuelan crew bound for Tegucigalpa, knowing full well that he would not be allowed to land. It didn't matter. His intention was to incite a mob on the ground and force a confrontation between his supporters and the military. It worked. One person was killed in clashes near the airport.

Yet the tragedy did not produce the desired condemnation of the Micheletti government. Rather, it empowered Honduran patriots. Perhaps this is because the airport violence reinforced the claim that Mr. Zelaya is a threat to the peace.

He was not the only one to lose credibility that day. OAS Secretary General José Miguel Insulza had encouraged the fly-over stunt despite its obvious risks. He even traveled in a separate plane behind Mr. Zelaya to show support. The incident destroyed any possibility that Mr. Insulza could be considered an honest broker. It also proved the charge that by insisting on Mr. Zelaya's return the U.S. was playing with fire.

The next day Costa Rican President Oscar Arias offered to act as a mediator between Mr. Zelaya and the new government. Mr. Arias would seem to be far from an impartial referee given that he is a supporter of Mr. Zelaya. Yet it is also true that Central America has the most to lose if Honduras descends into civil war. It follows that the San José venue offers better odds for the Honduran democracy than, say, the auspices of the OAS.

Other influential Central Americans have expressed support for Honduras. Last week the Honduran daily El Heraldo reported that Salvador's OAS ambassador said he hopes to see the resolution that suspended Honduras from the group revoked under the new permanent-council president. Catholic Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga has condemned Mr. Zelaya's violent tactics and says that Honduras does not want to emulate Venezuela.

Mr. Chávez understands that Mr. Zelaya's star is fading, which is why he called Tom Shannon, the State Department's assistant secretary for the Western Hemisphere at home at 11:15 p.m on July 9. Mr. Shannon told me that Mr. Chávez "again made the case for the unconditional return of Mr. Zelaya, though he did so in a less bombastic manner than he has in the past."

Mr. Shannon says that in response he "suggested to him that Venezuela and its [allies] address the fear factor by calling for free and fair elections and a peaceful transition to a new government." That, Mr. Shannon, says, "hasn't happened."

Nor is it likely to. Yet the U.S. continues exerting enormous pressure for the return of Mr. Zelaya. If it prevails, it is unlikely that Mr. Zelaya's mobs or Mr. Chávez will suddenly be tamed.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124804541071763577.html#mod=djemEditorialPage


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jwhop
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From: Madeira Beach, FL USA
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posted July 21, 2009 10:06 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for jwhop     Edit/Delete Message
He's no legal scholar, he's no constitutional advocate and he doesn't even believe in the rule of law under a written Constitution.

He's on the side of coups...if it's a leftist Marxist Socialist coup and he's no respecter of the law.

O'Bomber is giving all the proof needed he's not qualified to be President of the United States and should not be.

He's sided with his Communist buddies, Chavez, Ortega, Fidel Castro and Raul Castro in an attempt to overthrow the Constitutional Republic of Honduras and their laws.

The United States is a Constitutional Republic but O'Bomber doesn't believe in Constitutional government or this Republic.

He should be impeached, convicted and removed from the White House. He's unfit to serve a free people in any capacity.

July 21, 2009
Tossing Free Honduras under the Bus
By Maggie Petito

Costa Rican President Oscar Arias is promoting a brazen "peace plan" for Honduras that is a betrayal of democracy. Former president Oscar Zelaya of Honduras, removed from office for violating the Honduran Constitution and keep himself in office, rushed to accept the so called arbitrated terms of the deal So too did The New York Times. The "Arias Plan" and its seven points gives Zelaya all that he needs to convert Honduras into another leftis member of the Chavez-backed ALBA alliance, joining Ecuador, Bolivia, Nicaragua, , and of course Cuba in solidarity with Huga Chavez's Venezuela.

ALBA was originally a bloc of nations crudely politically and financially affiliated with Hugo Chavez. It is now a total bloc of four nations with serious designs on adding its latest merged state, Honduras. The ALBA bloc sets out to enshrine alternatives to democracy or what others have called "fake democracy."

