We'll be discussing, of course, this week's events in Honduras. And, of course, how the world press is once again screwing the people of a democratic nation.
Call in number is (718) 664-9764, tonight 8 to 9 PM.
Well, the president has a knack for getting all of these big decisions wrong. Two weeks ago, he refuses to meddle in a country where peaceful demonstrators are getting shot by a theocratic dictatorship. He doesn't want to choose sides.
And now he's eager to meddle on behalf of the president in Honduras who is a Chavez wannabe, who is strong-arming his way to a referendum—that has been declared illegal by his Supreme Court—as a way to...establish a constituent assembly which will establish a new constitution, which will be a Chavez-like dictatorship.
That's what everybody understands in Honduras, and that's why the Supreme Court had ruled the referendum illegal. Only Congress has a right to call it, not the president. Congress had denounced it.
The Supreme Court had told the military not to assist in the referendum because it's illegal. So Zelaya fires the chief of staff of the army. The Supreme Court orders him reinstated; he fires him again.
This guy is acting extra-constitutionally. Yes, he was elected, but Hitler was as well, and Chavez also was. It's easy to dismantle a democracy if you're president and if you are intent on doing it—-and [Zelaya] is intent on doing it.
So our decision ought to be: Yes, a coup isn't a nice thing, but it's preferable to having Zelaya dismantle the democracy. And we should insist on the elections of a president as scheduled in November, so it is a temporary situation.
Look, a rule of thumb here is whenever you find yourself on the side of Hugo Chavez, Daniel Ortega, and the Castro twins, you ought to reexamine your assumptions.
“The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Tuesday shows that 31% of the nation’s voters now Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Thirty-three percent (33%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -2. That matches the lowest level yet recorded.”
There was a coup all right, but it wasn't committed by the U.S. or the Honduran court. It was committed by Zelaya himself. He brazenly defied the law, and Hondurans overwhelmingly supported his removal (a pro-Zelaya rally Monday drew a mere 200 acolytes).
Yet the U.S. administration stood with Chavez and Castro, calling Zelaya's lawful removal "a coup." Obama called the action a "terrible precedent," and said Zelaya remains president.
In doing this, the U.S. condemned democrats who stood up to save their democracy, a move that should have been hailed as a historic turning of the tide against the false democracies of the region.
The U.S. response has been disgraceful. "We recognize Zelaya as the duly elected and constitutional president of Honduras. We see no other," a State Department official told reporters.
And I agree wholeheartedly on this assessment of the OAS:
The White House also wants to mollify the morally corrupted Organization of American States, which, by admitting Cuba, is no longer an organization of democracies and now, through its radical membership, tries to dictate how other countries run themselves.
More background information on the events prior to Zelaya’s removal from office:
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, Congress and the attorney general is that the Constitution is to be strictly adhered to.
This is why Zelaya was removed from power: all branches of government and the country’s institutions recognized that he had broken the law.
Again, the military - by placing him in an airplane to Costa Rica early Sunday morning before he carried through the unlawful poll - acted in compliance with the Supreme Court and the Honduran Congress.
The Supreme Court ruled Monday that a group of white firefighters in Connecticut were unfairly denied promotions because of their race, reversing a decision endorsed by high court nominee Sonia Sotomayor.
The 5-4 ruling poses a potential complication to Sotomayor's nomination, with confirmation hearings set to start in July. Already, supporters and critics of Sotomayor are seizing on the decision in an effort to defend their stance.
In the high-profile, controversial case, white firefighters in New Haven, Conn., argued they were discriminated against when the city tossed out the results of a promotion exam because too few minorities scored high enough on it.
Justice Anthony Kennedy authored the opinion in favor of Frank Ricci and his fellow firefighters who sued the city of New Haven.
"The city's action in discarding the tests violated (federal law)," the Supreme Court majority wrote Monday, adding that the city's "race-based rejection of the test results" could not be justified.
President Obama sides with the Fidel Castro and his thug epigones Hugo Chavez and Daniel Ortega. As the Honduran President Mel Zelaya sought to conduct an illegal referendum to extend his rule, the Honduran military sought to enforce the rule of law by removing Zelaya from the scene.
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.
Hillary cries "Venceremos!":
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.
O'Grady nails it:
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.
Just when the liberal/leftist/socialist/Marxist fans here and abroad thought their day in Latin America had finally come, reality reared its ugly head. That fin you liberals see approaching is not a porpoise.
When the Iranian people took to the streets protesting what they knew to be a rigged election, President Obama stated publicly that he "didnt want to meddle" in a foreign country's affairs.
Yesterday, when the Hunduran government legally and constitutionally removed their "President" from power, President Obama meddled in that country's affairs by attempting to reinstate said country's leftist "president."
Double standard or further proof that Obama loves everything socialist?
I'd like to hear what those that voted for Obama think about this, without the smoke and mirrors arguments.
At el parque de la libertad 13th Avenue and SW 8th Street at 3pm.
I received a plea for help to inform the public about this rally. Liberty loving Hondurans are concerned about how the media is spinning events in their country. Show your support and attend the rally.
June 28 - Honduran president José Manuel Zelaya, an ally of Hugo Chávez and the Castro brothers, was arrested on Sunday morning by soldiers.
Zelaya had pledged to go forward with a referendum on constitutional reform despite the opposition of the Supreme Court, the military, Congress and members of his own party.
Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chávez was behind Zelaya's illegal referendum.
Zelaya was trying to follow the same tactic used by Chávez and his puppets in Bolivia, Nicaragua and Ecuador of trying to change the constitution to allow them to remain in power for life.