ALBA according to Bloomberg News, is seriously making efforts to add new nation members. Some non ALBA nations are partially affiliated through PetroCaribe, Chavez's discounted oil ploy, described here.

Among the ostensible seven terms of the Arias deal, is complete amnesty for all who have brazenly broken laws in Honduras to establish in Tegucigalpa the Banco del Sur, Chavez's planned monetary fund to lend money to "social development" programs. Another item included in the Arias deal is the contention that the Micheletti administration did commit a coup, which goes against the knowledge of the people of Honduras that their own courts, their own objectivity based on facts, and their own congress were wrong and should not have acted under their own constitution to legally remove Zelaya.

Arias insists on Zelaya's restoration in a semi-power sharing, which would craft total chaos, leaving the as yet extant legal Congress, the legitimate courts and the people of Honduras subjugated to the tender mercies of the Castro team, Correa of Ecuador and Chavez, chomping at the bit to muscle their weight around. Indeed, this concurrence-agreement- treaty *** force of law by Arias constitutes double jeopardy against the people of Honduras, a force majeur against Honduran rule of law, leaving democracy's tools for dead, tossed under the oncoming bus.

For its part, the Micheletti government in Honduras late on Sunday rejected the Arias-Zelaya Plan and instead proposed an Independent Truth Commission to review how and what Zelaya and his actors had been doing in Honduras. Clearly, none yet have reviewed all the facts.

Arias insists that all exigencies - all constitutionally endowed legitimate Honduran governmental mandates -- be neutered and controlled by the Honduran Electoral Tribunal this Autumn, including their police, their security details, their military and their communications with the outside world, over-riding all international norms for democracies again. To be sure, this would grease the adoption of the ALBA constitution, already written and already pre rigged as a vote viz Chavez's worst export of pre rigged electioneering machineries. This Arias tactic is also akin to the US Federal Election Commission (FEC) running the White House, all US departments, etc. To Arias this makes sense. To legal scholars it is a ploy -- an unconstitutional ploy that alters Honduran due process and separation of powers by caveat to achieve the main goal- new, pre rigged elections in Honduras to establish a new ALBA constitution and government. Arias tells us that the OAS -- and others -- will oversee and make sure compliance is under control.

The OAS, already overlooking all constitutional norms in Honduras, applauds Arias for selling the original OAS plan, now called the Arias Plan, for increasing the ALBA nation building plan. The current OAS, neither accountable, transparent, nor applying any `wise Latin judicial' or constitutional review, also called fact based analysis, prefers the civil law approach that current president Micheletti and his cabinet are to be deemed guilty with no structural facts -- a unique system of political justice -- applying nothing of functional common law while soothing over the looming threats of violence, loss of economy, and paramilitary plans as if to extort Hondurans.

Indeed, the Arias proposal almost guarantees certain death for Micheletti-constitutional democracy backers whose only choice under Arias is to acquiesce to the Chavez ALBA team. The Weekly Standard and the Wall Street Journal's Mary Anastasia O'Grady have delivered verifiable background coverage on the many acts of the ALBA constitutional insertion team into Honduras. O'Grady reports:

"[Zelaya's ] expulsion has given his supporters ammunition to allege that he was treated unlawfully. Now he is an international hero of the left. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Cuban dictator Raúl Castro, and Venezuela's Hugo Chávez are all insisting that he be restored to power. This demand is baseless. Mr. Zelaya's detention was legal, as was his official removal from office by Congress."

If there is anything debatable about the crisis it is the question of whether the government can defend the expulsion of the president. In fact it had good reasons for that move and they are worth Mrs. Clinton's attention if she is interested in defending democracy.

Besides eagerly trampling the constitution, Mr. Zelaya had demonstrated that he was ready to employ the violent tactics of chavismo to hang onto power. The decision to pack him off immediately was taken in the interest of protecting both constitutional order and human life. These experiences frightened Hondurans because they strongly suggested that Mr. Zelaya, who had already aligned himself with Mr. Chávez, was now emulating the Venezuelan's power-grab. Other Chávez protégés -- in Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua -- have done the same, refusing to accept checks on their power, making use of mobs and seeking to undermine institutions."

The Arias Plan today -- that it even exists -- is an effrontery to all norms of law. And of course the Arias Plan, which reads like a cut and paste copy from the OAS screed, would restore Zelaya and his ALBA team of communist cartel actors back in to Honduras by this Friday with all rights by the current state to prosecute as gaily abandoned and all state assurances removed by fiat from non state actors.

No sane government of free people would concur with the Arias-OAS-Zelaya fact-free unconstitutional political plan which willfully inserts non-rule of law over rule of law in favor of a political end game. The free world cannot be party to such high jinks, uttered with all the gravitas of a paid propagandist from Havana for any reason- be it expediency or enabling, be it self proclaimed "power diplomacy" or whatever.

Our prayers are with Hondurans today who do not want Zelaya back in any way and our hopes remain that the Obama-OAS team ceases its support for this double jeopardy by caveat. This is not complicated and this is not an acceptable plan for Honduras....it would be the death of Honduran democracy under ALBA and the death of rule of law, democracy's essential. Arias has made a mockery of what is called arbitration and frontally overrides the very compact made by the people of Honduras with its own government, called its constitution, inserting rule by the OAS for ALBA promotion. There was no coup d'etat in Honduras. There was a rather clumsy removal of a president for his illegal acts. Arias and the OAS solutions to the Honduran presidential removal are fact-free and unwarranted. Hondurans know that the Arias-OAS concurrences are not binding unless and until their congress and current president Micheletti, with their courts so approve. If they bow to pressure and sign away their freedom to the Arias plan, they lose.

To date, Hondurans for once in 500 years have stood united, pledging their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor as they have never done before. We hope they heroically hold their extant pledges and not bow to the Arias Plan. Democracy deserves better. In fact, the Arias plan legitimizes a rogue pro Chavez team from the OAS in-country to serve as real time caudillos, not arbiters of constitutional law. Indeed, the "Arias Plan" for these OAS operatives contravenes the OAS's own Democracy Charter itself and must not be adopted or approved.

More to the point, we hope that this Arias-backed treaty *** force majeur to illegally deliver that which should not be delivered in Honduras will soon be reviewed by pan American scholars, legal experts, constitutional analysts and the media. Better yet would be a factual constitutional review plus an independent truth tribunal of these pre-written ALBA constitutions, the actors to perforce the "new alternative democracy" of ALBA and the dominoes they set off in chain reaction, weakening already weakened truth tellers and abruptly ending appropriate law and order, without which democracy ceases to meaningfully exist.

As of late Sunday, the Micheletti administration has rejected the 7 Point Peace Plan. Arias states that talks will resume in 72 hours. No word yet on if Arias will try again to ram down the throats of Hondurans his Plan. Arias says that he is "very worried" that civil war could erupt because....the people of Honduras decided to uphold their own constitution.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/07/tossing_free_honduras_under_th.html

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jwhop
Knowflake

Posts: 863
From: Madeira Beach, FL USA
Registered: Apr 2009

posted July 22, 2009 09:53 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for jwhop     Edit/Delete Message

Not only should this nomination be held up but all of O'Bomber's nominations for high office should be held up...or flatly rejected until O'Bomber gets it through his head that the US is not going to an instrument to be used in the overthrow of Constitutional governments of nations who are friends and allies of the United States.

It is obscene for O'Bomber, Hillary and other Marxist Socialists to refer to the Constitutional removal of the President of Honduras as...."a coup". Further, it's clear members of THE ONE O'Bomber's hallelujah chorus in the main stream media don't know what the hell constitutes a coup.

Republican delays US nominees over Honduras policy 21 Jul 2009 18:15:32 GMT
Source: Reuters
By Susan Cornwell

WASHINGTON, July 21 A Republican senator unhappy with U.S. policy on Honduras delayed on Tuesday a committee vote to confirm the nominee to head the State Department's bureau of western hemisphere affairs.

Conservative Senator Jim DeMint, who has expressed concern over Washington's call for ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya to be reinstated, invoked his right to ask the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to postpone voting to confirm Arturo Valenzuela, currently a professor at Georgetown University, to be assistant secretary of state.