Planes from the Venezuelan Air Force had landed in Honduras to bring all the materials required for Sunday's referendum, despite the decision by Honduras' Supreme Court that it was illegal.
Earlier this month, after the OAS met in Honduras and decided to lift the sanctions against the Castro regime, Zelaya was full of praise for the Cuban dictator.
""Fidel Castro said more than 40 years ago that history would absolve him, and history absolved him," Zelaya said.
Yes, you have to wonder what fuels someone like Brendan McCaffrey. I ignored this when it first appeared in the Miami Herald. Could be I was still smarting from their latest editorial, which I also chose to ignore. But then I stumbled on the same advice on a PR news wire. To what end? Publicity? It is certainly not altruism. Just take a gander at his specific proposals which read like a castrovian wish list seasoned with a dash of bigotry:
-- Remove Cuba from the State Department list of State Sponsors of Terrorism.
-- Repeal enforcement of the outmoded Helms-Burton legislation.
-- End U.S. restrictions on travel by American citizens.
-- Close the detention facility at Guantanamo and return the base to Cuban sovereignty. The place has become an international embarrassment to us.
-- End the 'Wet Foot/Dry Foot immigration policy' and treat illegal immigrants from Cuba as we do those from Mexico or any other country.
-- Formalize coordination on anti-drug trafficking matters.
-- Provide significantly increased funds to the U.S. Agency for International Development.
-- End U.S. opposition to Cuban participation in Western Hemisphere multilateral agreements.
Let's see, we give them legitimacy, money, even Guantanamo, in return for which we get the same power to influence events as, say, Spain presently has. And he's teaching international affairs at West Point?
Well, amigos. Many of us engage in ritual self-flagellation: "How did so many Cubans fall for Castro? Wasn't his message transparently idiotic? (authoritarian) I mean, to all such "idealistic measures" there are questions: Who's paying?...and how much?...demand?..supply?.. etc?"
Yet multitudes of morons (and scoundrels) hailed Castro?
Well, with the (narrow) passing of this "cap and trade bill," let's admit that 1959 era Cubans were not peculiar by their stupidity.
Jimmy Stewart Update (6:15 PM): Minority Leader Boehner filibusters, reading from the 300 pages added in the middle of the night. Are there only a handful of Democrats in the House that care about their constituents?
Vote is today. You still have time to call your congressional representatives and stop the Cap and Trade Bill. Contact info right here.
Update: Folks, this is important. This Cap and Trade bill would be the largest tax hike in US history. All predicated upon the "Global Warming" THEORY, which has been disputed and debunked, ad nauseum, and which the Democratic party and associated liberal useful idiots have been fear mongering and shoving down our throats forever. Many Dems are frothing at the mouth - especially Speaker Pelosi - as they stand to make some serious cash from investments made in companies that stand to reap greatly from said legislation.
You can watch the Democrats try to stifle all debate and ram this farce of a bill - which, incidentall, had 300 pages added to it in the wee hours which no one has had time to read - down our throats at CSPAN, right here.
Update: Just a little reminder that this congress which is right now "debating" a bill that basically will tax the air you breathe, has the lowest approval rating in US history.
Update: Congressman Allen Boyd (D) Florida is still undecided. Contact him right here.
UPDATE: House pulls bill, vote postponed until later today. KEEP THE CALLS GOING.
This heartbreaking lament for a son denied medical treatment in Castro's gulag makes obscene any gesture toward normalizing relations with the Castro regime.
Update: Her plea in English, translation by our friend Jorge Luis Hernandez:
“My son is dying,,,,,,,My son is dying,,,,,,don’t let my little son die…..Mammy….. he says, Mammy, I don’t have on me any more places to put an injection…. Mammy!…. He is a cadaver…..I plead for justice…for justice to be made…..because my son is going to die there, and before my son dies, I ask all this government here, this government that does not deserve anything, to issue a parole to all the sick ones, because there are many who are sick, a lot of them….they say that there are none, that there are no political prisoners of conscience, that there are none, that all of them are common prisoners,,,,that’s a huge lie my God !...... let a representative of Human Rights come here,,,,,and let them come to the jails, and let them come to the hospitals….and let them see the way they are…..they are dying……not for lack of things that one bring to them, because one bring to them whatever we can ….but the medical assistance, they have to give it to them the way it should be, they have to give it because it is a human being…..it is a human being and not an animal….they have my son in a “hole” as they say of the way they have the spies ( in the US)…. they are the ones that have then in a “hole”, in the deep part of the hospital is where they have them ,where they are not permitted to see anybody, and not to talk to anybody so no one can communicate with him or nothing…I was allowed to see him for only twenty minutes and they didn’t let me talk anything with him…this is criminal,,,, it’s criminal what they are doing…..my son, who always has been strong as an oak, my son went in there strong, big and in great shape, and now he is week, skinny, he is a skeleton….I implore you, all the community outside Cuba, to do something for him….to the President Barack Obama, to the European Union, to all the congresspersons there….this government here what is doing is finishing them, they are been finished slowly…..You hear me…I am a mother who is suffering since my son went to prison…he entered very well and healthy and now look at the way my son is…..My son is dying…… my son is dying….don’t let my little son die….the little son of my soul……don’t die.
This is taking place 90 miles from our border:
There is no honorable way to hold talks with this criminal regime; no way to shake these hands without acquiring blood stains.
Rembember Fidel's words from a 1959 speech, "I tell the mothers that they will never, because of us, have to weep".
The Castro brothers; Fidel and Raul, are monsters. Yes, with capital letters--let them own these bloodied infamous names, that they will be etched on hells door for eternity.
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