DeMint also asked for a delay in confirming Thomas Shannon as U.S. ambassador to Brazil. Shannon currently holds the assistant secretary's post.

Both votes had been set for Tuesday afternoon but are now likely to be held next week.

DeMint is one of 17 Republican senators who wrote to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton this month asking the administration to reassess its stance on Honduras.

The group said it worried that Washington's pro-Zelaya stance would legitimize "abuses of power" and "violations of the Honduran constitution" by Zelaya before he was ousted by the army on June 28.

Efforts to broker an end to the Honduran power struggle collapsed on Sunday, after interim leader Roberto Micheletti rejected a proposal to reinstate the overthrown president.

Clinton spoke to Micheletti by phone after the talks fell apart and warned him he could face cuts in economic aid unless he strikes a deal with his rival.

DeMint and other Republicans have said they believe Hondurans were acting lawfully when they ousted Zelaya after he had sought to hold a referendum on overhauling the constitution to allow his re-election.

A spokesman for DeMint said on Tuesday the senator was also displeased at Valenzuela's refusal to discuss Honduras at length during his nomination hearing.

At the hearing, DeMint asked why Washington would want to be on the same side as Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Cuba's Fidel Castro, in the Honduran crisis.

"President Obama rushed to side with Chavez and Castro before getting the facts. Now it's clear that the people of Honduras were defending the rule of law," DeMint said on Tuesday, through his spokesman.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N21226053.htm

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jwhop
Knowflake

Posts: 863
From: Madeira Beach, FL USA
Registered: Apr 2009

posted July 28, 2009 08:35 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for jwhop     Edit/Delete Message
July 28, 2009
The Diplomacy of Jackals
By Lance Fairchok

Enabling tyrants is never wise, and whether political or religious, a despot cares nothing for "social justice" except as a rhetorical tool. The success of their "revolutionary struggle" is paramount. The downtrodden and disadvantaged swayed by their populism seldom prosper for long, because in the end it is about power and conquest and control. President Obama has yet to realize that in the real world, the diplomacy of jackals seldom goes well for the sheep.

When the Honduran judicial and legislative branches of government removed a corrupt and criminal President for illegal activity, the Obama administration condemned the action as a "military coup" and called for the return of the exiled president, Manuel Zelaya. An ally of presumptive Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez, Zelaya brought Honduras into the Alianza Bolivariana para los Pueblos de Nuestra América, the Bolivarian Alliance for the People of Our America (ALBA). Its membership includes Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador. It has been instrumental in mobilizing leftist movements in Central and South America, propagandizing populations, intimidating the press, and where possible, rigging elections in favor of populist leftist candidates. ALBA, under Chavez's leadership, specializes in all the predictable electoral abuses the US press is congenitally incapable of reporting and the US government now tacitly condones.

Using Hugo Chavez's tactics as a template, ALBA helps its candidates gain power by manipulating the democratic institutions of their native country, then deconstructing those institutions to ensure they maintain power, becoming in effect "elected" dictators. This is what President Zelaya was doing when he was removed from power. He was attempting to circumvent the Honduran Constitution and establish an electoral precedent through a rigged referendum to change constitutional term limits. This would allow him to seek further terms in office, a change expressly forbidden by the Honduran constitution and declared illegal by the country's Supreme Court. The justices pursued the matter in an expressly constitutional manner when they requested the military act as law enforcement as outlined in the Honduran constitution.

One would think our intrepid Central American experts, the ones that inhabit the State Department, would have pointed out these facts. The President, advised by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, should have steered a less confrontational course on the issue, instead of condemning a clearly legal and constitutional action by the elected government of Honduras. Their reflexive response, supportive of a socialist thug, was sadly predictable, because at its core, the Obama administration has far more in common with the governments of Hugo Chavez and Manuel Zelaya than it does with the new lawful government of Honduras.

There is no formal alliance, rather it is more an ideological commonality, an instinctive understanding of motives and methods and intended outcomes. This springs from the primal leftist urge -- to rule the citizenry they consider too stupid to participate in the democratic process, modern day peasants fit only to be lead and manipulated by educated anointed elites who can conceive great ideas and endeavor great works. The ancient curse of arrogance and privilege comingled with the failed ideologies that have vexed us for a century. Its acolytes are quick to recognize a fellow traveler.

The Obama administration even has a back channel network to communicate its intentions, those too radical and politically dangerous to reveal to the overly conservative citizenry, a network of couriers and confidants, who carry the "unofficial" policies to the Marxists that Harvard and Columbia University teach are merely the misunderstood victims of capitalism and American imperialism.

Found on a laptop in a FARC terrorist camp in 2007 and released by Columbian security services, a series of letters between FARC hierarchies confirms the substantial support of FARC by Hugo Chavez. A passage from one letter is particularly troubling and has nagged at my curiosity since:

"The gringos will ask for an appointment with the minister to solicit him to communicate to us his interest in discussing these topics. They say that the new president of their country will be Obama and that they are interested in your compatriots. Obama will not support "Plan Colombia" nor will he sign the TLC [Columbian Free Trade Agreement]. Here we responded that we are interested in relations with all governments in equality of conditions and that in the case of the US it is required a public pronouncement expressing their interest in talking with the FARC given their eternal war against us." Raul Reyes, FARC Terrorist Commander

And so it has come to pass in Obama's foreign policy, the Columbian Free Trade Agreement is effectively dead in the water, undercut by Democrats beholden to labor unions and the far left sympathetic to brutal terror groups like FARC and Marxists like Chavez. Columbia, our most loyal ally in the region, is rewarded with a stunning betrayal. Who was the messenger? The US had several congressional delegations visit the region at the time. Members of the congressional black caucus have since made their Marxist allegiances abundantly clear when they visited the Castro brothers this year. Obama's long time confidant and friend William Ayers, former terrorist and activist Marxist, is an outspoken supporter of Chavez and visits the region frequently. Members of Obama's advisory team also visited Syria, no doubt with similar messages about Israel, brought by Americans who despise their own history, carrying messages of friendship to enemies that would gleefully destroy us. The consequences of these actions may be small, or they may be catastrophic, but when so little wisdom is behind them, we should all be worried.

The "post-American" America of Obama's worldview can only lose in the foreign policy he constructs, and the lack of a superpower's realistic self-interest only encourages bad men to do bad things. Bad decisions made out of ignorance or naiveté receive no forgiveness from those who suffer for them. Time diffuses blame, the exact origins of suffering may be forgotten but the consequences remain.

Our Democrats, more accurately called Socialists, adhere to Alinsky/Machiavelli models as their guiding principle of political combat. The gutter they fight from in domestic politics is ill suited to form foreign policy or ensure our security. So invested in undermining their political opponents, they forget that we all prosper or fail in the same nation, and instead of simply defeating a political party, they work to defeat the republic itself. Like their natural allies Chavez and Zelaya, they intend on politicizing the instruments and institutions of the nation, finally controlling them, their desired outcome, unchallenged power.

Every passing week gives us more evidence that the tricks and tools used by Chavez in Venezuela are to be found here, in the hands of Democrats, attempting the same deconstruction of our republic that Chavez has orchestrated in South America. Critical industry is being nationalized; the banks are coming under ever expanding government control, the prosperity of our citizens is under assault with "cap and trade" energy taxes, health care "reform," and ineffective "stimulus." The government prints money with abandon, short-term political goals paramount and the lessons of history forgotten. Special interests, unions and select minorities receive exceptional treatment, entitlement and status. Criminals in the Black Panthers and ACORN go free as they are in the Obama cabal. Corruption is rampant as the party in power steals from its citizens, lies to them and rewards their political cronies with billions in taxpayer money. The press is a lap dog, endorsing and propagandizing the government agenda. Their role in a free democracy is abandoned. Things are not looking well.

The betrayal of allies fighting for their lives against monstrous evil is a foretelling of what is to come if we sit idle. If we let them, the Socialists will attempt to control everything, how we live; what we eat, what we drive, where we shop, what we buy, and in the end, they will even try to control what we think. Every victory for Obama brings with it dire consequences for the nation. In 2012, we may well sit down to a "Banquet" indeed, a banquet of lost freedom, a divided and weakened nation, full of unemployment, wracked by violence, crippling taxes and broken industry and neglected infrastructure. It will be a banquet of ashes, the same one Chavez and Zelaya and Ortega prepare for their nations writ large, with all its consequences. The Jackals will howl with glee.

Exaggerated self-criticism would be a harmless luxury of civilization if there were no enemy at the gate condemning democracy's very existence. But it becomes dangerous when it portrays its mortal enemy as always being in the right. Extravagant criticism is a good propaganda device in internal politics. But if it is repeated often enough, it is finally believed. And where will the citizens of democratic societies find reasons to resist the enemy outside if they are persuaded from childhood that their civilization is merely an accumulation of failures and a monstrous imposture?
-- Jean Francois Revel, How Democracies Perish
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/07/the_diplomacy_of_jackals.html

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jwhop
Knowflake

Posts: 863
From: Madeira Beach, FL USA
Registered: Apr 2009

posted September 25, 2009 04:18 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for jwhop     Edit/Delete Message

So, now our own Congressional Research Service has weighted in on the issue of the Constitutional removal of the communist thug who attempted to overthrow the Constitution of Honduras.

They found the actions of the Supreme Court and the Honduran Congress "Constitutional".

The only thuggish boobs who don't and are continuing to call it a coup...are O'Bomber, Hillary, Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro, Daniel Ortega, the leftist useless press and a gaggle of Communist dictators around the world...Oh, and also the utterly useless, incompetent and corrupt United Nations.

Who the hell is O'Bomber really working for? He's most certainly not working for or towards Constitutional government....here or anywhere.

September 25, 2009
Congressional Research Service: Zelaya's Ouster Legal Under Law of Honduras
Clarice Feldman

Once again the facts trip up the Administration. The well-regarded and non-partisan Congressional research Service, a branch of the Library of Congress examined Honduran law and concluded, contrary to our benighted Department of State and Chavez-loving President that Zelaya's removal from office was not a coup, but was perfectly legal under Honduran law.

David Freddoso of the Washington Examiner summarizes the report as follows:

The Honduran Congress appears to have acted properly in deposing President Manuel Zelaya. Unlike in the United States, the Honduran Congress has the last word when it comes to interpreting the Constitution. Although there is no provision in Honduras's Constitution for impeachment as such, the body does have powers to disapprove of the president's official acts, and to replace him in the event that he is incapable of performing his duties. Most importantly, the Congress also has the authority to interpret exactly what that means.
The Supreme Court was legally entitled to ask the military to arrest Zelaya. The high court, which is the constitutional venue for trials of the president and other high-ranking officials, also recognized the Congress's ouster of Zelaya when it referred his case back down to a lower court afterward, on the grounds that he was "no longer a high-ranking government official."
The military did not act properly in forcibly expatriating Zelaya. According to the CRS report and other news stories, Honduran authorities are investigating their decision, which the military justified at the time as a means of preventing bloodshed. In fact, Zelaya should have been given a trial, and if convicted of seeking reelection, he would have lost his citizenship. But he is still a citizen now, and the Constitution forbids the expatriation of Honduran citizens by their government.
The proper line of succession was followed after Zelaya's ouster. Because there was no Vice President in office when Zelaya was removed (he had resigned to run for president), Micheletti was the proper successor, as he had been president of the Congress.

Now, unless we choose to be a bully and force that government to disobey its own

constitution and reinstate him, we ought to immediately lift all sanctions imposed on Honduras and reissue visas to this country to its officials.

What an outrage? Perhaps the Department of State legal office needs a coup of its own?

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katatonic
Knowflake

Posts: 1894
From:
Registered: Apr 2009

posted September 26, 2009 02:31 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for katatonic     Edit/Delete Message
are you suggesting a takeover here? be my guest. i'm not sure you can do a better job of it but you seem to think so!

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